Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hey there!
For an upcoming science fair I am growing lactobacillus acidophilus, I have capsules and the correct nutrient growth plate, I have also been storing the plates in my oven with the lights on in a dark box. I opened the capsule ad dissolved it with some water but it did not work is there any other way to grow this/any advice for help on how to grow the bacteria, I don't have a ton of time left and not a lot of resources. I have MRS agar plates, and am using these capsules( https://www.amazon.com/Nutricost-Lactob ... 06Y1XXXG6/ ) i need to get to bacteria to grow and that is all after that it will be very easy for me.

Greetings,
Here are two things you could try.
Use distilled water to make a normal saline solution to suspend the bacteria in. Normal saline is 0.9% sodium chloride and you can make it easily by dissolving exactly 1/2 teaspoon of table salt in one cup of distilled water. Experiment on how much lactobacillus powder to use so you will have an idea how well it grows.

Another option is you could use a lactobacillus specific nutrient broth to essentially jump start your colony growth. Just open a capsule of lactobacillus and pour some of it into ~5 mL of nutrient broth in a sterile culture tube. Shake the tube gently to dissolve the material then put the culture tube in a warm (24-30 C, 75-86 F) dark place and check it after 24 hours. You should see a cloudiness in the broth that indicates bacterial growth. Then just pipet a drop of the culture onto a Petri dish and spread it evenly over the surface and incubate it the same way you have been. It could help to set up 3 or 4 tubes with 5 ml of broth in each and add different amounts of lactobacillus powder to find optimum amount of bacteria to transfer. Hope this helps!

Cheers