Hi everybody!
I m culturing gametophytes from Laminariales (brown algae) in 1 L flask using PES medium. However, when I scale up these gametophytes from 500 ml to 1 L flask, in some of them unicellular green algae start to form. I already check my cultures in petri dishes and 500 ml and there is no evidence of green algae contamination. Any advice for avoid this kind of contamination?
Many thanks!
One way could be: when you scale up the culture water, do not use natural seawater. Instead, take solar salt in the form of pebble size (not in powder form), wash them superficially with distilled water (let some of the solar salt be lost in the process), & then disslove the salt in distilled water so as to make up your required salinity, & then use this "sea water: for scaling up.
The idea is: spores of green algae being not inside the salt crystal they may be on them, which gets washed out with distilled water.
A precaution to be taken here is: place the solar salt "pebbles" in a tall glass cylinder & then add distilled water. The spores being lighter than seawater, they would float on top & by a plastic tube siphon, remove the water starting from the surface of water, so that the spores are all decanted out. This process may be done 2 -3 times to be sure of its removal.
Thanks Chandravadan Trivedi. I will follow ur advice! Many thanks!!!!!
- I agree is a mother of scale of your culture system. If you are at large scales, You should treat the evaporation of water and manage or treat the air in your culture room.
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