Quest

2004:
2/27/04
2/15/04
2/10/04
1/31/04
1/25/04
1/18/04

2003:
12/31/03
12/22/03
11/4/03
10/9/03
9/19/03
9/6/03
8/23/03
8/8/03
7/13/03
7/08/03
6/21/03
6/13/03
5/19/03
5/06/03
4/20/03
3/25/03
3/23/03
2/18/03
1/5/03

2002:
11/11/02
10/11/02
10/03/02
9/1/02
8/10/02
7/14/02
7/2/02
6/4/02
4/6/02
3/14/02

2001:
6/28/01
5/31/01
4/26/01
3/29/01

2000:
11/30/00
10/24/00
9/28/00
8/21/00
7/27/00
6/22/00
5/25/00
4/20/00
3/10/00
2/24/00

Q U E S T Newsletter of the Madison Aquarium Gardeners Club 2/10/04

Isn't this a fascinating alga? (Hydrodictyon). During our last meeting, Professor Paul Williams shared his small aquariums, aptly referring to them as lilliputian. We're talking 20 ounce soda bottles. An admitted minimalist, Paul came across this beautiful water net shaped alga among a hand full of bits and pieces of aquatic plant material he found last November, washed up along Lake Mendota shore line. Notice the size of this particular specimen. Paul uses a copy machine printing on plastic sheets to make these measuring segments. By affixing double sided stick transparent tape, one can affix a ruler to aquarium glass and observe the rate of plant growth or determine the speed of a snail's pace. Yes, he demonstrated the snail thing, to our amusement. Finding treasures in things small, in flotsam and discarded plastic bottles, why not! Paul's passion is to ignite in kids, a curiosity about science, through hands-on projects.

More 1/28/04 meeting notes coming in the next QUEST.

A Living Machine
 

Randall School 4th grade teacher Mark Wagler has a so called Living Machine in his classroom. One part of it consists of a planted aquaria mounted above a gravel filtration tub below. Pump and plumbing circulates water between the two containers. Though planted module is doing fine with hardly a trace of algae, bottom tub produces wall to wall Blue-Green slime. We figure bottom having no plants, is an open door for opportunistic cyanobacteria. No way can we get rid of the stuff! Three days shrouded in black plastic sheeting provides only a temporary reprieve. Floating duckweed doesn't get rid of it. One day Mark threw in some Rams Horn snails. To his surprise, they went to town on the Blue-Green and soon scores of tiny new born snails joined the foraging. Within a week, not a speck of Blue-Green, anywhere!

Catch you later...............John