keeping specimens alive

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Judge
Posts: 95
Joined: Sat Dec 18, 2021 2:36 pm

keeping specimens alive

#1 Post by Judge » Tue May 17, 2022 4:34 pm

I’m looking for advice for keeping specimens (Ciliates) alive. I have jars with specimens that stay alive only a few days. Should I keep the cover on the jar? Should I add food, if so, what? Keep it in the dark? Any other suggestions?

Greg Howald
Posts: 1185
Joined: Tue Oct 20, 2020 6:44 am

Re: keeping specimens alive

#2 Post by Greg Howald » Tue May 17, 2022 11:36 pm

Add a few drop of milk and some cooked grains of rice to the water. Put the vessel containing specimens in a window sill, but not in full sun. They need light to prosper. A few living plants and mud from the place you got the specimens will also help. You will find microbes living in the mud and the plants will put in additional oxygen. If you can't use a window sill then use a grow light a few hours a day. Don't be too discouraged at first. In only a couple of weeks you will wonder where all the microbes came from.
Milk and rice are used by James from Journey through the microcosm. You can add a little egg shell for calcium and boiled hard egg yolk for sulfur but beware... decaying sulfur smells bad.
Air space above your water is essential. Your jar should be only about 3/4 full. Jars should be sealed so leave the lids on. With light and a little food to kick start things, life should take off and soar. Oh yeh, temperature should be no more than eighty five degrees f. Room temperature is usually ok. Good luck and have fun. I certainly did for about two years. My aquarium contained one little fish accidently caught and some snails that came up out of the mud with the nematodes. I had stentors, rotifers, paramecium, cyclops and diatoms running everywhere with a bunch of little bitty things that wouldn't stay still long enough for identification or were too small for the microscope to be able to be identified.
It was an enjoyable time but now I'm off on another adventure of trying to understand light wave retardation.
Kind regards, Greg

Judge
Posts: 95
Joined: Sat Dec 18, 2021 2:36 pm

Re: keeping specimens alive

#3 Post by Judge » Wed May 18, 2022 1:10 am

great info
Thanks

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