slime moulds need reviving...

[Tim Grabham]

I recently received two nice and healthy petri dishes of Physarum from the USA to work with, but after a few days, and almost overnight, they changed from lively succulent plasmodium specimens to sclerotium, and have been totally static for days. I have rehoused parts of them in fresh agar filled petri dishes but they are also inactive. I even added a drop of purified water to see if they were in need of rehydration, but still no change. I am rather traumatised that I have not looked after them well and wondered if anyone had any tips to get them back to a plasmodial state? many thanks Tim.