MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

I have successfully used a long stick as a guide for a small rubber hose that has a 50ml syringe on my end. Once you select a sampling spot simply dip the stick with the hose firmly attached to it with pig tails or whatever and slowly pull the plunger on the syringe. Then discharge in your sample co...

Is this for the Ultraphot?

Cool but can you actually buy some DAPI? You could then see the DNA inside microorganisms for example the different nuclei in ciliates.

janvangastel wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 21, 2020 6:47 am

but to me it looks a little unnatural sometimes

Thanks Jan and you are right the movement looks unnatural but some of those critters are bullet fast. Not only I can't shoot them I can't see them for more than a second in one place under normal conditions.

Very nice find, thanks for posting!

Thanks Tom, glad you like it.

Jerradin wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 20, 2020 7:37 pm

Does that work well?

Methylcellulose works very well in my hands, I definitely recommend it.

Jerradin wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 20, 2020 7:25 pm

Is it slowed down, or in glycerin or something? I've never seen cilia move like that before.

Yes, it was slowed down with methylcellulose, video is at normal speed tho.

Thanks 75'

The ciliate video was taken with a 40x phase objective at 2x optovar magnification so a total of 800x, but thats the highest I went.

I didn't feel like making individual threads for these microbe findings of the past couple of weeks so enjoy the video dump

Diatoms, a fast amoeba, worm on LSD and an unidentified ciliate.

Nice find and video!

Any idea what the ribs are made out of? Microtubules or some other cytoskeleton elements?

Really nice shot.

I don't understand how you make such good stitches, especially of a nematode that I'd expect to jiggle around.

Its basically a container, like a petri dish, with some wet tissue (e.g. moist napkin). When the humidity reaches 100% it means the air can't hold more water vapour because its saturated and therefore the water in your sample cannot evaporate. Now if you don't want to observe your microbes later but...

tabkiel wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 18, 2020 4:37 pm

I really don't know what to do

Put the slide in a humidity chamber. Not only you save your beloved microbes but they can actually develop on the slide providing you with more insight on your next observation.

I suppose salts from the soil would counteract that.

Btw the recipe comes from the book posted in the following thread:

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=7944

PROTOCOL Spirostomum, Stentor 1. Medium ingredients should be added in the sequence listed. If the name of a company is listed with a specific component, the medium component should be obtained from the company to assure growth. 2. Medium formulation: Soil/H20 Biphasic Medium [1] Rich Organic Soil (...

Now that's a sight to behold! Really cool, thanks for sharing and I will keep an eye on this thread if someone has an explanation why the cyanobacteria would spool itself inside the Arcella test like that.

These are quite interesting I agree, its amazing that you can find them in freshwater too.

Did you use a compensator to get the magenta background?

Thank you Bruce.

Cheers Sabatini

Thanks to all for the interest and nice comments, I certainly didn't expect to see these organisms.

I somehow always thought dinoflagellates are restricted to marine habitats so was quite surprised to find such an abundance of them yesterday. This new pond I sampled is crazy full of life, it has everything from freely floating rotifer colonies to Volvox to gigantic red mites.

Very good quality! I like it.

Cool image.

You know you can insert a piece of clear plastic above the polarizer and below the specimen and you will produce some spectacular colors that would enhance the starch grains.

Thank you Kirby, Sabatini and KD.

That is a very cool example of metaboly!

Hi Doron, nice to hear of you progress! According to your note 2: Michel Haak suggests polyacrylamide, not polyamide. I'm no chemist and don't know how far this is apart. http://www.diatoms.eu/de/node/77 The high curing temperature of Pleurax really narrows down the number of possible candidates fo...

A close-up

Great shot! I like it!

Bruce Taylor wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 07, 2020 7:05 pm

Spirostomum teres.

Now that's a match! Thanks!