Keep the slides in containers that cannot be penetrated by light or cover the containers will aluminium foil. The slides can be viewed as long as the gel or agarose are in good condition. Viewed the slides within a week is preferable.
I've found that the chromatin stays put in agarose, and that EtBr is a more or less non-reversible stain. Therefore, as long as you keep everything moist, cool and in the dark, you should be fine. Adding a preservative like 0.01% sodium azide will slow bacterial/fungal growth.
More than a couple weeks without an anti-fade reagent like VectaShield, and you may notice that the EtBr will photobleach while observing it due to oxygen penetration into the slides. You can get around this by keeping your excitation intensity very low (either with a neutral density filter and/or closing the reflected path aperture diaphragm) while looking for a nucleus to measure, and then increasing the intensity for capturing the image. This way all the fluorescence goes to the camera, rather than to your eye.
Hi.
In addition to the suggestions made by Fatimah, if for some reasons, you are unable to view your slides immediately or within a week, you can add a few drops (10ul) of EtBr onto the gel to make the image clearer when you are ready to view.
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