I need to identify what organisms are in the biofilm of our municipal
water lines. Is there any particular sampling techniques I should
use? I was planning on just scraping the pipes' walls with a sterile
spatula and dropping a chunk of the ooze into a sterile container.
Will this be enough to make sure I can identify it, or should I place
it onto a nutrient agar on site, without waiting to get back to the
lab?
What do I do once I get to the lab? I don't know where to start. All
I can think of, off the top of my head, is to gram stain the stuff and
examine morphology. And maintain a culture of it on nutrient agar.
I would greatly appreciate any comments or suggestions.
Thanks,
Jen
doublehelix at poboxes.com
