At 01:51 PM 06/24/2000 -0400, Valleygal@aol.com wrote:
>Is this true? 
>Does this include water in the waterbath too - if one were to use tap water 
>in the H2Obath?? 
>One lab where I do per diem work uses hot tap water.
>Andi

Andi,
I use boiled DI water for my waterbath.  The ions in tap water can wreck
havock with special stains, IHC, tissue adherance and who knows what all
else.  I fill an erlenmyer flask with approx 2 liters of DI water and boil
for 20 minutes (start the timer as soon as I see it begin to boil).  This
brings the volume down to approx 1800 mL... just the right volume for my
waterbath. The flask is capped with aluminum foil.  This does two things:
1) boiling drives off gasses that form bubbles in the waterbath and 2)
sterilzes the water.  I boil water for the next day's use.  I boil water on
Fridays, but the gasses are pretty much returned by Monday... it's just a
habit and makes it convenient for Monday morning to have a flask of DI
water to make my water bath with.

Connie McManus