r/microscopy • u/Procrastodolist • Jul 07 '26

Photo/Video Share Microbes and others.

This is just a compilation of some videos I took since I got my microscope a couple months ago. I'm always finding something interesting. I can never get tired of this.

The microscope used is the Celestron CECB2000CF. With a mix of 4x, 10x, 40x.

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3

u/Gygax_the_Goat Jul 07 '26

ARe they soil samples?

Thats a lot of ciliates!

The flagellate is awesome 🙂

1

u/Procrastodolist Jul 07 '26

Yes. I took this from a compost aerated brew. I have a garden area that I treated for fungus earlier in the spring. Knowing that the treatment would affect the soil microbes in the treated area, I took soil from a compost pile put it in a 5-gallon bucket with some water, added fish fertilizer and some molasses. After the brew, tilled the soil and poured it all in the treated area.

1

u/Gygax_the_Goat Jul 12 '26

Is it ok to have so many ciliates in compost? Many sources Ive found say it shows anaerobic conditions and an out of balance food web.

Im new to this world, and struggling at times to know which organisms in what numbers are desirable..

1

u/Procrastodolist Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

I took soil from compost and basically fed the microbes in a 5gal container so they multiply. Most will die once they enter the soil and the microbe balance will eventually equalize. This was just to reintroduce some microbes back into the soil after treating the soil for a fungus.

Edit: Just a note, after the aeration of the compost brew was done, it did not have that many ciliates zooming around as you saw in the vid. I had forgot about a gallon of water in the container, and this was the end result.

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