DISCUSSION:

In this experiment, the practices involved was viable count of bacteria culture and serial dilution
and spreading on agar plates. The practice of viable count of bacteria culture, microbial
counting is useful in the basic sciences and is used to determine the number of bacteria present
for physiological or biochemical studies. For example, if one knows the number of bacteria
present in a culture then one can calculate the amount of protein or DNA that can be isolated
from that population. Food or water microbiologists do testing on food, milk or water for the
numbers of microbial pathogens to determine either if these products are safe for human
consumption or it can bring harm to the people who consume it.

The Mac Conkey agar is the selective and differential agar that means a bacterial growth
medium is selective, that means that it grows only certain types of microbes while inhibiting the
growth of others. Agar is considered a differential growth medium if, when specific microbes are
present, the medium or bacterial colonies themselves exhibit a colour change that provides
information about their identity. This Mac Conkey agar also able to help to differentiate lactose
fermenting gram negative rods from non-lactose fermenting gram negative rods.

The serial dilution technique is the stepwise dilution of a substance in solution and are
multiplicative. Each dilution will reduce the concentration of bacteria by a specific amount. The
steps taken is by doing a serial dilutions of an unknown concentration of bacteria in the original
solution. In this case we only did three (3) serial of dilutions. Each 3 solutions of dilution are then
spread on a Mac Conkey agar. The agar is then incubated for 24 hours. The next day, the
numbers of colony formed is counted on each plates. The plate 1 and plate 3 are classified as
too many to count (TMTC) because it is out of the range. Plate 2 have 296 colonies, which is
still inside the range. The number of colony formed is compared to the dilution factor. Then the
Colony Forming Unit (CFU) is counted by dividing the product of the dilution factor and the
volume of the plated diluted suspension to determine the number of bacteria per mL that were
present in the original solution.
Based on the experiment, the spread plate technique itself is involve using a sterilized spreader
with a smooth surface made of metal or glass to apply a small amount of bacteria suspended in
a solution over a plate. The plate needs to be dry and at room temperature so that the agar can
absorb the bacteria more readily. A successful spread plate will have a countable number of
isolated bacterial colonies evenly distributed on the plate. The viable count of bacteria culture
used the direct measurement and was not using the high-tech equipment to help in measuring
single colony. By using the Mac Conkey agar plates, the growth of colony shows perfectly
regarding the serial dilution technique, as plate 1 showed the highest numbers of colony despite
being TMTC followed by plate 2. However, plate 3 has more colonies then plate 2. So there
might be an error happened during the experiment such as the Mac Conkey agar plate being
contaminated by other bacteria in the air. The step that could be taken to avoid this error is not
to open the lid or cover of the Mac Conkey agar plates to big. Other error that might be the
reason is the wrong volume transferred of the solution from tube to tube.

CONCLUSION:

As conclusion, the number of colonies on the Mac Conkey agar is determined with plate 1 and 3
is too many to count (TMTC) while plate 2 is 296 colonies. Viable count of bacteria culture, the
nutrient broth will enhance all type of bacteria but depends on the dilution factor as theoretically
the plate 1 should have the highest number of colonies followed by plate 2 and 3. The Mac
Conkey agar is able to select and differentiate the favourite colony as the E.coli will form and
growth perfectly on the Mac Conkey agar.