Sample Jar Contents

[75RR]

What do you do with the contents of Sample Jars when you have seen all there is to see or you simply need the space?
Just added 4 more Sample Jars, [they were pear this time:) ], to my collection from my microscope trip.
Space is now at a premium.
In a quandary! Will they be happy down a drain?

[Peter]

Hi 75RR,
Down the drain or pore them out on the ground (they are only dirty water after all).
Peter.

[75RR]

... they are only dirty water after all

I suppose that is inevitable. Feel bad about the rotifers and euglenas though.
So no happy ending :(

[Oliver]

Feel bad about the rotifers and euglenas though.

Yes, I understand what you mean, I sometimes think the same. But then again the concept of individuality maybe does not apply to these organisms. Everytime when I scratch my skin, I kill thousands of skin cells (and do not feel sorry for them). Maybe we just have to see the Euglenas and Rotifers as part of a bigger whole. It is not the individual Euglena which counts, but the whole species. And as they do not have a nervous system, we can assume that they do not feel anything and have no consciousness.
But then again, flushing them down the toilet does feel strange, after all we do get personally attached to them (?!), after having observed them. Many years ago I took some paramecia and added some salt. First they moved away to the opposite end of the slide to avoid the salt water. Then there was no escape. When they contacted the salt water, they started to lose more and more water. They grew skinnier and skinnier and then they died (a bit spectacular - they started to move faster before death). I did this to demonstrate the concept of osmosis in school. My students did not like it at all, feeling sorry for the paramecia. But then again, millions of microorganisms die every time when a pond evaporates and my students also did not feel sorry about the onion that we cut up to observe the cells (millions of cells died). And everytime I eat yoghurt, the acid in my stomach kills billions of yoghurt bacteria.

We humans are interesting – feeling attached to a few cells found in pond water. And I do love philosophy.
Oliver.

[actinophrys]

Just to offer my thoughts - personally I take my samples back to where they came from, but only keep them a few days so they don't suffer too much change like bacterial growth. But if that sort of thing is not too much of a problem and you just care to give the animals and other organisms a fighting chance, you might also try reserving a little outdoor pool or container to pour them into. It might even be worth checking once in a while.

The thing to watch for is that water doesn't get overwhelmed by decomposition and turn putrescent, which isn't healthy for the organisms you've been looking at or for you. But if memory serves, long ago I kept some similar pots that lasted well enough until winter. If not, evaporation or being poured into the ground is certainly something that happens to water in nature, and if it takes long enough to disappear presumably at least some kinds can form resting cysts or spores.

[gekko]

Hi actinophrys,

you might also try reserving a little outdoor pool or container

Would it be possible, at the same time, to prevent mosquitoes from breeding in the container? That is my concern.

[75RR]

Would it be possible, at the same time, to prevent mosquitoes from breeding in the container?

Some netting might help, though I do not know how that would affect the "natural" sequence of things.
Alternately you could go with a pond, something large enough to have say, mosquito eating fish in it.
Personally I like "water features" they attract a lot of wild life and are soothing to sit next to.

[actinophrys]

I would be very leery of exposing fish in a little closed habitat to multiple sources of water. It sounds like a good recipe to make them sick, something that would be much worse for them than river or lake fish, since any pathogens would then tend to keep reinfecting the same weakened individuals. If you're the sort to sympathize with rotifers then you don't want any part of that.

I'm afraid I don't know about mosquito larvae. A screen cover sounds reasonable enough; I've also heard it said you can prevent them by stirring, since they don't like moving water, or by adding a drop of vegetable oil as a film on the surface. But for whatever reason I've never found any in the yard either way, sadly not from any lack of adults.

[75RR]

I would be very leery of exposing fish in a little closed habitat to multiple sources of water.

You are quite right. I had moved on from a Sample Jar Contents Repository to solving the mosquito problem in a pond.

Come to think of it, mixing all those samples and future ones could in fact turn the Container into a sort of Roman Arena where they (the collateral damage of our hobby) would, adding insult to injury, constantly have to battle it out. Not to mention concentrating pathogens at the bottom of your garden.
I think your solution of collecting locally and returning samples within two or three days sounds best.

[Peter]

Hi Oliver,
You said "the concept of individuality maybe does not apply to these organisms", well perhaps however some years ago I was looking at a drop of water from a ditch. There was a strand of blue-green alga moving across the slide with all the grace of an arthritic snake apparently oblivious to the fact that it was being stalked by an amoeba. As soon as the amoeba latched on, in about the middle, the entire strand changed its locomotion; in my opinion it panicked, trying to go both ways at once. Then the strand broke inside the amoeba and the two parts writhed away in opposite directions. Now the amoeba was in trouble as it could not let go before being torn in two. Before the severed amoeba released itself from the blue-green alga the two parts had been dragged to opposite sides of my field of view, the parts were distinctly different in size. As soon as the amoeba parts separated themselves they attached to the slide and both parts moved directly towards each other, when they met they merged and were once more one (you could almost here a collective amoeba sigh of relief). Then I removed the slide from the microscope and cleaned the slide and cover slip with a dry tissue.
I don't know about "individuality", each cell in the strand of blue-green alga is an individuality however they all knew instantly when one of their number was under attack, and the behavior of the two amoeba components indicates (to me) that they have a sense of self, and are self aware.
Peter.

[75RR]

Down the drain or pore them out on the ground (they are only dirty water after all).

Couple of days ago I was walking to the shop when I noticed that in the forecourt of an abandoned garage a large but shallow puddle had accumulated along one side. This is the rainy season so it rains 3 or 4 times a week. People tend to use the forecourt to fix their cars and motorbikes so it a dirty greasy place. Water had some oil in it as well as empty bottles, plastic containers and trash.
Dirty water one might say.
Saw some alga in it so decided to take a sample with me. Used one of the plastic containers.
Result: Teeming with life. Rotifers, Paramecium, Phacus (see image in Pictures and Videos), Diatoms, Alga and various assorted things.
It will dry up in a month or so. So yes, dirty water. But also life.

5 days later I went to take a photo of the puddle for context, no rain in those days so almost dried up.
Before I took up Microscopy I would never have imagined that that puddle could be a world.