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Heated your solution and you need to spin it back down? |
 When you heat your solution in a microtube, its a good idea to spin it down briefly to collect the vapour. However, make sure you cool it on ice first to make the water droplets congregate more. |
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Working with multi-well plates |
 Can you see what you're doing when you use multi-well plates?Its hard to see the wells clearly sometimes. The trick is to place bold colours such as black under your plate to help you see clearly. - You can put it on a dark surface. - You can put some black-taped cardboard underneath the plate. - Or you can label the lid, then put the lid underneath the plate (where it stacks under nicely) and you can see your wells as well as the labels behind them. What if you are working on ice though?Try to make your ice box black, or some other dark colour. - Try sticking black tape on the container underneath the ice. - Scribble over the styrofoam with a marker. - Dye the ice with a different colour such as food colouring.  And make sure you don't get the lids mixed up if you are using many multi-plates!Stack up your plates and draw a diagonal line down the sides of the plates. The lines on the correct lid and bottom pair will match up.
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Are you filtering your solution through a funnel? |
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Using a "fluted" filter paper allows the solution to pass through it quicker, as it has a higher surface area than just making a standard cone from the filter paper.  But does your fluted filter paper rip more easily when you pour liquid into it? Use two layers of fluted filter paper to reduce the chances of this happening. |
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 Cleaning your surfaces with alcohol? If 70% ethanol doesn't get the marks off, methanol will!
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Storing forceps and tweezers |
 Fine forceps or tweezers come with a protective plastic cap that goes over them when not in use. If you’ve lost the cap, use a pipette tip as a substitute so you don’t accidentally damage their fine tips …or poke yourself. |
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 When emptying liquid from a huge container (like a large schott bottle), it will splutter out of the bottle slowly. If you swirl the liquid around to create a vortex motion inside the bottle, liquid will drain faster. |
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 When ordering liquids that arrive in little vials and tubes... make sure you spin it down first when it arrives, to collect the little bits that got caught up into the thread! |
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 When making up a solution of chemicals like salts that
you will later autoclave, don’t bother stirring it as the autoclaving process
dissolves them into solution later.
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 To check for any gas leaks, such as if a valve is
leaking gas from its cylinder, rub some soapy water onto it and look for
bubbles.
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Don't lose samples from evaporation |
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When using a 96-well plate that needs to go into an incubator (such as for cell culture), it’s better to only use it's inner wells. The outer wells lose sample over
time in an incubator (and corner wells lose the most). Consider using a plate map like below, where you only use 60 wells at most, and
fill the outer wells with some liquid to buffer sample loss (e.g.
PBS) 
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When pipetting into a multi-well plate, don't get confused which well you're supposed to pipette into. This is easy to do if there are 96 wells! Label your plate on its lid as usual, but hold the plate lid underneath the your wells while
pipetting, so you can still see your labels from behind your wells – it’s easier to
judge which wells you’re supposed to look at! |
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The lid of a microtube should stretch open completely. But the more it gets used, the less the lid stretches open. To ensure aseptic technique, don’t use your thumb to fully open a microtube if the lid doesn’t fly open. Use plastic tube openers, or simply use your pipette tip to fully push the lid open.
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Avoid bubbles in your plates |
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Use reverse pipetting, especially for 96-well plates for assays so you won’t get bubbles into the well. This is particularly important for assays with a plate reader.  But if you do get bubbles, remove them easily in 1-2 mins by spinning the plate at 4-5000 rpm… unless you want to pop the bubbles individually!
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For microbalances, weigh boats could be replaced with folded tinfoil (but watch for static). Alternatively, try cup cake paper. |
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 Write on the tube, and then stick a clear label (or sticky tape) over it. This way your label won’t run (when sprayed with alcohol)! |
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