I had gotten good results at first, but to my misfortune, I left the plates too long in the incubator and ended up drying up the media.
I pretty much should've known better, but I guess this is one way to learn.
That led me to finally take the correct precautions and do another set, which ended up giving me very lovely isolated colonies.
I decided to wait out the next procedure, which is to gram stain the bacteria so that I could identify if E. coli was a Gram-negative or a Gram-positive bacteria, and also determine the type of morphology it had. This is usually is determined by first, identifying under a microscope whether the bacteria is in pink color or a dark purple. Then we observe and determine if the bacteria has a rod, sphere, or spiral shape that will eventually help us determine the name for this bacteria.
I hope to get good, detailed pictures of this so that I can have a nice reference and visual image I can look back to.
Below are some pictures of one of the Petri dishes I completely ruined, and one that I did correctly.
I remember doing the unknown bacteria project, i had a malfunction as well. Apparently, I didn’t seal my container well enough or I left them open for to long when spreading the bacteria. So, while it was incubating, I ended up growing larva on top of one of my samples which was the most disturbing thing I’ve seen.
ReplyDeleteThat okay mistakes are what build us and help us learn! At least now you know not to keep them in the incubator for so long, without this error, you would've never known. Also, how do you feel working with bacteria like E. coli? Is this something you've tried already, or is it something new? I have never worked with experiments like this, but it is good to be informed!
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