A Brief History of My Bio-Cultures

[DonSchaeffer]

Not having natural water sources nearby, I began my microscope career collecting grasses and soil and making artificial cultures. It turns out that a sample of old dried grass immersed in water for a few days did yield a number of ciliates and occasional other creatures of interest. One would think they somehow survived on the grasses, maybe in cysts. I did find a lot of cysts, algae and even some diatoms.
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However, after a few days the cultures would be overwhelmed with algae spores and the number of bacteria would increase dramatically. However all the larger creatures would vanish.
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The samples began to smell today so I emptied my containers. When I emptied the containers, one jar had a rich brown ring of mud at the bottom. I thought this would be teaming with life. I found it to be essentially sterile except for a small bacteria colony in one location. The brown mud was essentially sand. What I learned is...just because there is dirty water doesn't mean there are creatures in it.