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SkysTheLimit
A curious mind


Registered: 07/28/13
Posts: 168
Loc:
Last seen: 8 years, 4 months
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Experience with bunsen burner sterile tech? Post here!
#18914758 - 10/01/13 06:18 AM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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Hey just wandering, if ANYONE has attempted to use a bunsen burner / alcohol burner in place of a SAB/FH/GB to do their mycology work. Please include the details. 1.Was it successful? (what was the contamination rate) 2.Where did you learn your bunsen burner tech from? (Uni/college or picked it up yourself) 3.Bunsen burner or alcohol burner?
Personally, in the university labs, when we work with bacteria and mold, the bunsen burner is very successful at keeping contaminants out. However, I don't have a bunsen burner or alcohol lamp to determine the difference at home. My instructors say that the positioning of air flow caused by flame intensity + height is very important or the bunsen burner principle is rubbish.
Thanks for reading!
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MonkeyJesusFresco
am i suspended in agar?



Registered: 10/09/12
Posts: 3,306
Loc: South East USA
Last seen: 2 days, 4 hours
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Re: Experience with bunsen burner sterile tech? Post here! [Re: SkysTheLimit]
#18917316 - 10/01/13 05:11 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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I too, would like to know more.
-------------------- LAGM v 2.024 - endo cabendo
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g3n3h4x0r
Fungal Geneticist

Registered: 09/29/13
Posts: 73
Last seen: 8 years, 9 months
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Re: Experience with bunsen burner sterile tech? Post here! [Re: SkysTheLimit] 1
#18917722 - 10/01/13 06:45 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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I have an alcohol burner to sterilize everything with my grows and it works well. Just light them and go. Just make sure you have enough wick available and usually like <50% full just to minimize accidents.
I use Bunsen burners extensively in the genetics labs I work in to sterilize pretty much any tools and non-container glassware. I mostly learned just by using them in lab. There are just two knobs of sorts, depending on the burner, to control flow of gas and air. Basically:
1. Open air flow 75% 2. Turn on gas 50-75%, light, you'll get a 2-4" orange flame 3. Adjust air flow down until you get a pure blue flame. Depending on your application, you can adjust the gas flow to change the size of the blue flame. - the key is using a blue flame, as an orange flame will get oxidants on your tools. Not bad, but dirty (alcohol burners guarantee a blue flame). I work with systems where contaminants of any sort can demolish the experiment and contaminants are usually the last resort reason why an experiment might have went wrong. Even in my personal lab.
More importantly: You mention in place of the SAB/GB. You can't substitute these chambers. The use of a burner is to sterilize the needle in between jars or whatever you're injecting so you don't cross-contaminate in the case one jar has contaminants prior to injection, or you pick something out of the air.
The purpose of the chambers are to maintain still air. The theory is contaminants will settle eventually in these chambers and not be floating around in moving air creating the cheapest possible 'clean room.' You basically created the optimal conditions to grow your mushrooms/fungi, but mold is a fungi too! There are billions of spores around you as you speak, so minimizing these during spore injection (after sterilization of your medium) is extremely important.
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RogerRabbit
Bans for Pleasure


Registered: 03/26/03
Posts: 42,214
Loc: Seattle
Last seen: 11 months, 22 days
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Re: Experience with bunsen burner sterile tech? Post here! (moved) [Re: SkysTheLimit] 1
#18917754 - 10/01/13 06:53 PM (10 years, 4 months ago) |
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This thread was moved from Advanced Mycology.
Reason: Off topic in advanced mycology.
We flame sterilize tools, but the idea of using a flame for the air isn't sufficient for mycology where we keep cultures for several weeks at the very least. RR
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