Isolation frequency of microorganisms from marine sources was examined with different media and samples collected from the coastal area of Cheju Island. From sea water samples, about 1% of microorganisms from the total number of bacteria were recovered. Microorganisms were cultured at the much lower frequency of 10^-4 ?0^-6 from other marine sources, such as sediment, sponges and corals. The frequency of duplicated isolation was examined with 140 morphologically different colonies isolated on different media. Fourteen percent of them exhibited the same morphology on two different media. The duplication frequency of the isolates among three different media was 33%.