MicroAquarium Observation #2

Drew Bogert

Blog Entry 2

MicroAquarium Observation #2

To start my second observation, I visited room 507 in the Hesler Biology Building (McFarland, 2013)  on Wednesday, October 16 at 3:30 pm. I went over to the plastic tray that was the containing unit for the our aquariums, removed my aquarium carefully, and walked over to a microscope with a camera on it. Dr. McFarland helped me with the setup of the camera enabled microscope. These are some steps that I made for setting this microscope up:
          1. Make sure all equipment (computer, camera, and light source on microscope) is turned "on".
                        -Turn computer monitor to "s-video", which will enable you to watch a stream from the                           camera.
          2. Adjust the light setting on the side of the microscope until you can start to see a very unclear                   image of something-anything.
          3. Adjust the larger knob on side of microscope to improve clarity. Once you find something a                   little more in focus than before, switch to the smaller knob to fine tune your microscope.
          4. Once you see a living organism, start following it around and observing it.
                        -Grab the *remote for camera and snap a photo using the "Photo" button. The camera                              will save it to its memory card.
          5. Once you have captured a few interesting, high quality images, turn the monitor back to the                   computer CPU.
                        -Insert camera memory card into slot on the front of the computer. Find the card on the                            computer, select ONLY the images YOU took, cut and paste them into a folder with YOUR name.
*remote: I find that using the camera remote aids in clarity of the picture because your hand is not touching the camera or microscope. Just a tip...


After observing my MicroAquarium for around 2 hours, I had successfully seen and identified 4 to 5 different organisms with the help of Dr. McFarland and http://www.fcps.edu/island creekes/eco logy/ water_mite.htm . Here are 3 different organisms I identified:

  Cyclops:

 Nematode:

Water mite:

• All organisms were professionally identified by Dr. Ken McFarland and water mite* is cited from http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/water_mite.htm

Bibliography: 

McFarland, Kenneth [Internet] Botany 111 Fall 2013. [cited 27 October, 2013]. Available
 from http://botany1112013.blogspot.com/

Moran, Mark. "Water Mite." Study of Northern Virginia Ecology. Fairfax County Public Schools, n.d. Web. [cited        27 Oct. 2013]. Available from  http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/water_mite.htm.