Intro

I try to see some microorganisms in a drop of water and I did it! I will show you some things that I achieved by seeing some protozoans and tiny animals. Let’s go!

photo acuario + pipeta + microhoek

Where and How

I took some dirty water from the filter of an aquarium and placed it in a glass slide with coverslip and I see it in the Micro-Hoek DIY microscope

What I saw

The first thing that I recognized as a living organism was a testate amoebae, actually I saw the test. These group of organisms are frequently used as bioindicators of heavy metal pollution.

The second thing that I saw was a nauplii, a larvae form of some crustaceans. In this case I am pretty sure that it is a copepod because I see some of them in the acuaria, but not too much because the fish eat them.

But in some moment I began to film and I captured probably free living ciliates. It looks very tiny for the magnification power of the microscope but its moves were very similar to these kinds of protozoans.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/budG0lPIfGU

Finally, I saw a rotifer, also called wheel animals or wheel animalcules. These are tiny group animals that have a ciliated structure that is similar to a wheel when it moves.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LEE7e4w8NWY

Conclusions

The use of DIY microscopes could be very interesting for water quality due to the fact that many of the microorganisms that you can see are probably telling us something about the septicity and organic matter present in the media. If you want to explore deeper into this topic please check the following video