Hi everybody, welcome to Intro to the Lab Bench from Addgene. My name is Raven Baxter,
and i am hosting this series, giving you all our best tips and tricks to
help you get started in the lab. Today's video is about water baths
So, essentially, a water bath is just exactly what it sounds like. It's a bath of water, and it's used
to warm up reagents or catalyze chemical reactions in the lab. There are many different types of
water baths that exist. Some water baths contain individual slots for heating of test tubes and
other water baths have a large pool of water that can be used to incubate larger tubes or bottles.
But, this protocol generally suits any water bath, so don't worry about what kind of water bath
you necessarily using at this point. There are some things that you will need to get started.
So, before you get started using the water bath, make sure that it is clean.
Use a 10% bleach solution or 70% ethanol solution to wipe down the interior walls of the water bath.
And, once you've made sure that it's nice and clean, you can then get started adding the water in.
There should be a fill line inside of the water bath, and it can be noted in
different ways it can say "fill," it can say "max," and that is the line that you should fill to.
If you're filling up an individual water bath, that has slots or tubes,
make sure that you remember that as you put the tubes in the slots, the water can
overflow. So, make sure you're filling it to a level where that's not happening.
The type of water that you use is especially important in maintaining proper care of your
water bath. Tap water has many dissolved salts in it, and if you put tap water in your water bath
as the water evaporates, the dissolved salt will leave a trace on the interior of the water bath.
So, make sure that you use distilled water to fill your water bath.
You can also use disinfectants to
make sure that the water in the water bath stays clean and free of bacteria and fungal organisms.
For directions on how to do that, make sure you follow the instructions
on the disinfectant bottle.
Now, you're ready to turn the water bath on.
Water baths often have a digital display to help you set the temperature. However, it's still good
practice to put in a thermometer as well, so that you can check and make sure that the water bath is
at your desired temperature. Oftentimes, water baths will have a place to set the thermometer in place.
We recommend that you set your water bath 30 minutes to an hour before you need it, so that
you can make sure that the temperature has stabilized, and also gives you time
to get other things ready and prevent a long wait. It really helps to cover the water bath.
You should label your items that are in the water bath.
Make sure that you use a water resistant marker, something like a permanent marker or sharpie,
to label your tubes. It's common practice to label the top of the tubes, so that you don't
have to reach into the water bath itself and manipulate the bottles to see what the label is.
Once your water bath is at your desired temperature, you're now ready to incubate
your reagents. So. you can remove the water bath cover and place your items inside. What you may
notice, is that your items will float. You can use a weight, or a floaty, to secure them in place.
Once you've secured your items in the water bath, you can place the cover back on, and make
sure that you note the time that you started your incubation, so that you can keep track of it, and
know when to remove your items from the water bath.
Thanks everyone for watching! Remember to
check out the other intro to the lab bench videos, and leave a comment down below. Let us know how you
liked the video, and what other things you would like to see.
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