MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

So yesterday I went down to the river and picked up some water from it, I recorded the first slide I viewed (about 5 seconds) and this is what I saw. Anyone know how I can learn to identify the organisms? anyone know what it is called in this slide? thanks


https://youtu.be/iXu_BW28BK4

It is a Paramecium.

One good ID source is here:
http://microlife.parvarium.com/thumbnails.html

Thanks, I have a few questions. Can I wash the slides and slide covers and re-use them? or is that not recommended? Also, looking at the slides this morning I don't see the living organism anymore, did it dry out overnight between the glass and glass cover and died? thanks

Washing and reusing is fine, as long as you can clean them well. For darkfield, it is best to use fresh and clean slides and covers.

Yes, they died from cover pressure and lack of water/oxygen. If you put back a little water, some protists (such as rotifer and worms) may come back to live.

What other liquids I can find locally or in the house would contain living cells I could see under bright field... I threw out the river water last night for fear of contaminating my room so I don't have anything to look at today.

You can wash and reuse the slides/coverslips.
When you do a wet mount, that is just putting a few drops of sample water on the slide and covering with a coverslip, the water will evaporate and indeed the organism will dry out and die (well some rotifers can actually be brought back by rehydrating but most things are going to be dead).
This happens fairly quickly, but will depend on the amount of water and the temperature.
You can keep the slide going by adding drops of sample water just at the edge of the coverslip. Capillary action should draw the sample water under the coverslip.

Keeping this going for longer can be done by sealing with some kind of vasaline like substance a brush and care. Even then the sample will run out of dissolved oxygen in time and the sample will lose its eukarotic life and you will just have bacteria, which will in turn die out also.

Here is an article discussing some of these ideas and also "fixing" your organisms (which kills them but preserves some of the structures for observation)

http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/ind ... ount2.html

If you want a book with nice photos of pond/protozoa life for not much money there is the wonderful

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sphagnum-Ponds ... 3832225447

Although as zzffnn indicated there are good online sources of information.

Another possible longer term wet mounting option is to get small rubber/metal plumming washers, glue these to a silde and thus you can create a little "pond" with a cover slip on top. The larger volume of water will take longer to evaporate although your x40 objective may have trouble seeing al the way through your thick mount but a x20 or x10 will be fine (and you can still see much interest and this depends on the thickness of your washer).
In fact you can buy slides already prepared in this fashion if you prefer.

Hi, you're off to a good start I'd say!

Any type of moss, doused with water then squeezed-out like a sponge will yield a surprising variety of living things...