Microscope - advice pls

[MisticX]

i am thinking to buy meh a microscope

this should help me identify faster and more accurate diseases that my pets have.


do you think 200$ investment is worth it ?

 

[asudavew]

Gonna scrape the fish and look at it on a slide?

 

[Punkymom]

I've read/heard that you can get used ones and they're just as good. Try ebay, craigslist, local pawn shops, etc. before you fork out $200! You could probably spend around $50 or so. Maybe less, but IDK bc I've never bought one!

 

[MisticX]

Gonna scrape the fish and look at it on a slide?

erm... yeah? that is the basic ideea

or even smarter, see what simptoms the fish that died had, see what disease it had (called autopsy ... or in this case is it fishopsy??) and when diseases re-appear ... treat them straight to the target

I've read/heard that you can get used ones and they're just as good. Try ebay, craigslist, local pawn shops, etc. before you fork out $200! You could probably spend around $50 or so. Maybe less, but IDK bc I've never bought one!

if someone would have a link, i guess i can try it.
ebayed before posting this for about 2 hrs and didn't find anything BUT new.

 

[Stat]

I am not sure a microscope would do you any good. For the light to shine through the slide and specimen it would half to be razor thin and then you would be looking at it at the cellular level. It takes alot of training and years of clincal experience to really know what your looking at. If you would like to do an autopsy on your dead fish i recomend a HI powered magnifing glass making it 10x the size not the 100x,200x 400x that even a small microscope would give you.

 

[jsoong]

A microscope may help in parasite identification. That is assuming that you have fish big enough to do body scrapes, etc.

However, to actually see anything, you need a pretty good microscope. The "toy" ones won't have enough resolution to show much. <It is not the "power" that is inadequate, but the optics. Cheap scopes have a lot of distortions & most things come out as a blur.> And of course, you need some experience to do wet mount, & maybe staining, etc. <A first year university Microbiology course will help!>

Getting a scope will be educational & interesting, but don't expect good clinical diagnosis without training.

 

[newfound77951]

I also don't think it would be worth it. how many sick fish do you have?? Microscopes vary a lot with price, a cheapo one would probably not be worth the money as the optics will be terrible. You'll also need slides, coverslips, stains etc to see things properly.