I'd like to find some sediment-dwellers, but putting even a tiny grain of sediment on the slide lifts up the cover slip quite a bit and unbalances it.
I know the trick of putting two cover slips underneath the third in order to lift it up, but then I run into the problem that there's quite a lot of vertical movement open to the organisms, and I can't keep them in focus for long enough to take a picture.
Also, I feel like I'm going to crash my high-power objective with the slip lifted up like this.
How do people usually observe these organisms? Thanks!
What's the best way to examine sediment-dwelling protozoa?
Re: What's the best way to examine sediment-dwelling protozoa?
What I do for hunting diatoms from sediment, I think you could do the same. Collect a bunch of sediment in a test tube or jar, add water to the sediment and shake into a mixture. Let it settle for a few seconds for the sand and gravel to settle and pour off the water with the sediment dwelling protozoa into another container.
Re: What's the best way to examine sediment-dwelling protozoa?
Hi Jerradin,
meiofauna animals tend to cling to the sand grains. One way to get then off is to paralyse them with a 7,5% MgCl2 solution. If your sample is more silt than sand you can put a layer of sand on the sample, store cool for 1-3 days, remove only sand, extract animals with MgCl2. Generally you can move the animals by affecting the climate in the sample.
Bob
meiofauna animals tend to cling to the sand grains. One way to get then off is to paralyse them with a 7,5% MgCl2 solution. If your sample is more silt than sand you can put a layer of sand on the sample, store cool for 1-3 days, remove only sand, extract animals with MgCl2. Generally you can move the animals by affecting the climate in the sample.
Bob
Re: What's the best way to examine sediment-dwelling protozoa?
Thank for the instructions.