Setting up my Tank!

Picture by Kenneth McFarland

First off this is a picture of where my water in my tank came from. It is a small pool that is spring fed. The story goes that this spring used to flow into a creek, but unfortunately it was dammed up and now it is a small pool. Besides the spring that feeds it, runoff from the Lynnhurst Cemetery, off of Adair Drive in Knox Co Tennessee. The spring is in partial shade and here is the exact GPS coordinates for anyone who wants to go find it N36 01.357 W83 55.731 958 ft  :) 

First I filled my MicroAquarium^TM   ⅓ of the way with sediment from the bottom of the pool and made sure it was fairly level. After that I filled it ⅓ of the way with water from the middle of the sample, and I filled it the rest of the way with water from the surface. To keep our tank from turning anaerobic we added two different types of plants.

Picture by Graeme

The first plant was Amblystegium sp. This moss grows in water and was taken from a natural spring at Carters Mill Park which is on Carter Mill Road in Knox CO. TN. It was grown in partial shade exposure and the GPA coordinates are N36 01.168 W83 42.832.  

Flowers and Carnivorous bulbs of Bladderwort (fig 1 & 2)
(Salmon and Almodovar)

The second plant we added was the Utricularia gibba L. Picture 1 is of the flowers that are above the water. The second picture is a microscopic photo of the below water carnivorous bulbs. Looking up close the inside of the bulbs looks like a Conch shell. Small organisms can move in and out of the bulb, but larger organisms cannot swim back out once they are in. This plant is originally from the south shore of Spain Lake (N 35o55 12.35" W088o20' 47.00), Camp Bella Air Rd. East of Sparta Tn. in White Co. Then the plant was grown in water tanks outside of the greenhouse at Hesler Biology Building at the University of Tennessee Knoxville.

After adding my plants my tank looked like this! The first two plants you see are Amblystegium sp. The second plant is Utricularia gibba L. The fourth plant is the Amblystegium sp. You cannot see any thing else in the tank but I observed many tiny organisms living in there. I cannot wait until my next observation to see my little tank and all my babies!! :)

 

Bibliography 

Botany 111 Fall 2012 (Blog). Watersource: 10. Lynnhurst Cemetery off of Adair Drive. Knox Co (cited 2012 October 24).  Available from: http://botany1112012.blogspot.com

Bruce Salmon, author of "Carnivorous Plants of New Zealand" (Ecosphere publications, 2001) Picture available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utricularia_gibba

Picture 2 of Utricularia gibba by Jose R. Almodovar 2011

Amblystegium sp picture by blogger Graeme available at http://www.ispot.org.uk/node/107228