Tissue culture bottle as micro aquarium

[Klaus Yde]

I present here an idea for a very versatile and cheap micro aquarium to use under the stereo microscope. When looking in an ordinary Petri scale there is always problems with the water surface. If using an ordinary table – as most of us do – all small vibrations disturb the water surface and it is difficult to make good photographs at higher magnifications – not taking in consideration that most of the inhabitants also are very quick.

I have for some time been hunting for small Tissue Culture Bottles. It is no problem to getting them if you want to purchase a whole box with +500 bottles or more. The problem is to find a supplier that will sell them in small quantities. I was lucky and got a bag with 100 pcs of 25 cm2 bottles for a 1€ bid – normal price about 0,40 € a piece – on eBay. To date I haven't been able to find a supplier that will sell me less than a whole box. Eventually – if you know someone on a laboratory that uses them – You should be able to beg some. I would guess that my bag of 100 would last me out as they are easily reusable. Just rinse them with demineralised water after us so no chalk deposits forms.



The advantages of using those bottles are that you get a very good plane optical surface that is nearly equivalent with glass and a restricted space for your specimens. And it is joy to observe water samples from the local pond this way.

The main problems with the bottles are the ordinary in stereomicroscopy. Namely catching the animals when they are still and getting enough light to have acceptable shutter times with higher magnifications. And of cause using stacking with live animals is not easy.........

I have attached a couple of the first pictures I have taken with my Olympus SZ40 and my old Coolpix 990. The pictures are not very outstanding but give an impression of what is possible using this technique.

Snail egg from a cluster

Small water beetle covered with Vorticella

Happy pond hunting

Klaus Yde

[Dieter Friedrich]

Nice idea, but be sure not to buy vials with precoated surface, they are quite more expensive than normal ones.

Personally, I made some good experience with 96 well microtiter plates. There you have 96 very small "aquaria", for little algae for example.
You can isolate any single algae from a sample via a pipette and transfer it into one of the wells, prefilled with proper nutrient medium.

So you can grow and storage lots of different algae on small room or try different types of media for one species if you can't find specific information's for that one.

96 well microtiter plates are available with different deeps and therefore different volumes, the most common ones have volumes from 250-1000 μl.
The can be placed on a rotation shaker for continuously mixing the liquids, but in most cases, because of the small volume, simple diffusion is enough to supply the algae with oxygen.

It can also serve as a preculture reactor to inoculate the next bigger batches.

They come with a single cover and are made of polystyrene or polypropylene (more expensive, but more inert to fast temperature chances) or glass (rare). Again be sure not to buy the high priced precoated or sterile or RNase free ones (then mostly single packed otherwise 10 or 20 in a bag).