Week one ( 6/7-6/13)

Week one update (lab activity)

Monday

• Monitoring aquatic plant culture (by making new growth media and changing all the culture media, monitoring the light density in the incubator)
• Pilot experiment planning (Making protocol to study the effect of phenol on Selenastrum culture)--> making your own protocol is quite a challenge! =P

Tuesday

• Pilot experiment started (Selenastrum cultures were grown in flask that contained growth media and phenol solution)

Wednesday

• "Field trip day"-Dr Pagano, Dr Tyler, Megan (She works with Dr Pagano at the NTID department lab) and me, went to creek sites around Conesus lake (all 10 sites were visited to collect water sample for analysis). The weather was bad because it rained all day and we were all wet. It was my first time meeting Megan, and we will be working together this summer for analysis work on water sample.
• We also collected some duckweed (aquatic plant) sample from one of the site.
• Water sample were filtered using milipore filter and stored in the freezer.
• Later that evening at 6pm, i did the cell count on all pilot experiment flasks to monitor Selenastrum growth rate.

Thursday

• Microcystis (blue green algae) culture was set up and placed in the incubator.
• Chu's micronutrient stock solution was made (stock solution for Cladophora (aquatic plant) growth media)
• In order to maintain a healthy stock of aquatic plant culture, all the media for the aquatic plant culture were replenished with new growth media. yeah! now all the aquatic plant cell is happy :).
• Cell count performed on all pilot experiment flasks and water sample were taken out and store in the freezer for future phenol analysis.

Friday

• More Selenastrum growth media was made.
• I also made the Bold 3N medium stock solution for Microcystis culture.
• Then all of us (the freshwater student researchers) had a meeting that afternoon with Dr Tyler to plan our work for the coming 2 weeks.

Saturday

• Since the duckweed culture at the Conesus Lake Creek site were taken from a wetland, i had to change the water and sort out some unwanted sample taken.
• Cell counts were done exactly at 6pm to monitor the growth of the Selenastrum culture (pilot experiment)

Sunday

• Cell count performed on all pilot experiment flasks and water sample were taken out and store in the freezer for future phenol analysis.