Lab Materials

Information to include in the Materials and Methods section.  Rewrite this information in your style.

Equipment and Software

MicroAquarium™: is a 75 X 50 X 4mm glass chamber designed for studying small aquatic organisms with a compound or dissecting microscope.  It is made with two 75 X 50 cm microscope slide glasses sandwiched together with a 2mm space between.  It is sealed on three sides (two short and one long side) with 100% Silicone Aquarium Sealant from All-Glass Aquarium Co., Franklin, WI– www.all-glass.com. The MicroAquarium™ is stored vertically (open end up) in a plastic stand with a clear plastic cap over the opening.

Microscopes: Non – camera compound microscopes: Observations of MicroAquarium™ made using Olympus CX31 Compound microscope at 40X and 100X objectives.  http://www.olympusamerica.com/

Microscopes:

Compound microscopes with digital cameras: Olympus CH30 (http://www.olympusamerica.com/) or Leitz Laborlux 11 or Leitz Laborlux D (http://www.leica-microsystems.com ) with trinocular heads.  Images made at 40X, 100X and 400X (long focus objective).

Dissecting Microscope: Olympus S240 with 0.67- 4.0 zoom objective and trinocular head (http://www.olympusamerica.com/).

Cameras:

Compound Microscopes: Sony Handycam HDR-HC9 or HDR-XR500v cameras (http://www.sony.com/index.php), for digital imaging and video recording. Cameras mounted to the trinocular head of the Olympus Ch30 and Leitz compound microscopes with to a Martin Microscope MM99 Adapter S/N: 4310 (http://www.martinmicroscope.com/) adapter.

Dissecting Microscope: Infinity 2 – Lumenera Corp www.Lumenera.com  7 Capella Court. Ottawa, On K2E 8A7 Canada

Computers: Dell Inc. (http://www.dell.com/) Optiplex 755 or Optiplex 980. Operating system Microsoft Windows XP.

Software: Images processed with Adobe Photoshop Elements 7.0. Adobe Systems Incorporated, 345 Park Ave, San Jose CA, 95110. Videos processed with Pinnacle Studio 12.1. Pinnacle Systems, Inc, 280 North Bernardo Ave Mountain View, CA 94943.

Lab room environment from October 11 – November 9, 2012

Temperature: range 23.6⁰ – 23.9⁰ C

Light sources: primary lighting provided from 1 – 15 cm, 30 watt cool light fluorescent lamps suspended 35cm above MicroAquarium™.  Incidental lighting from classroom’s 121 cm long 40 watt cool light fluorescent ceiling fixtures.

Light energy: 3 - 8 PAR^* (light energy range – low value from suspended light fixture, high values with suspended light fixture and overhead room ceiling lights)

Light cycle: suspended light fixture illumination 24 hrs/day and ceiling lights illumination at random time periods between 8:00 AM – 12:00PM during duration of experiment.

^* A measure of photosynthetic active radiation, between 400 to 700 nanometers, photosynthetic organisms absorb to drive the light reaction of photosynthesis.