Is there a fast colonies reader available?

Dear All;

in our laboratory we are doing the pour plate test method , and we are counting the clonies in the plates by normal enumeration , so what I am asking is how we can save the time while reading and counting is the an instrument can be used or can we insert the plate inside such as machine to give the exactly number of colonies? by this method we can save alot of time and can give an accurate result .

awaiting an advise...


hygienic

We've used one of these machines in the past. http://www.dwscienti....uk/acolyte.php
It was quite good but required a lot of time ot set up.

Des

Dear All;

in our laboratory we are doing the pour plate test method , and we are counting the clonies in the plates by normal enumeration , so what I am asking is how we can save the time while reading and counting is the an instrument can be used or can we insert the plate inside such as machine to give the exactly number of colonies? by this method we can save alot of time and can give an accurate result .

awaiting an advise...


hygienic

We've used one of these machines in the past. http://www.dwscienti....uk/acolyte.php
It was quite good but required a lot of time ot set up.

Des

Hi Des.

Did you find this quite reliable? I'm interested in these too, but would be concerned about reader picking up small particles etc too.

We used it mainly for water samples and with spiral plates so particles weren't really an issue.
I would suspect that at lower dilutions where you're likely to get particles you could run into problems alright.
AFAIK though you do should an option with the software to review each image and make a call on whether a colony has been counted or not.

(Whenever we tested samples that had particles that were visible in the agar we always put up a duplicate set of plates and stored them in a refrigerator so that bacteria didnt grow. They could then be compared ot the incubated plates as an aid to deciding what were particles and what were colonies)

Des

Hi Des.

Did you find this quite reliable? I'm interested in these too, but would be concerned about reader picking up small particles etc too.