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PARAMECIA grown at home - TIPS and TRICKS for your microbe zoo!
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in this video i'm going to show you how
you can grow thousands of paramecia so
that you have plenty of things to
observe under the microscope and later
on in the video i'm also going to give
you some culturing and some observation
tips as well so you might want to watch
until the very end of the video of
course hello and welcome micropuncher
here and welcome to the microscopy
advice and observation channel
now there might be the problem that a
water sample that you would like to
observe under the microscope simply does
not have enough interesting water life
to look at there can be a variety of
reasons for this during winter time
generally there are not so many water
organisms
in a pond or in a lake or you might
simply have a too low of a concentration
of
microorganisms in a water sample and
therefore the water sample might look a
little bit boring and uninteresting
luckily it is quite easily possible to
culture pyramidia these are
single-celled
microorganisms it's quite easy to
culture them and in this video i'm going
to show you what you can do here now why
pyramicia pyremicia are quite common and
popular
specimens to observe under the
microscope they're single-celled
protests and they're good for
observation because even though they're
single-celled they're relatively large
and therefore you can observe quite well
what's happening inside the cell they
also like to move
around and they respond to the
environment and in other words they're
quite fun and interesting to watch as
well
permission they feed off a decaying
plant material and when you collect a
water sample from a pond or from a
stream
then you have to also take along not
only the water but also
some solid plant material as well um so
for example some decaying leaves or some
pieces of wood and so on usually can you
can find them also grow in the sediment
of the pond or of the river or a stream
where you collect the sample so collect
some material from the bottom of the
water
now you need to add a little bit of food
so when you have the water sample in
your jar
then i would suggest that you add some
food like for example a crushed wheat
grain or some breakfast cereal maybe
even a corn flake should also work
because what happens when you add the
food is is that bacteria starts to grow
on the food and the pyremicia they feel
will feed off the bacteria and then they
will also start to reproduce and to
divide
it's quite easy to do all you do is you
take the cereal and you simply drop it
into the water sample and this way
you're establishing a small food chain
the bacteria feed off the starch of the
food and then the parmesan feed of the
bacteria and yeah
after a few days after approximately
three or four days um you have to then
put a small sample of the food under the
microscope and then if you're lucky
then you're going to see a lot of
paramecia maybe even hundreds of them
you know that
you're ready to observe
this when the cereal that you put in
starts to form a so-called slime layer
it starts to change around in texture it
looks a little bit
not quite appetizing but this is a sign
that there is actually quite something
going on here and that there are
probably many ciliates not only
paramecia but also probably other
ciliates and in this
slime layer that you basically now have
forming around the cereal
of course you want to use tweezers to
take out the food and you simply dip it
a little bit on the glass slide you put
a cover glass on top and of course the
rest of the food goes back into the
water sample and then you would of
course you would like to observe
everything under low magnification
because
this gives you the best overview and
because the cells they move around so
quickly
that
by using a low magnification you're able
to see simply more
of
the microscope slide so now i'm going to
give you uh 10
tips that should help you to grow and to
enrich those paramecia tip number one
really make sure that the paramecia and
the cells receive enough oxygen
this is really important
and you can ensure that by not using too
much water because if you have too much
water in the bottom of the jar the
bottom part of the water on the jar will
not receive a lot of oxygen because the
oxygen is not able to diffuse so well
all the way to the bottom
also do not over feed because when you
add too much foods and too many bacteria
are going to form and they will also use
up a lot of the oxygen and this will
inhibit the growth of the pyramicia you
might also consider to include a few
algae some green material plant material
maybe as well because
photosynthesis will happen and then the
plants will produce oxygen as well i
found that uh the pyremician not only
like to gather around the food but also
around the algae and
other yeah plant material that you have
in the water sample so tip number two
make sure that you do not have any water
fleas or other water crustaceans in
the water sample because they like to
feed on the paramecia yeah you can see
them quite easily because they're quite
large the water flees around the
millimeter in size
yeah it's simply something to take into
consideration
so tip number three you play please do
consider that the source of the water
must be cool must be right
if you have a small puddle that just has
formed after a rainfall then you're not
going to find a lot of paramecia here or
actually none at all because paramecia
are not able to form cysts and they're
not able to withstand periods of dryness
so the water body of water that you use
to collect the water sample should be
yeah a permanent body of water like a
small pond or so also do not use any
sewage water not only for health reasons
but also sewage water often does not
contain a lot of oxygen because the
bacterial concentration is so high and
pyremicia often like also to have
reasonably clean water
and clean and oxygen-rich water and
switch water simply is not suitable and
i think it's also not very healthy
tip number four um keep checking um so
if you do not see any interesting water
life today then wait until tomorrow
because there is going to be a
progression of microorganisms
certain microorganisms will grow and
they will overgrow the others and others
will again disappear so over the course
of a week or two weeks you are actually
going to see that
different microorganisms start to
increase in number and paramecia are
generally one of the dominant forms that
you're able to find
of course tip number five do try
different types of food as well it does
not only have to be only have to be a
crushed wheat grain but you can also add
a very small amount of milk just make
sure that it's not too much again the
water sample should turn just a little
bit cloudy um or you can add also some
dry yeast
piramisia also like to eat those and
when you wait a few days
then the water should clear up again and
this means that the milk and or the
yeast has been eaten up by the paramecia
and also the number of pyremicia has now
increased
tip number six over time the water does
evaporate of course do not use
chlorinated water when replenishing the
water ideally you're going to use again
pond water from the same place where you
collected the original water sample from
but you can use tap water
and if there is chlorine in the water
let the water stand for a few days to
allow the chlorine to escape
and if you do not have uh yeah water
available then you can of course
dechlorinated water available then of
course you can also use bottled water
this also works
tip number seven yes do clean your tools
there are bacteria of course on your
tools and you want to make sure that
everything is clean also for health
reasons
tip number eight um
the pyramid city like to move around
quite quickly and if you use only a very
small amount of water
then
this will limit the movement the
pyramicia then going to be sandwiched
between the cover glass and the glass
slide and the microscope slide and this
limits the movement to the extent
that they really slow down a lot and
you're able to observe them much better
tip number nine
yes
there are different parts in a jar the
bottom part the top part there with your
algae there where you there's the food
do it put different parts of this
water sample under the microscope
and you're going to see that in
different parts of the same jar
different microorganisms might
accumulate so for example
those microorganisms that need a lot of
oxygen can be probably found around the
algae and also at the surface of the
water because the oxygen concentration
is highest there and i've also seen
other microorganisms gather around the
food more yes you simply have to
experiment around a little bit and
you're going to be quite surprised um
which microorganisms you're going to be
able to find
and tip number 10 if everything fails if
nothing works well
yes you can always buy pyramicia online
from educational supplies companies uh
or even aquarium shops that sell them as
a source of food for fish um yeah and
that's pretty easy to do but i would say
it's much more interesting to experiment
around yourself a little bit and to
enrich them yourself
i think i'm just gonna leave it at that
right now do leave comments behind try
it out yourself and share your success
or your failures even
with the community that's why we have a
comment section below
i wish you all the best
happy micro punting as always and see
you around next time
bye
[Music]
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