Know What's Living
in Your Facility.
Evaluating facility hygiene is no small task — particularly when you have colonies of animals at stake. Quip Laboratories' Environmental Monitoring & Lab Services give you objective, validated insight into surface contamination, water quality, and pathogen identity, so you know exactly how your sanitation programs are performing and how to improve them.
The right tools to measure what matters in your facility.
Effective environmental monitoring uses multiple complementary approaches — rapid screening tools to verify cleaning in real time, and culture-based methods to quantify and identify the organisms present. Quip Laboratories provides both, along with the laboratory infrastructure to take identification further than a simple colony count when your situation calls for it.
ATP Surface Sampling — Rapid Cleaning Verification
After cleaning, the amount of ATP (adenosine triphosphate) remaining on a surface is a direct indicator of how much organic matter is left behind. Because every living and recently living cell contains ATP, a high reading signals inadequate cleaning — even when a surface looks visually clean. Results are available instantly using the AccuPoint Advanced Next Generation ATP monitoring system, making it an ideal in-line quality check to confirm your cleaning protocols are performing correctly before applying a disinfectant that depends on a clean substrate for maximum efficacy.
D/E Neutralizing Microbial Contact Plates — Surface Contamination Assessment
Microbial contact plates assess the level of microbiological contamination present on surfaces before and after sanitation events. Our D/E Neutralizing contact plates use a specialized agar formulation designed to neutralize a broad spectrum of residual disinfectants that might otherwise suppress microbial recovery and give falsely low counts. The formulation neutralizes mercurial compounds (sodium thioglycollate), iodine and chlorine (sodium thiosulfate), formaldehyde and glutaraldehyde (sodium bisulfite), quaternary ammonium compounds (lecithin), and phenols and hexachlorophene (Polysorbate 80) — making it appropriate for surfaces treated with the wide range of chemistries used in research facilities.
Microbiological Water Sampling
Water quality is a critical and frequently overlooked component of vivarium facility hygiene. Contaminated water is a direct route of pathogen exposure to research animals, and changes in microbial load at different points in your water distribution system can indicate equipment failure, biofilm development, or treatment gaps. Microbiological water sampling is available as a standalone service or as part of a PurityGard service contract.
Typical Water Sampling Sites
Samples are collected from one or more of the following locations depending on your facility's distribution system and risk profile:
- Port on Bulk Tank — the source of treated water entering your distribution system
- Point of Dispensing — the bottle filler or pouch filler where animals receive water
- Automated dispensing system sites — typically includes the farthest point from the dosing source, by mutual agreement
- Source / raw water — baseline input water before any treatment or conditioning
We offer three service formats depending on your facility's experience level, available resources, and need for third-party validation. All three can be purchased standalone or rolled into a QuipDecon service contract to avoid additional costs.
- We supply AccuPoint Advanced Next Generation ATP monitoring equipment and swabs — your staff runs tests independently after training
- Prefer hands-off? We can come to your facility and perform ATP testing on your behalf
- Quantifies residual organic matter on surfaces after cleaning — confirms your sanitation program is working before disinfection is applied
- Tracks performance over time and flags problem areas for targeted retraining
- Your staff presses contact plates at your facility and ships to our lab
- We incubate, analyze, and report colony-forming unit (CFU) counts
- Results include targeted disinfection guidance
- MALDI-TOF or DNA Sequencing ID available as an add-on — no second sampling round needed
- Best for facilities with experienced sanitation staff
- Our staff travels to your facility and performs all sampling
- Full chain of custody — sampling through reporting is entirely external
- CFU count plus MALDI-TOF or DNA Sequencing identification included
- Documentation suitable for AAALAC, IACUC, and institutional review
- Recommended for facilities new to monitoring or those needing defensible external validation
Monitoring Tells You Where You Stand.
QuipDecon Gets You
Back to Zero.
Environmental monitoring identifies the problem. When contamination is confirmed, QuipDecon® — our validated professional decontamination service — handles the remediation. Our 3-step surface decontamination, aerosolized hydrogen peroxide treatment, and multi-stage ATP validation are built exclusively for vivarium, BSL-3, and laboratory animal care facilities. Monitoring and decontamination can be bundled into a single service contract, eliminating duplicate costs and ensuring both programs work as one coordinated system.
- ✓ 40 years serving biomedical research facilities exclusively
- ✓ Validated 3-step decontamination with ATP verification at each stage
- ✓ AAALAC-ready documentation and regulatory support
- ✓ Bundle with environmental monitoring for a single coordinated program
Frequently asked questions about environmental monitoring
Answers for vivarium managers, facility directors, and laboratory animal care professionals evaluating monitoring programs.
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ATP surface sampling measures the amount of organic matter remaining on a surface after cleaning. Because ATP is present in all living and recently living cells, the reading directly reflects how thoroughly a surface was cleaned. Results are available instantly, making ATP sampling an ideal real-time quality check to confirm your cleaning programs are working — before applying a disinfectant that depends on a clean surface for maximum efficacy. Even surfaces that look clean can carry enough residual organic load to significantly reduce disinfectant performance.
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D/E Neutralizing Microbial Contact Plates assess the microbiological contamination of surfaces in research and vivarium environments. The D/E Neutralizing Agar formulation contains multiple agents to neutralize residual disinfectant chemistries that might otherwise suppress microbial recovery and produce artificially low counts. The agar neutralizes mercurial compounds, iodine and chlorine, formaldehyde and glutaraldehyde, quaternary ammonium compounds, phenols, and hexachlorophene — making it appropriate across the wide range of disinfectants used in modern research facilities.
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MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry allows us to identify bacteria, mold, and yeast to the species level from your contact plate samples — not just count colonies. This means a single sampling round gives you both a quantitative result (CFU count) and a specific identification of what organisms are present. The result is faster answers and more targeted disinfection guidance, without the added cost and delay of a second sampling submission when you need to know exactly what pathogen you're dealing with.
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Water sampling typically covers the port on the bulk tank (source of treated water), the point of dispensing such as a bottle filler or pouch filler, mutually agreed-upon sites for automated water dispensing systems (typically including the farthest point from the dosing source), and source or raw water. Sampling locations are tailored to each facility's distribution system design. Microbiological water monitoring is available as a standalone service or as part of a PurityGard service contract.
Ready to understand what's living in your facility?
Whether you need a simple ATP monitoring kit, a single-sample submission, or a fully managed CFU+ program with third-party validation, we'll help you identify the right approach for your facility's size, budget, and compliance requirements.
Call us: 1-800-424-2436
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