H2O News

Colilert®-18/Quanti-Tray® method lets laboratories manage every aspect of water quality

The U.S. EPA's regulatory focus continues to shift from beyond drinking-water monitoring to a more holistic approach to improving quality throughout the water cycle. IDEXX's Colilert-18/Quanti-Tray method can help testing laboratories by providing easy, rapid and accurate results for coliforms and E. coli in all types of water. Colilert-18 and Quanti-Tray are U.S. EPA-approved for testing drinking water and ambient water, and the method is currently proposed for wastewater approval.

Colilert-18 Family of Products
With an 18-hour time to result, Colilert-18 is the fastest EPA-approved method for detecting coliforms and E. coli. An 18-hour result means that samples run in the afternoon can be read first thing the following morning. This improves the workflow of the lab because the recording of results, resampling and paperwork are completed before the next round of afternoon samples arrives. In addition, samples run on Friday afternoon can be read early Saturday morning, leaving the rest of the weekend free.

H2O Fact

Colilert-18, when used in Quanti-Tray or Quanti-Tray/2000, gives a quantitative result for coliforms and E. coli without the need for any pre-warming steps.

Colilert-18 can also be used to detect E. coli in marine water. First dilute the sample by a minimum of 1:10 in sterile water, and then use Colilert-18 in combination with either Quanti-Tray or Quanti-Tray/2000 to enumerate E. coli.

At one large public health laboratory in the western U.S., the lab manager likes the sensitivity and specificity of Colilert-18. He has compared multiple methods and in his view, Colilert-18 is the most accurate method available. "I view my job as protecting public health. If a water sample has coliforms or E. coli in it, I want to use the best method possible to find them," he says. The lab performs tests on drinking water, river-monitoring projects and wastewater. The lab manager welcomes the regulatory shift to E. coli as a wastewater indicator, since it will promote testing consistency throughout the water cycle. "Runoff in one place can become part of another town's source water. We should be testing for the same indicators with the same methods," he said.

IDEXX Launches Quanti-Disc®

IDEXX has launched Quanti-Disc®, a groundbreaking new method for testing Heterotrophic Plate Count (HPC) in water. This extremely easy, rapid method produces results that correlate with the Pour-Plate Method using Yeast Extract Agar medium. Used to monitor heterotrophic bacteria in water, Quanti-Disc is a ready-to-use test designed to streamline laboratory workflow.

TECH TIP

The Quanti-Tray Sealer has been improved! Now both of the rubber inserts used to seal Quanti-Tray and Quanti-Tray/2000 are included with every purchase of the Quanti-Tray Sealer.

Quanti-Disc The Quanti-Disc method eliminates the need for agar preparation, auto pourers, glassware and autoclaves. Running a Quanti-Disc device involves just three steps, pipetting, incubation and reading, taking less than 15 seconds of hands-on time.
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