Staining slides with Food dye? (Or any household item)

January 21, 2010 at 9:32 pm #12651

Participant

Hello!

I am trying to stain bacteria, and I started out using the Gram stain but I was using to much materials so I am trying to find stuff to stain bacteria that can be bought at a Grocery store or Walmart. If methylene blue would be a lot better then Brilliant Blue FCF then I could use that.
I think you could methylene blue at a Pet Store right? (Aquatics)

Thanks for everything!

January 22, 2010 at 12:51 am #96918

billw

Participant

Brilliant Blue FCF is FD&C Blue #1, so if you are in the US, you should be able to get it as food coloring at the grocery store. As you noted, Methylene Blue is available as a disease treatment for aquarium fish, but I am not certain if the concentration is useful for staining – I’ve never tried it.

Either should be suitable for non-differential staining of bacteria.

If you need to Gram Stain, I think you really need to use Crystal Violet counterstained with either Safranin or Fuschin, although I’ve never had to scrounge for materials, so I could be wrong. I can’t think of any commonly available preparations of these dyes.

January 22, 2010 at 2:03 am #96919

bhylak

Participant

Thanks… but I was wondering if it works well. So the methylene blue can be bought at walamart. And which would would work better?

January 22, 2010 at 12:32 pm #96933

jwalin

Participant

/:quote
If you need to Gram Stain, I think you really need to use Crystal Violet counterstained with either Safranin or Fuschin,
quote:/:

do that
that’s more easier. and it works well

January 23, 2010 at 2:19 am #96957

bhylak

Participant

Well, I need to be able to buy the stuff at Walmart! 🙂 I don’t think that is available at Walmart.
That is my whole theme. Not enough time to order it online. I ttried Gram Staining with Crystal Violet and Safrain but I ran out of supplies! 🙁

January 25, 2010 at 11:28 pm #97009

bhylak

Participant

I checked 3 pet stores and still none had methylene blue…

Anything else?

January 29, 2010 at 2:51 pm #97080

mkwaje

Participant

Hmm.. If you ae going to Gram stain, you should stick to the original dyes and exact times. Otherwise, your results wouldn’t be conclusive. If you only want to view the microorganisms, you can try different stains. Some of my students used soy sauce though I have never seen their slides. You can do negative staining using Nigrosin or India Ink. It makes cool "starlight images". Your bacteria should be unstained while the background is violet/dark gray/black background. One thing, please be careful in handling bacteria. Practice aseptic techniques and may I ask if you are doing this at home because you are asking to buy products from WalMart not Merck or any other Lab supplier. Exercise extreme care at home.

If you really want a good alternative, buy a gram stain kit for about $18.95. Here is the website:
http://www.hometrainingtools.com/produc … 1264776542
I’m pretty sure there are lots of alternatives besides using soy sauce like what my students did.

August 8, 2011 at 3:08 pm #105872

Paul1987

Participant

Gram-indeterminate bacteria do not respond to Gram staining and, therefore, cannot be determined as either Gram-positive or Gram-negative. 🙂

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