Student of Royal College, Miraroad started culturing Hydra and Moina also Successfully maintained + Increased them in numberšŸ¤©

:white_small_square: Students from Royal College Miraroad received Hydra and Moina culture from Pritesh Parab (from Elphinstone college, Mumbai) On 8th July.
They received ~57 Hydra in a beaker and ~200 Moina in a bottle

:white_small_square: @āØManal CUBEā© Khan and her friends from Royal college have been maintaining Hydra and Moina cultures since 8th July.
On 8th July they made 3 subcultures -
Subculture-1= 20 hydra
Subculture-2= 20 hydra
Subculture-3= 17 Hydra

:white_small_square: Moinas are kept in same bottle just the water has been changed once(please correct if Iā€™m wrong @āØManal CUBEā©)

:white_small_square: Everyday the students feed Hydra with moina and moinas are fed with milk.

:white_small_square: Hydras are being cultured in water from the aquarium in Royal college lab.
According to @āØManal CUBEā© the water is chlorinated so initially the hydras were being cultured in chlorinated water and there number of hydras was decreasing, so they switched to dechlorinated water and hydras are now thriving well in the subcultures made with dechlorinated water!

:white_small_square: Moinas are also being cultured in water from aquarium and they are thriving well.

:white_small_square: What could be the reason behind this decline of hydras?
@āØManal CUBEā© thinks it could have something to do with the chlorine in water.

:white_small_square: Moinas are thriving well in Royal college labs which means they are reproducing and increasing in number.
So how do Moinas reproduce?
Moinas reproduce sexually and well as asexually.

:white_small_square: We also discuss how to differentiate between daphnia and moinas

:white_small_square: Then we moved on to red moinas-
In low oxygen conditions moinas turns red.
As we add more milk the number of bacteria in culture increases these bacterial also take up oxygen. As there are more bacteria there will be less oxygen for moina. As there is less oxygen more hemoglobin is produced is moinas which results in red moina.
This enables us to use moina as a model system to study epigenetics
Epigenetics is the study of how environmental factors affect the way genes work.

:white_small_square: Then we discussed about methods to dechlorinate water for culturing Hydra and moina.

  1. We can keep water in a bucket or container for 3-4 hrs so that the water evaporates
    OR
  2. We can boil water to dechlorinate it

:white_small_square: But why do we need to de-chlorinate water for culturing Hydra and moina?
Can aquarium water be chlorinated? If yes, can fishes live in water containing chlorine(in case of aquarium)?
And how long dechlorinate water, will it take overnight or just 2-4hrs will be enough?

                     ~Summary by @misbah