Mold in our incubator - How do I get rid of it? (Apr/06/2010 )

We have recently moved into a different TC room, which hadn't been used for a couple of years and thus, cleaning and maintenance had been neglected. We got one of the incubators in working condition. I cleaned it out 2x just to be sure there was no contamination, and cleaned and replaced the water bath. The problem is that although I can't see any fungus, I can smell it. When I open the door it smells like an old moldy mop. (Like mildewy/moldy, you know what I mean?) I had one of our TC ladies (who's been doing this for 25+ years) come look at it and she couldn't find where it was coming from either. I'm wondering if it's from the water jacket. Would I be able to smell it if it was coming from there? We filled the water jacket when we were restoring the incubator to usable condition, but did not empty the old water that was already in it. Is there any anti-fungal that could be added to the water jacket?

I haven't had any fungal contamination yet, but just want to be sure it doesn't happen in the future.

Thanks for any insight you have!

Definitely replace the water in the water jacket. Not sure what you used to clean out the incubator shelves, but I've had some good luck with a product called Sporicidin- and just use it on every available inch that you can reach.

Check with the manufacturer of the particular incubator to see if there anything you can add to the water-jacket. I know that they sometimes frown on that as additives can corrode the metal in the jacket-- but that may not be true with that particular one.

I'm sure you did this, but I'll mention it anyway, it'll be worthwhile to autoclave the shelves and even the water pans as well.

Hope that helps!

A little bit of copper metal added to the water jacket should help eliminate fungi.

Agree with all.

Additionally, we had a similar problem of re-curring mould and mouldy smell that we couldn't shift. We think it may have come from the CO2 piping (even though they are filtered but ya know ...... ).

We got a device called an EcoBox (http://www.amazon.com/EcoQuest-EQ-Ecobox/dp/B0019FR6BQ) which is designed for use in homes. After letting one of these run in the incubator overnight (with a press of the ozone generating "away" button) the incubator never got the mould again. We hit every incubator with the box once every 3 months or so now and never had a re-occurance of contamination or smells again.

Ozone sounds very reasonable to me. If you have cleaned everything with bleach and/or alcohol and autoclaved everything possible there should be no fungi surviving. But some of the volatile substances produced by fungi are very stable. These VOCs are eliminated by adding ozone. You can also rent these devices from companies which are specialised on renovating after water damage, this is probably cheaper than buying like suggested in one of the previous posts.

But be aware that the ozone will not kill fungal spores! We once tested this and 24h of high ozone did reduce the viable fungal spores in the air only by 10%.

good luck

michakt on Apr 6 2010, 08:39 PM said:

HPV....or hydrogen Peroxide Vapour

A couple of companies provide a service by which they come in and vapourise your Incubator/Class II Cabinet/TC Room. Alternatively you can purchase the vapourisors if you intend to do this on a regular basis. The advantage with this particular system is that unlike Formalehyde gas, research workers can still use the room for work while this process is taking place.
A couple of hints to reduce the contamination in the first place:


Change the water in the Incubator weekly.
Do not open Incubators doors for long periods.
ALWAYS SWAB IN AND OUT ANY TISSUE CULTURE FLASKS AND DISHES.......this removes media that can act to establish bugs in the first place.

DO NOT USE COPPER SULHATE SOLUTIONS.... this will attack your 304/316 grade stainless steel over time.


Hope this is useful

Kindest regards

Rhombus

michakt on Apr 6 2010, 12:39 PM said:

Add some copper sulphate in the water inside the incubator. that might help. Use autoclaved water ONLY

Sree80 on Apr 9 2010, 02:38 PM said:

As I said in my post, Copper Sulphate solution will ATTACK your Incubator stainless steel, causing damage. This is what we used to do 30 years ago, before the advent of high temperature decontamination cycles..... and it did not work then. Change the water in the Incubator once a week, use good aseptic technique and mould will not be a problem.
Some companies that manufacture CO2 Incubators inpregnate the stainless steel with copper Ions. They have used this as selling point i.e. to reduce fungal/mould contamination. They now are putting UV and high temperature decontamination cycles in their new style incubators ...with copper in their stainless......the point I am trying to make is that if copper worked....then why add UV and high temp.cycles?????????


Rhombus

Rhombus