Decontamination and prevention of a waterbath - (Nov/10/2008 )

Hi everybody,

I have to admit that I didn't have the courage to read the 88 pages to see if it did have a post.

It seems that the culprit of serie of contamination is our waterbath. We do have them regulary but at the time goes, the quicker they become infected.

What do you use for cleaning your waterbath and what do you use to delay any contamination?

Thanks for any answer.

We use "Amphyl" for all kinds if desinfections including cleaning the waterbath. Empty it, spray Amphyl, let it sit and then clean with EtOH.
A good alternative to prevent contaminations is labarmor (http://www.labarmor.com)

It not cheap but an alternative to water. We use it in one of our heat blocks and its really cool. I love it.

Sigma-Aldritch has a product called SigmaClean waterbath treatment, which is basically a detergent that you add small quantities of to your waterbaths, incubator water trays, and other places necessary to have standing water. It's not terribly expensive and does the job.

I clean ours with Virkon, let sit for 10 minutes, rinse out well and then dry. Finally spray with ethanol and then refill with distilled water. The biggest issue I have had is with keeping the lid clean, it was a huge source of contamination for a while. It pays to clean them pretty religiously. I do ours once a week for high usage (used every day, several times a day) and up to once a month for lower usage.

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