# Infusoria question



## LTygress (Nov 5, 2013)

I've got a jar going with a stalk of celery in hopes of raising infusoria for my baby bettas this round. I've followed all of the directions that I can find on the web including the bright light - but not sunlight. Right now I have a 60W-equivalent CFL bulb in a brooder dome (borrowed from my chicken brooder), sitting on top of the infusoria jar. The bulb actually rests down IN the jar, with the metal dome surrounding outside of the jar.


My question is... can I leave the light on for them 24/7? It says infusoria need lots of bright light, but I don't know if 24/7 is good or bad. Everything I read says to simply leave them in "bright light... but not sunlight". It doesn't even say how long.


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## BettaBoy51 (Nov 13, 2013)

i have the same question i got a jar of lettuce and its in the sun im trying to grow Infusoria to and have the same question and i dont know if im doing it right i hope someone can help you and me


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## GhostFeather (Jun 23, 2011)

I leave the light on them 24/7.
Did either of you use old tank water?
The water in your culture should turn real cloudy looking(that is the bacteria).
After a few days(3-4 or 5) the water should turn real clear, shine a bright flashlight on the jar and you should see a cloudy haze(that is your infusoria).
Bill


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## LTygress (Nov 5, 2013)

Yep, I actually set it up while doing a water change on the aquarium. I emptied enough into the jar to start the infusoria culture, using airline tubing to siphon it out, and then switched to a bigger hose and emptied the rest of the water I was replacing in the tank to the sink drain. I used my oldest aquarium for it, too.

I'm only on day 3 today. I just made the infusoria jar on Monday. So I have a few more days to go before I see anything. I just didn't know if leaving the light on 24/7 was okay or not. So far, I have left it on.

And tucked into the corner on the far side of the same shelf, with "blinders" to keep the light out, are my two thriving vinegar eel cultures. This little metal shelf I bought is turning into a fish food factory, haha!


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## nicktide (Dec 10, 2013)

I keep reading about the culture needing light. Is this to inhibit bacteria or something? As a kid I grew it to look at on a microscope and later to feed to fry and I allways kept it in a closet and it grew quite nicely.


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## LTygress (Nov 5, 2013)

Okay, now I have a new question/issue.

My infusoria should be well-developed now. The celery I put in there is looking VERY torn up (the leaves are transparent now). The water is mostly clear. But... it never really got cloudy to begin with. And I don't see any "clouds" or groups of infusoria, either. The only cloud-like thing I see is right around the celery itself, like a fungus.

I was thinking I didn't look hard enough. But then I sat there and stared for a while, and found a completely different "creature" in the water. It looks like my vinegar eels, but the two cultures have NEVER touched - they aren't even close to each other! No sharing jars, no using the same water (vinegar eels used tap water, infusoria used old tank water), NOTHING. So I very seriously doubt what I'm seeing is vinegar eels. There was no possible way for a vinegar eel culture to get in to the infusoria jar.

Also, UNLIKE the vinegar eels, the infusoria jar was not covered with cloth. The light for it sits right on top with the bulb hanging inside, and the dome has two holes for venting the bulb. Bugs could have gotten in there through those two holes, although unlikely.

But theese things just LOOK like vinegar eels though. Long thin "strands" although shorter in length. However, the movement is also different. The creature in the infusoria jar moves slow, and actually kinda swims around in the water with slow turning and movement (where as vinegar eels either stay still for just a moment, or wiggle very quickly).

So what the hell have I grown in my infusoria culture?


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## BettaBoy51 (Nov 13, 2013)

my jar looks clear and theres stuff in it but the lettuce has turned clear to and its rotting and i dont even know if i have infusoria


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## dramaqueen (Jul 7, 2008)

Could you guys post pics of your jars? I don't know anything about infusoria but I'm sure someone will come along soon and answer your questions.


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## preternaturalism (Nov 21, 2013)

Do you have access to a microscope you can get an image from? [/shot]

Seriously, though, if you have any way to access a microscope or even a good magnifying glass for the larger creatures, and make sketches, it'll tell you a whole lot more about your infusoria than you could hope to know otherwise. In my experience the cultures start out with all kinds of organisms but once you've subcultured a few times the paramecia tend to dominate. Your mileage may vary. I'm just culturing paramecia myself.

If you shine a flashlight through the water, does it look "dusty"?


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## LTygress (Nov 5, 2013)

Yeah the water looks kinda dusty. Not CLOUDY, but certainly not clear. So yeah there's a good chance there are infusoria in there. I'm just wondering what in the world the little worm-like creatures are. I just tried to get a pic with my video camera, zoomed in, but it didn't work. Either it wasn't zoomed in enough to see anything tiny, or it was zoomed in too far and went blurry. There is no middle ground.

I'll try later to see if I can get a large-format pic with clear lines, and then search within the pic for the creatures after uploading it to my computer.

However, when trying to get a pic, I noticed that the little worm-like things are actually more populated ON the glass, not so much free-swimming in the water. Some of them are out free-swimming in the water, but most of them are right up against the glass using it to "hold on" I guess. And they are all up and down the side of the glass too, not just at the surface of the water, or the bottom of the jar.


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## sandybottom (Nov 29, 2012)

infusoria is a term used to describe many small organisms that live in the culture. these include amoebas,rotifers,volvox,paramecium,euglena,stentors,planaria and vorticella. if you are seeing small white crawling worms,those are the planaria.the cloudines in the culture is bacteria which the infusoria feed off of.you do not want to use your culture if it is cloudy as it is full of bacteria.after it clears due to the infusoria feeding on the bacteria it is ready to use.you can use your culture to inoculate a new culture by adding a few drops.


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## GhostFeather (Jun 23, 2011)

It does sound like you have Infusoria, maybe cloudy was not the right word for what I was trying to say.
Lets see, a cloud of sparkling white creatures, or something like that!!
The only thing I do different is, I leave the jar uncovered for a couple of days, then cover it with cheese cloth.
Bill


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## LTygress (Nov 5, 2013)

Okay, planaria is good. It's still a food that the baby fish can eat. And the fact that they can reproduce by regeneration makes it very easy to sustain a culture of those, too. The only problem would be their adult size, in comparison to the baby fish. Well, I guess that and harvesting them.

Still not seeing the little white clouds moving around. But I don't doubt that there is actually some (I think someone said paramecium?) in there. It's just a matter of getting them to reproduce. Jar is still relatively warm (low 80's) and has the light on 24/7.


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## LTygress (Nov 5, 2013)

Okay, NOW I have paramecium! I set the whole thing up on December 8th, so it has been a good 15 days. The water never really got cloudy, and then planaria showed up. But one day I noticed a film across the top of the water, and stirred it up a bit. My vinegar eel culture lives at the surface of the water so they can get oxygen, but even they will die off if a film develops across the top. So I figured maybe the same was true for the infusoria.

Once I stirred it up, the remainder of the celery practically disintegrated, and became a blob of chlorophyll at the top. The rest of the water became SUPER cloudy, and today it just BARELY started to clear up. But I looked in it very closely (my face was practically smashed against the jar) and stared for a good while. I saw some tiny white particles just kinda hanging in the water, and suddenly they all moved - horizontally - and in a big group together. 

So it looks like aeration is fairly important for them too. Or, at the very least, no "film" across the water covering it and preventing the exchange of oxygen.


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## sandybottom (Nov 29, 2012)

cheese cloth over the top is supposed to keep the gunk out,yet allow it to breathe.


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