Aerobic heterotrophic bacterial populations of sewage and activated sludge. II. Method of characterization of activated sludge bacteria.

The replica-plating technique and Lochhead's nutritional method were combined in exploratory experiments to test their feasibility as useful means for characterizing the aerobic heterotrophic flora of activated sludge and to minimize the burdensome process of isolation, purification, and testing of isolates. In the test run, the method was about 86% reliable at the 0.05 level of significance. About 40% of the total number of bacteria able to grow on an aqueous extract of activated sludge did not grow on media containing glucose, amino acids, growth factors, and inorganic salts. The requirement for activated sludge extract suggested the existence of a requirement for unidentified nutrients contained in the activated sludge extract.