Week 4 The week of Microcystis aeruginosa :)

Monday

• Last day/day 5 of duckweed culture phenol experiment.
• Stock-cultures containing Microcystis aeruginosa was checked for contamination and cell counts for use in the next preliminary experiment.

Tuesday

• Microcystis aeruginosa species was tested with media containing tannic acid or phenol. Experiment was set up for both treatment and this preliminary experiment will be ran for 6 days (Day 0 to Day 5)

Wednesday

• Stock-cultures of Selenastrum, Microcystis and duckweed were monitored by changing the growth medium used in the flasks.
• Due to contamination(or possible invasion of other algae species) in the duckweed flask containing "Chu's Medium" (a media used as nutrient for supporting duckweed growth), the duckweeds were dipped in diluted bleach (sodium hypochloride) for few seconds and rinsed with nanopure water to killed all pathogens/other algaes.

Thursday

• Microcystis aeruginosa water samples ( from the preliminary experiment set up on Tuesday) were taken out for phenol analysis. There were 12 flasks of Microcystis aeruginosa.
• Cladophora species stock-cultures were set up in Selenastrum growth medium and Chu's medium.

Friday

• A total of 2 batches of Selenastrum growth media was made and kept in the fridge for next week experiment.
• The duckweed stock-subcultures were replenish with new media and transferred to new flasks. The duckweed need to be transferred into new flask because the original flask might contained high salt concentration and this will disturb the growth of duckweed.

Saturday

• Cell count was done on the Microcystis aeruginosa cultures from flask containing tannic acid and phenol. ( A total of 12 samples were counted)

In short week 4, was the week of Microcystis aeruginosa because mostly i have been monitoring the Microcystis aeruginosa stock-cultures and also performing daily cell count (from Tuesday- Sunday) for the Microcystis aeruginosa tannic acid/ phenol pilot experiment.

This is a link of what Microcystis aeruginosa (blue green algae - a type of cyanobacteria) is

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/bay/hab/microcystis.html