The dI water in our building has been causing some serious problems. We've been trying to get our maintenance guy on this for eons.
For awhile, it was contaminated with something that made it cloudy, like diluted milk (i'd say a 1:10 dilution). We took a 2L sample and evaporated off the water. What was left .... nearly 5 grams of crud!
Occasionally, there will be little black flecks in the dI water first thing in the morning.
I poured some agar plates the other day and when I came in the next morning they had not yet set up. A few of them were completely liquid. I asked my P.I. for some suggestions as to what might prevent agar from solidifying. She suggested I check the pH. I measured them at a pH of about 4.5 (we would rather they be around 7). I suspected the dI water right away. I measured the dI water at 2.3! 2.3! I've since measured samples from throughout the building and its all the same.
I read somewhere on-line that reading the pH of dI water with a probe is somewhat unreliable and that prolonged exposure can even damage the probe. Just to be sure I wasn't going insane (or miscalibrating my pH probe) I whipped out some litmus paper. Nothing wrong with the probe. This may explain why our water baths have been rusting.
We're preparing to send out some samples to be analyzed. In the meantime, does anyone have any clue what on earth could be causing this!?
