What kind of media is used to culture fungi?
The forms of media for fungi are very similar to that for bacteria. Media comes in solid, semisolid, and liquid forms. Agar is used to make the semisolid and solid forms of media. Agar slants are preferred over agar plates because the slants do not dry out as quickly as the plates and can accommodate the longer growing time for fungi. The potential for spore release into the environment is also less with slant tubes than with plates when the culture is entered. Special culture media is required for culturing fungi as they have different nutritional requirements than that of bacteria. They grow more slowly than bacteria, some taking over 4 weeks, compared to most bacteria, which take on average less than a week. Fungal specimens are frequently contaminated with bacterial flora so that overgrowth of bacteria is definitely a potential obstacle to developing any fungal culture for identification in the lab. Therefore, most media developed for fungal cultures contain antibiotics or similar
