Dear Muhammad,

better to process in field conditions but you can store in car refr during transportation and after that in home refr. But try to put higher temp. than +3 deg.

I'm not sure about tropical samples from high t level conditions - better to do experiments! But in mild climate it is enough effective method.

Moreover, it is important what subsystem you are investigated - plankton is more sensitive - 2-3 days and amount will change but periphytic community and benthos - longer. Anyway, try to put temperature down gradually - not from 25 into 3!!! But the lower the t the longer you can keep a sample. So, Van’t Hoff-Arrhenius low says that 10 deg decreasing produce 2,25 elongation of development.

Should take into consideration as well the presence of raptors - can be other ciliates, some rotifers, cyclopoids and large cladocerans. For more methodical information look my site.

About transportation. Put stones eg into 1 l jur with water not into the cover and into refr. if no car - into bucket with water.

Benthos shoul be taken minimum 2-3 cm deep and should be flood into the jar and into refr. The larger sample the better!

Luck,

A.

Dear Muhammad,

Andrey sent you correct information; I do work in the tropics (even though mountain one) but my experience is the same.

If it is plankton, screen the samples (100/um is OK but 63/um better, if your ciliates are not bigger). Be aware to try to analyze species abundances - everything will be changed by a bottle-effect (too much surface comparing to volume), e.g., Coleps and/or Halteria could grow in much higher numbers. You will loose microaerophilic/anaerobic species, if the sampling was not done in correct way (if DO increased/appeared).

Personally, I am working much more with well fixed samples . But You must tell us more about your reasons to use a living sample shipping

Cheers

Thank you for your valuable inputs. I've isolated Ciliates from Cold Temperature environment, which I would like to sent for identification. For this purpose I've to ship the samples. I've tried to ship in SMB medium at normal temperature but couldn't revive the isolates.

Other is to extract DNA but couldn't find any simple protocol. 

The suspected isolates may be Paramecium or Vorticella. 

If it is concentrated, you could put it in ethanol >80% (sample 2:8 absolute ethanol). It will work for many analyses. But shipping of such flammable material is slightly complicated (depending on the country)

Dear Muhammad,

In addition to what other colleagues have said, to transport live ciliates, tissue flasks with filter caps are convenient containers: you can choose different sizes/volumes, they are not expensive and, if you get them with filter caps, they allow gas exchange (avoiding anoxic conditions during transport after 4-5 days closed).

As for an easy and convenient way to send DNA, have you considered the use of FTA indicating elute cards? They are small, light, easy to transport and will isolate and protect the DNA at room temperature for many years. Extracting the DNA from these cards in the destination lab is fast and easy.

Cheers

Thank you all for very helpful tips. Hope to ship these isolates in correct form now.