Finally found an infusoria system that works for me!

[Hobbit]

After many attempts and experiments, I finally landed on something that seems to work and be sustainable without much effort!

All it is is a jam-sized ball jar, some aquarium gravel, a few pieces of oyster shell, and some baker’s yeast.

I have six other jars that I keep ready and stocked with a tiny sprinkle of yeast.

Every 48 hours or so, I…

1. Pour out half the water in the current culture
2. dump the rest of the water along with the rocks into a new jar. It immediately looks cloudy and gross!
3. swirl fresh water in the old jar to clean it a bit and pour that water in the new jar too
4. put the old jar upside down to dry

I switched to a fresh jar about 12 hours ago. The culture looks clear and teeming with paramecium, and the water quality is 👍

The gravel provides a surface for beneficial bacteria to establish, so my fry aren’t getting poisoned every time I feed them. The few pieces of oyster shell (maybe only two or three granules) keeps the pH stable. And now that the culture’s been going for long enough, the paramecium who like yeast have totally taken over. 

My sister’s sourdough starter was what inspired me. She has to split it and re-feed it every week. Plus it got me thinking about yeast as a food source. Handy, clean, easy to store… what could be better! When I looked into it I discovered Keeping Fish Simple on YouTube uses yeast. I just implemented a way to keep the culture going.

I started the culture with some aquarium water and a few squirts of mulm. Nothing fancy!

There you have it!

Edited March 23, 2022 by Hobbit

[Guppysnail]

This is fantastic. I have never been successful with dedicated industrial attempts. I love that you found a way to keep the water clean. Great job. 

[SJ fishing]

I have played around with a few different ways that worked fine, then by accident found the way I am going with now.  3 deli cups with aquarium water and java moss in them, seems to culture all on its own and restocks by rotating cups 1 per day.  I keep the lids on the cups and just stick on a bottom shelf beside an aquarium so it gets some ambient light.  I dont have a ton of fry I am feeding so might not be enough for some one with a lot of fry

[Hobbit]

I just wanted to come by and update this post with a few tweaks I made to make my system work more reliably.

First, I’m using about half as much yeast as I was in the beginning. Maybe 20 granules. I realized it didn’t take much at all, and using too much could be counterproductive.

I also learned a few things from looking into the way labs culture paramecium for studies. One thing I learned is that paramecium tend to congregate on edges. So be sure to swirl your culture before pipetting some out!

Another thing I learned is that you ideally want to split your culture before it hits peak population density. From what I could tell, for my setup this meant splitting the culture around the 48 hour mark. This also has the benefit of slowly reducing the chance that any predators, like cyclops, survive in your culture because they can’t reproduce within a 48 hour window.

Because this method produces a fairly clean culture, I tended to feed my fry a LOT of it at once. If I ever have a large number of tiny fry, I think I’ll have to use bigger jars. 😄 

[Cheryl P.]

Thanks for the update!  I'm looking to start an infusoria culture soon because I want to start breeding tetras.  It's always nice to see the different ways people do it!

[Torrey]

On 3/23/2022 at 7:31 AM, Hobbit said:

After many attempts and experiments, I finally landed on something that seems to work and be sustainable without much effort!

All it is is a jam-sized ball jar, some aquarium gravel, a few pieces of oyster shell, and some baker’s yeast.

I have six other jars that I keep ready and stocked with a tiny sprinkle of yeast.

Every 48 hours or so, I…

1. Pour out half the water in the current culture
2. dump the rest of the water along with the rocks into a new jar. It immediately looks cloudy and gross!
3. swirl fresh water in the old jar to clean it a bit and pour that water in the new jar too
4. put the old jar upside down to dry

I switched to a fresh jar about 12 hours ago. The culture looks clear and teeming with paramecium, and the water quality is 👍

The gravel provides a surface for beneficial bacteria to establish, so my fry aren’t getting poisoned every time I feed them. The few pieces of oyster shell (maybe only two or three granules) keeps the pH stable. And now that the culture’s been going for long enough, the paramecium who like yeast have totally taken over. 

My sister’s sourdough starter was what inspired me. She has to split it and re-feed it every week. Plus it got me thinking about yeast as a food source. Handy, clean, easy to store… what could be better! When I looked into it I discovered Keeping Fish Simple on YouTube uses yeast. I just implemented a way to keep the culture going.

I started the culture with some aquarium water and a few squirts of mulm. Nothing fancy!

There you have it!

Thank you for eaily replicable directions, and the update. Temp where your cultures are?

[Hobbit]

In the mid-70’s, but they’re by a south-facing window over an air conditioning vent, so there’s a lot of fluctuation. 😄 I’m sure keeping them in a warm spot would speed up their growth (and vice versa).

[Torrey]

On 6/20/2022 at 10:33 AM, Hobbit said:

In the mid-70’s, but they’re by a south-facing window over an air conditioning vent, so there’s a lot of fluctuation. 😄 I’m sure keeping them in a warm spot would speed up their growth (and vice versa).

Willing to bet the fluctuations help keep your cultures more robust, actually

[Hobbit]

On 6/20/2022 at 3:13 PM, Torrey said:

Willing to bet the fluctuations help keep your cultures more robust, actually

I think so too!

[Anjum]

Interesting! @Hobbit so you're feeding the yeast granules to the infusoria? Your comment about the sourdough starter got me wondering, if one could feed that to the infusoria? I keep a sourdough starter; it's just another form of live, active yeasts & bacteria (I think they're lactic acid producing bacteria).

[Hobbit]

@Anjum yep! I’m feeding the yeast granules to the infusoria. I wondered if I could feed straight starter culture to them, too! I think it’s worth a try if you have it around. My concern would be the flour (or whatever you’re feeding the yeast) would pollute the water too much, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you could figure out an amount to feed that would be safe. You only need a tiny amount!

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Thanks so much for sharing this!  I tried the yeast thing last month, but I didn't notice any development.  I didn't give it light though, and I didn't split it.  I used tank water and mulm and kept it at room temperature.  Maybe the lack of light was my problem?

[Hobbit]

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea As long as it wasn’t in a dark closet, I doubt the light would be an issue. I’m not sure though. I’d guess the lack of splitting the culture/giving it new food was the problem. And/or not stirring it. If I don’t stir it, it looks like there’s absolutely nothing in the water. Getting that tip to stir the culture to get the infusoria off the sides/bottom was a game changer for me! So you may have had development but just not seen it.

The other thing is if you had a predator in the tank water/mulm (which is likely) then the predator will keep the population of infusoria too low to observe. Perhaps try again with a really small amount of mulm so you reduce your chances of getting a predator?

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

On 6/22/2022 at 12:41 PM, Hobbit said:

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea As long as it wasn’t in a dark closet, I doubt the light would be an issue. I’m not sure though. I’d guess the lack of splitting the culture/giving it new food was the problem. And/or not stirring it. If I don’t stir it, it looks like there’s absolutely nothing in the water. Getting that tip to stir the culture to get the infusoria off the sides/bottom was a game changer for me! So you may have had development but just not seen it.

The other thing is if you had a predator in the tank water/mulm (which is likely) then the predator will keep the population of infusoria too low to observe. Perhaps try again with a really small amount of mulm so you reduce your chances of getting a predator?

Thanks @Hobbit.  I definitely didn't stir it. I just left it alone and checked on it periodically.  Will reattempt soon!

[Anjum]

On 6/22/2022 at 9:19 AM, Hobbit said:

@Anjum yep! I’m feeding the yeast granules to the infusoria. I wondered if I could feed straight starter culture to them, too! I think it’s worth a try if you have it around. My concern would be the flour (or whatever you’re feeding the yeast) would pollute the water too much, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you could figure out an amount to feed that would be safe. You only need a tiny amount!

I'll try some things! I also ferment a grain mix for my chickens. After it sits for 2 days, it develops this film on top that I'm relatively sure is yeasts. I could skim that off & use that too. Then it'd be relatively pure, no carbohydrate. 

[Hobbit]

@Anjum that would probably work! From what I know, infusoria aren’t picky about what microbes they eat, so whatever it is they’ll probably love it!