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PLANARIA•PLANET

Planarial Set-up

A succesful colony of planarians requires their container to be a close to their natural environment as possible. Most planarians live in clean, shallow waters. We will guide you through a step-by-step process as to how to make your set-up as safe as possible for your planarians.

Creating a terrarium

Planarians like everything to be as clean as possible. When adding things to their environment, clean them thouroughly with bottled spring water. never use soap to clean anything for your planarians. clean the container that you are going to keep them in diligently. you may use quite a few water bottles trying to scrub the chemicals off of the container. Although sand looks very nice with your planarians, I would reccomend gravel instead. Planarians are high-waste animals, and sand infamously traps waste - causing the water to no longer be as clean as it should. you will want a glass or plastic separator between a portion with gravel and a clear portion without gravel. make sure to clean the gravel just as you did the interior walls of the terrarium - diligently and as clean as possible. To beautify your set-up you could add a clean plastic plant or a water bottle cap to put food in. The bin should be ærated with small vents or holes to prevent planarians escaping. as they are very small indeed, very small holes at the very top of the box are necessary to ærate your terrarium. Finally, A Thermometer must be installed to measure the temperature of the water. I would reccomend stick-on thermometers for Aquariums. Put the thermometer fully in the water , sideways to allow it to be fully submerged.

Placement

The most important part about placement is the temperature that your colony recieves throughout the year. The colony should be kept in the coolest part of the house, as planarians like 16 to 23 degree water (Celcius). Any higher will damage them, but they will tolerate temperatures down to 9 degrees C. Basements are usually the best place to keep your planarians, as they are fairly cool all year round and warmer than the rest of the house in winter. Do not place the terrarium in bright sunlight.

Keeping the tank clean

to fill the tank, do not use tap water. use store-bought spring water - and make sure it is pure, some "spring water" is not pure at all. it can be a challenge to know for sure how adequate your water is. you may want distilled spring water, and distillation removes most impurities. make sure that no algæ can enter the tank, and do not introduce elements from anywhere that has algÆ without killing and removing all algae. algæ can kill your tank's environment. Remove Excrement every day with a pippette, and change the water after feeding. we will go over this further later.