[xosweetie]

Does anyone know any type of bacteria that exist in all bodies of waters (streams, lakes, swamps, oceans) and can be easily collected by just a swab onto a petri dish? I'm trying to find a bacteria found in water, that can grow in a simple classroom petri dish, and is fairly easy to research and work with (since this is a highschool project)

Please help!!!

[nymph]

From what I remember I think you need agar plates and not just empty petri dishes.
This sounds like microbiology stuff-- are you sure you need bacteria ?
Cuz aseptic techniques, sterilization, etc involved in the process to make sure you only have the bacteria you're researching and not other stuff

[xosweetie]

From what I remember I think you need agar plates and not just empty petri dishes.
This sounds like microbiology stuff-- are you sure you need bacteria ?
Cuz aseptic techniques, sterilization, etc involved in the process to make sure you only have the bacteria you're researching and not other stuff

yeah i haev the auger. lol.
I'm tryign to see if bacteria is linked with salt present.
So if there's more salt in water, is there less or more bacteria? And what is this type of bacteria. It has to be fairly simple with not a bunch fo variables.

[nymph]

Yeah salt is definitely a selective ingredient that allows certain bacteria to grow and not others. Gram positive cocci grow better than Gram negative rod bacteria in an environment with high salt concentration. I worked with the bacteria Escherichia coli for my Microbiology class and I can tell you that E. coli won't grow in a high salt concentration environment. There were lots of tests done in order to identify the bacteria so I'm not sure how you're gonna go about identifying your bacteria, assuming you have limited resources.
Bacteria are complicated organisms so it won't be simple to work with (that is if you want a good experiment)

[xosweetie]

wow you know so much! What if i test it with algae? i can use a microscope, i thought algae had a distinctive look.

[nymph]

Yeah I guess identifying algae would be more simple than identifying bacteria but I don't know much about that.
Algae are photoautotrophic though - they can use light, carbon dioxide, water to grow so I'm not sure how the salt would affect that

[xosweetie]

Thanks! I actually researched more and apparently a lot of algae data is hard to find because not many people can record it accurately.