I used to test well water for fecal coliforms and we held the Levine EMB
plates for only 24 hours. The organisms will grow in 18-24 hours. On the
small plate count dishes going more than 24 hours starts to dry out the
agar.
When we were doing Most Probable Number counts (MPN) in broth tubes we did
hold those for 48 hrs.
At any rate we followed the Standard Procedures book for water quality
testing.
--
John Gentile President, Rhode Island Apple Group
yjgent at cox.net RIAG Web page: www.wbwip.com/riag/
"I never make mistakes, I only have unexpected learning opportunities!"
> From: peter.thompson at ec.gc.ca (Pete)
> Organization: http://groups.google.com/> Newsgroups: bionet.microbiology
> Date: 13 Dec 2002 14:03:31 -0800
> Subject: Fecal Coliforms - Water Samples - Holding Times -
>> I'm looking for current research on how holding times (ie 6hrs, 8hrs,
> 24hrs, 30hrs) affects fecal coliform numbers obtained from marine
> water samples.
>> Any relevant recent information would be much appreciated.
>> Pete
