We had the same problem and were able to solve it by setting up a syringe pump with the tubing taped to the objective to slowly replace water as it evaporates. Maybe something like that could work?

Seeing a project published can easily make you forget about all the sleepless nights, frustrating days and the many failures along the way. We highlight some of this "invisible" part of our journey in a behind the paper blog post here: microbiologycommunity.nature.com/posts/more-t...

Simultaneous spatiotemporal transcriptomics and microscopy of Bacillus subtilis swarm development re... Spatiotemporal transcriptomes during multicellular development of Bacillus subtilis swarms reveal supra-generational cooperation.

Excited to see the main chapter of my PhD published! This was a huge team effort - the experimental setup alone took years to complete and none of it would have been possible without my colleagues Konstantin Neuhaus and Kazuki Nosho, as well as of course my supervisor Knut Drescher and many others!