ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

H. Al-Sheikh

1Department of Biology, College of Science, King Faisal University, Al-Hassa 31982, Saudi Arabia.
J. Pure Appl. Microbiol. 2014, 8(6):4385-4391
© The Author(s). 2014
Received: 19/04/2014 | Accepted: 04/12/2014 | Published: 31/12/2014
Abstract

Some of fungi can live in scarce food and called oligotrophes.  Water of household tanks provides a perfect environment especially those reservoirs that are not cleaned regularly.  In Al-Hassa, Saudi Arabia, the water enter from the municipal to the tanks in every home-based system.  There are two tanks in every home, the first one is inside the house on the ground floor, and the second is on the top surface of the building. A motor lifting water from the lower reservoir to the upper reservoir, which in turn distributes the water to each water inlet. In Saudi Arabia, there is no enough studies concerning fungi found in household tank water.  This research aims  to Shed light on the existence of a certain types of fungi in household water tanks in the city of Hofuf, Al-Hassa, Saudi Arabia.  Filamentous fungi were isolated from 15 of 15 (100%) samples, yeasts from 14 (93%) and both from 14 (93%) water samples. The mean number of colony-forming units of filamentous fungi was 20-57 and of yeasts 7-16. Prevailing species were Candida parapsilosis and Candida guilliermondii each isolated from 12 samples (80%), Phialophora verrucosa  from 11 samples (73.3%), each of Aspergillus niger, Candida tropicalis and Rhodotorula mucilaginosa from 10 samples (66.7%), Penicillium chrysogenum from 8 samples (53.3%), Sterile mycelium A from 7 samples (46.7%),  each of Cladosporium cladosporioides and Penicillium citrinum from 6 samples (40%), each of Mucor mucedo, Mucor mucedo and Penicillium nigricans from 5 samples (33.3%), Acremonium strictum from 4 samples (26.7%), each of Acremonium alabamensisAlternaria alternate, Stachybotrys chartarum and Sterile mycelium B from 3 samples (20%), and Sterile mycelium C from 2 samples (13.3%).

Keywords

Household water tanks, Filamentous fungi, Yeasts, Al-Hassa, Saudi Arabia

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© The Author(s) 2014. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.