Hello everyone,
I am new to this so I will try to explain as best as I can and then maybe someone can help me. I have an issue here where my water has Iron bacteria. Nothing major, the water is clear but I wanted to experiment by adding little amounts of chlorine in the water to kill the bacteria. For this I will need a microscope to see the microscopic Iron bacteria lurking in the water. So I was wondering if a cheap microscope that goes from lets say 200X -1200X would do the trick for this kind of experiment.
Thanks everyone.
Can I see live or dead Iron bacteria in a kid microscope?
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TheExperimenter
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:06 pm
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apochronaut
- Posts: 6327
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Re: Can I see live or dead Iron bacteria in a kid microscope?
If you are talking about one of those smallish types about 10" tall, that had brands such as Tasco or Lafayette, or Edmund or Lumex on them, the answer is no. Those hobby or toy ones had an acceptable resolution cuttoff at around 400X but even at 400X you couldn't really see much of anything structural in/on small cells. A red blood cell is about 8 microns and they were just visible as vague blobs in one of those scopes. Your rust bacteria, if it is the fairly common Thiobacillus Ferroxydans is about 1 micron long.
There were some larger, R.M.S. student type scopes that also featured 1200X as a selling point and they produce a decent image at 600X. It would be possible with one of those but even if you could see them, you would not be able to determine if they were alive or dead or if they were in fact the bacteria you were looking for.
To see bacteria with sufficient clarity that you could make some determination regarding species or viability, requires a very high resolution microscope and some contrast enhancing technique such as phase contrast or staining. The type of stain that a species absorbs will help rule out certain other species but not necessarily rule in a specific species.
The best control for rust bacteria is to eliminate the underlying source of B.O.D. ( biological oxygen deprivation), which fosters their development. Is this a well?
There were some larger, R.M.S. student type scopes that also featured 1200X as a selling point and they produce a decent image at 600X. It would be possible with one of those but even if you could see them, you would not be able to determine if they were alive or dead or if they were in fact the bacteria you were looking for.
To see bacteria with sufficient clarity that you could make some determination regarding species or viability, requires a very high resolution microscope and some contrast enhancing technique such as phase contrast or staining. The type of stain that a species absorbs will help rule out certain other species but not necessarily rule in a specific species.
The best control for rust bacteria is to eliminate the underlying source of B.O.D. ( biological oxygen deprivation), which fosters their development. Is this a well?
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TheExperimenter
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:06 pm
Re: Can I see live or dead Iron bacteria in a kid microscope?
Ok thank you very much. I will work blindly in that case