P. larvae germination in BAD medium assay

Still investigating what caused the mysterious globs to appear on my MYPGP agar and what it is. On 7-11-14 (24 hours ago) I incubated plate of MYPGP agar that hadn't been inoculated with anything into the 37C incubator. Today, that plate was examined and is seen below:

Clearly there is a contamination issue with my MYPGP agar plates. The exact same mysterious globules appeared on the plate and even some drying was observed. I have never had any problem with the previous two batches of MYPGP agar, nor have I ever had any contamination issues with my pouring method or that incubator in particular.

I checked the two streak plates of the mystery goop plated on an old MYPGP plate from a previous batch and LB agar. The plates have been incubating overnight at 37 and are seen below:

The mystery substance proliferated on both medias, but formed completely different colonies. Growth on the MYPGP agar produced similar colonies to what was struck on it (because they were both MYPGP). Growth on the LB produced white colonies that appeared almost dry on the agar. They appear to be a pure culture in both cases and they were both viewed under microscopy. In both cases, large amounts of rod shaped bacteria can were observed, a Gram stain was not performed, however they are most likely Gram negative due to some sort of contamination. 

Checked the initial drop plates where the contaminates were first identified and have since been transferred to the 37C 5%CO2. They are seen below:

 

The once very hydrated and goopy looking colonies are now dried out (albiet still somewhat goopy) once they had been transferred to the 5%CO2. I am not able to count the 10uL drops that were placed on the plates.

I am not sure how this contamination happened, but the remaining MYPGP agar from the batch will need to be disposed of and a new batch of plates created. Perhaps the flask used to pour the media was contaminated, or the plates/media were left open too long. Maybe the incubator isn't as clean as it should be? Maybe this batch of plates was poured thicker or thinner than usual? Not sure.

This entire experiment will need to be repeated using the new batch of MYPGP agar. I still have the dilutions created after this last attempt and I may repeat their blotting in an attempt to count CFU/mL. 

//EWW