Identfying Bacteria From Pictures

[Cfoster]

Need some help people. Can somebody please Help me, there are some really cool samples, but I just don't have enough knowledge of what some of the bacteria species are. I can email all of the pics to whomever is interested in helping our local Health Department.

Please comment and ask questions if you wish!

[victor]

I think you can't determine the genus of these bacteria if you only have these two photos. At least you have to do several cultural, staining and biochemical tests to ensure which genus do these two bacteria belong...
have you provide the characterization processes on these two?

[canalon]

Knowing the kind of plate would definitely help.

But even selective media usually require confirmation after selection. If I assume that the top picture is from a plate of mFC-BCIG incubated at 44.5°C I would say that the blue colonies are likely to be E. coli. You could confirm that by checking for lactose fermentation and production of indole for example.

[victor]

wow, you are a plate master, Canalon :wow:

[canalon]

No I am simply a microbiologist...

[Cfoster]

Knowing the kind of plate would definitely help.

But even selective media usually require confirmation after selection. If I assume that the top picture is from a plate of mFC-BCIG incubated at 44.5°C I would say that the blue colonies are likely to be E. coli. You could confirm that by checking for lactose fermentation and production of indole for example.

The clear slide is ChromAgar if that helps.

[Cfoster]

I do have more slides if that will help!

[canalon]

Chromagar is a brand, they do multiple plates. I can see that it is their orientation medium so you will be able to identify the different colonies with that:
http://www.chromagar.com/products/orientation.html
Honestly with those kind of products that is all i can say.

Another thing. If ypu want to send more slide, each slide should tell what kind of plate it was. And there are quite a lot of colonies meaning that there is a lot of mixed bacteria in your sample, so you have to give an idea of what you plated too for any kind of help.

[Cfoster]

All the information I have is this:

the clear slides are ChromAgar plates
the red ones are BloodAgar (sheeps blood)

I hope that helps but understand if it's not enough. I can get more specfic answers if I had the right questions as well.

thank you all for your help, appreciate it

[Cfoster]

First Slide is of a mens shower room floor

Second one is Mens workout bench

Third one is an excercise ball

Hope that helps people!

thanks, all hypothesies are welcome here. I need to know what tests to pay for!

[canalon]

The link I gave you should help you identify on the Chromagar orientation plate. The 2 other includes some beta hemolytic colonies, likely S. aureus but that is all I can say.

As for asking what kind of test to ask, it depnds on what is your problem. Culturing bacteria is nice but there tons of the litle things everywhere and some are likely to be pathogenic. But if you have a specific problem then you should define the best strategy to solve it a priori, rather than a posteriori, because you will find plenty of bacteria but you will not be able to know which one are interesting.

[Cfoster]

Thanks for the help all!