How to culture Paramecium sp.

Paramecium is the most common of the ciliated protozoans. They occur abundantly in waters containing decaying vegetable matter since their food consists mainly of bacteria that decompose dead organic matter. Paramecia are oval in shape and quick moving. Paramecium has a very distinctive slipper-like appearance. Small size, ranging from 25μm to 300 μm. Presence of many surface cilia which are used for swimming and collecting food. They have a semi-transparent appearance and the interior nuclei and food containing vacuoles are readily seen as small globules under the microscope.  They are barely visible to the naked eye, usually white or clear in color, and can reproduce both sexually and asexually. When conditions are favorable, Paramecia reproduce asexually by transverse division at a rate of up to five times daily.

Paramecium culture

Materials:   Dry straw/ hay

                     Dechlorinated water

                     Aquarium water

                     Rice/ crushed biscuits

                     2 beakers (200 ml and 800 ml)

Procedure:

Take 200 ml of dechlorinated into a beaker. Then add dry straw into that same beaker. After three weeks, take a drop of water from that beaker and observe under the microscope to check the growth of Paramecium. After that take aquarium water into another beaker and transfer water with paramecium and dry straw already prepared into that aquarium water-filled beaker. Add Some crushed biscuits and rice into the culture beaker and keep for another two weeks to get maximum growth of Paramecium. The Paramecium will eat bacteria growing off of the food (dry crushed biscuits and rice) which have been added to the culture medium. 

Dechlorinated water and dry hay in an 200ml beaker 

After three weeks, Transfer Culture water into an 800ml beaker that contains aquarium water 

Cultured Paramecium under the microscope (100×)

Click here for locomotion video of Paramecium sp.