Tip I Learned for Pond Water Samples

I was struggling to get a good look at ciliates and little eukaryotes, but I found a tip that worked tremendously and yielded a single sample with over 100 ciliates. Simply take a leaf, blade of grass, piece of algae, etc. from a pond or body of water, and tap it on a microscope slide repeatedly. This will shake a lot of the water and microbes off, giving you the ability to see them with no other organic matter on the slide. I was shocked at how well this worked. Hope this helps someone!