Worm Culture Information

Paramecium Starter Culture

Paramecium is one of the stalwarts of fish-keeping and is often called infusoria, although this name is a bit of a misnomer.

Paramecium is a large single-celled bacteria that thrives in “green water” and is easy to keep and harvest as once established it's easy to maintain as it thrives on rotting vegetable matter, and they are great for the smallest of fry.

I recommend that once you get the initial culture ready, that you set up a 2^nd culture, and possibly a 3^rd when the 2^nd is ready, so that you will always have a decent culture to harvest, and when the original culture goes bad, you can dispose of it, and start a fresh one from the 2^nd culture, and so on.

Although not imperative, keeping a snail or 2 in the culture, once the water has cleared, will help keep the culture healthy and the waste created by the snails will act as food for the Paramecium. 

Just remember that when you throw out the old culture, don't throw out the snails, and don't add them to the fresh culture until the cloudiness has cleared. Also when the culture is no longer producing I add the water (not the sediment) to my daphnia cultures as food for them.

The easiest way I find is that the cultures with snails are ready for harvesting, and the one without is still developing.

To feed the cultures, I now use a quarter of a banana skin.  Since using this method, the cultures appear to reach harvesting point a lot quicker.  There will be some mulch that settles to the bottom of the container, but, this is not a problem, just don't disturb it when harvesting, and you'll have no problem whatsoever.

To harvest the Paramecium all you need is a pipette or turkey baster and take the culture directly from the container (not when it's cloudy) and add it straight to the tank. The beauty of Paramecium is that it won't foul the tank water as it can survive in there until eaten, which it will be, and usually quite quickly too.

It can be difficult to know if the culture is active or not, but a hand magnifying glass will show whether the culture is active or not. Just hold the container up to the light and you should know immediately.

You will receive approximately 50ml of starter culture direct from my flourishing culture, which is more than enough to set you up.

Equipment needed to prepare for your Paramecium Starter Culture

A plastic or glass clear container with lid, bottles jars, etc.

A quarter of banana skin.

Aged tap water at room temperature.

Pipette or turkey baster for harvesting.

Hand magnifying glass, for harvesting.