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InvisibleDoomhammer
EmancipateYourselves fromMental Slavery

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Re: black caps, poor pinning, sickly, help! [Re: Sillicybin]
    #7731293 - 12/07/07 11:42 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Here is an update. I had 3 cakes and 1 casing.

-I took 1 cake that had pinned, but didn't grow more then a couple cm and dunked for 18 hours. Then roll in moist verm and also double-end case. Note, it felt VERY dry before dunking. I don't remember if this is normal. It is sitting on perlite (don't have enough saucers yet).

- I took a second cake, the one with the drooping fruit, and just double-end case with moist verm and placed on a tupperware lid with water in it, which it soaked up soon, so I put more on later.

- 3rd cake, with fruits on top. put moist verm on the bottome and sortof on the sides, but not a roll per se. Placed on perlite.

-Then I misted the whole chamber from a few feet away, including the casing.

-Also, in addition to running the air pump, I'm fanning 3x/day.

I will post again to show how it turns out.


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InvisibleDoomhammer
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Re: black caps, poor pinning, sickly, help! [Re: Doomhammer]
    #7731335 - 12/07/07 11:57 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

This post is to respond to the points made since my last post yesterday.

-Bruised cakes: For one of them (one with the fruits on top) some of the bruising was caused by my not so bright friend who knocked one over with the chamber cover when he was opening it... guess I know who won't be helping out next time around. The other ones no apparent cause, other than veda_sticks and sillypsybin's note that it is a sign of being over dried. It would not have been caused by direct spraying, since i did not spray them from before this.

-black caps a sign of waterlogging? fastfred, you may have something, see my next post. Although the outside of the cakes felt so dry.

-the hygrometer and temp gauge is a $20 digital device from Petco, made by 'Fluker's'. Seems to at least be accurate on temp, but I do question its accuracy on humidity, but i have no way to know for sure. Sometimes when I fan I see the humidity drop way down which says to me it's working somewhat.

-these cakes were never dunked prior to this discussion

-I'm going to have to check the perlite. But I thought I was watching out for it, and I've done it successfully before. Earlier in this setup I had an airpump blowing through a tupperware with water. Maybe this upset the balance?


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OfflineThe shroomy 1
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Re: black caps, poor pinning, sickly, help! [Re: Sillicybin]
    #7731371 - 12/08/07 12:07 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

The type of bruising that I see is not caused by rough handling. It seems like even the pins are bruising. That in my experience is happening because of lack of humidity. I would question the reading of the hygrometer. Take it out for an hour or so then replace. Location of the hygrometer sensor is important too. Amount of Fresh air exchange at this point in the cakes development, (too little), would cause thin elongated stems and probably contamination. By the way, those are awesome pictures! Makes you really look to see symptoms of what might be going on. I personally didn't see perlite anywhere except that little bit at the corner, so I can't say anything about your fruiting chamber. Can you give us a picture of the cakes sitting in the fruiting chamber the way they would be on a day to day basis? That might shed some light on other possibilities.


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InvisibleDoomhammer
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Re: black caps, poor pinning, sickly, help! [Re: Doomhammer]
    #7731422 - 12/08/07 12:21 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

I'm going to write one more post this morning with a bit of history, to see if it helps to understand what is going on here.

- Sterilization. Used a new pressure cooker for about 7 jars, which had a faulty regulator, and steam vented through the rubber gasket as a safety mechanism. Some jars got waterlogged (tin foil not on tight enough maybe) and these were tossed. Others did not seem too bad so I inoculated. In retrospect maybe the water content was altered. The rest were done in pots and seemed fine.

-Colonization. The jars took VERY long to colonize, and I know it was in the right conditions (temp, no light). Makes me suspect a weak strain. Some took MUCH longer than others. I suspected these were more waterlogged. but they were still colonizing, so I thought what the hey. inoculation was early Oct. Birthed mid-november.

-Fruiting Chamber.
It started out like this:

See the air pump comes right down into a tupperware of water and has a shot glass on top to hold it down. I switched this because of the slow growth. I thought fresh air was not getting to all the cakes and casing, also after one day about 3/4 cup or a cup in the tupperware would be nearly gone. Seemed to be messing up the amount of water in the chamber. Also the cakes looked wet. Like this:

Although slow growing you can clearly see they are not black aborted pinheads.

So beginning of december I changed it to this setup:

Note two things. The air hose got changed for a longer one and I routed it along the top to be pointing diagonally at the far wall. This is to create what I would believe to be a complete airflow. I got the idea from fig. 74 on p. 71 on Stamets Mushroom Cultivator. Also you see that larger tupperware in the 'upper-left'? I was filling that with hot water and covering the chamber with blankets to raise the temp. Generally raised the temp sensor to 78, but did see as high as 83.


Well I hope these new efforts work.

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InvisibleDoomhammer
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Re: black caps, poor pinning, sickly, help! [Re: Doomhammer]
    #7731436 - 12/08/07 12:25 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

oh yeah forgot to mention that the blackening seemed to have started just this last week. I had to cover with blankets for 2 days straight. left the air pump on


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Edited by Doomhammer (12/09/07 02:30 PM)

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InvisibleDoomhammer
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Re: black caps, poor pinning, sickly, help! [Re: Doomhammer]
    #7736890 - 12/09/07 02:24 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Update - please share your advice and opinions


Check it out, it seems like one fruit may be recovering! There is a hint of brown at the edges there! Less exciting is that the smaller pins seem to have lost their healthy brown hue. But hopefully this means my friends cat is doing something right.


My friends cat decided to get rid of that drooping fruit. He figured old droopy was probably putting a lot of stress on the rest of the cake and keeping his smaller friends from reaching their potential. Speaking of the smaller ones, they look to have grown, but also have unhealthy looking black caps.



Dunked and rolled cake. Looks like it's doing so-so. What does your cat think?



Here is the new setup. Bought a submersible fishtank heater and set it to 80 in that tupperware at the upper left. The temp gauge is reading around 74 most of the time. Most of the time the terrarium is set near the heat source for the room along the right hand side (near the casing). Also scratched the casing and 2 of the cakes (cakes were scratched lightly). Bought a better air pump, but still fanning for now, because my friends cat knows that works. I want to move to the pump eventually, it has a controllable valve, hooked to a T valve, one tube goes to a 6" airstone buried in the wet perlite, it also is controllable (see the green valve?), the other end is going to a 1" airstone set near the casing (later I may turn this on to try and reduce the humidity around the casing?)

Also suspected too much moisture in the perlite. I threw out some of the perlite and replaced with dry perlite (and then some), mixing in with the rest of the perlite.

Oh, I'm also misting with one of those fine reptile misters 1x/ day, a little heavier on the casing.

Anyway, let me know if you think there is anything really wrong here.


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Edited by Doomhammer (12/09/07 02:31 PM)

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OfflineNibin
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Re: black caps, poor pinning, sickly, help! [Re: Doomhammer]
    #7737561 - 12/09/07 05:55 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Am I the only one that thinks those cakes look disgusting and contaminated?


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OfflineSubstance D
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Re: black caps, poor pinning, sickly, help! [Re: Nibin]
    #7737612 - 12/09/07 06:11 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

Nibin said:
Am I the only one that thinks those cakes look disgusting and contaminated?


that what i was thinking but im a newbie


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Offlineewikk055
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Re: black caps, poor pinning, sickly, help! [Re: Substance D]
    #7737834 - 12/09/07 07:04 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

your cakes are gnarly man.  :stinkyshroom:


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InvisibleGlacier Creek
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Re: black caps, poor pinning, sickly, help! [Re: ewikk055]
    #7738248 - 12/09/07 08:50 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Ooooh ooooh that smell,.....  Can't you smell that smell,..........

:spank:


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Invisibleblackfir
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Re: black caps, poor pinning, sickly, help! [Re: Nibin]
    #7738412 - 12/09/07 09:27 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

I'd also be concerned. It looks a bit slimy.


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InvisibleSillicybin
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Re: black caps, poor pinning, sickly, help! [Re: blackfir]
    #7739555 - 12/10/07 07:53 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Doomhammer, to me it looks like what happened is that you let humidity drop too low - far lower than the mycelium can handle and still live. Some of the outside mycelium dried up and died, and now you have some bacterial contamination on the dead mycelial tissue.



This picture right here shows two possibilities - good FAE followed by complete air starvation, or humidity being too low. You've got good growth to begin with (evident by the fat stem) but the stem now tapers and becomes more narrow. Pins should never get narrower as they grow - they should only increase size with time. If the stems become skinnier as they grow, there is a problem - usually lack of water/humidity. It can also be a lack of nutrients (cakes/casings that become spent while flushing and run out of nutes will do this.)

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InvisibleDoomhammer
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Re: black caps, poor pinning, sickly, help! [Re: Sillicybin] * 1
    #7741568 - 12/10/07 04:50 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

damn it all to hell.... that's like telling a mother her newborn baby is ugly as a dog! But I appreciate your honesty. I don't know how I fucked it up so bad, considering I've done so much better years ago. Well I hope my casing does alright, but it's in the same chamber. 

So you're saying the dead mycelium is the bluing on the cakes? I'm not seeing the contamination (aside from the blackish caps, but I don't know for sure). Those white spots are where I just misted. Fine water droplets. They don't smell odd. I agree though, its not pretty.

Silli, I think you are right. Probably a little bit of both. I wasn't fanning at all to begin with because I thought the pump was doing a good job. The perlite was a no-brainer as I had done it half a dozen times before. At that point, I think things were OK because the pump output was going through a container right next to the cakes (my first set-up pic). In retrospect, they were getting good FAE. But I moved it because 1) I noticed the cakes were always covered in water droplets (also the jar of water was practically empty after 24 hours, I didn't like all that extra moisture getting into my setup) and 2) the pins were growing sooo slow (but o/w healthy). I thought this was a combo of too low temp (from too much outside air) and too much moisture.

So I moved it to the setup in the second setup pic (with the air tube taped along the top) because that's what I saw in the Stamets book. Well I guess I interpreted the Stamets book wrong. The air must not have been getting to the cakes, plus now the air was not passed through water first so it was not helping humidity. In ADDITION to that the perlite was probably now no longer functional because all the water that had been passed into the air from the pump in the jar now settled on the perlite. Too much water in the perlite caused it to become ineffective for humidity as well! Plus my damn hygrometer gave me a false sense of confidence.

Then when I had to cover it in these conditions it stayed that way for two days with no light. and that was enough to make everyone at the shroomery laugh at me :frown:.

Well I hope somebody else learns from my mistakes.

I maintain though that I also still think this is a weak strain.

Next time I'll try to emulate a PMP setup a little more. Luckily I've got some EQ's on the way.


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InvisibleDoomhammer
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Re: black caps, poor pinning, sickly, help! [Re: Doomhammer]
    #7741679 - 12/10/07 05:14 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Lets assume my casing is not totally fucked as my cakes seem to be. Any suggestions as to how best to get it to recover? I could put it back in my incubation chamber at 84 degrees or so... let the mycelial network strengthen up a bit after scratching?


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OfflineNibin
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Re: black caps, poor pinning, sickly, help! [Re: Doomhammer]
    #7741708 - 12/10/07 05:21 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)



This one looks slimy not even bruised. And gray more than blue.

Did you give it the q-tip test? Also what do they smell like?


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Offlineewikk055
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Re: black caps, poor pinning, sickly, help! [Re: Doomhammer]
    #7741730 - 12/10/07 05:25 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

I honestly don't know I've never had or tried to fix something that bad, just don't even think about eating any fruits you may/may not get from those cakes.

Post pictures of the casing so that everyone knows what your working with here.


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InvisibleDoomhammer
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Re: black caps, poor pinning, sickly, help! [Re: ewikk055]
    #7742345 - 12/10/07 07:23 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

OK, just gave it the q-tip test. Nothing that seems like contams to me. Took a dry q-tip, rubbed lightly on cake, which had been misted a few hours ago (so more or less dry). I rubbed it on the blue part on top of that one cake, on the side of the one Nibin said looked gray, lightly on the black cap of the biggest mushroom. Nothing. Then I wet the q-tip and repeated, pressing a little harder this time. The only thing that happened is when I rubbed harder on the blue stains on the top, they sortof peeled off the cake but didn't really rub onto the q-tip. If you can imagine peeling dead skin off your arm after a sunburn, it was kindof like that. Underneath was a much healthier looking white mycelium. But if it was contam I was expecting something that looks more like the texture of when you actually use a q-tip on your ear. I didn't see that.

Smell - They don't smell bad at all. However, they seem to have lost some of that 'fresh shroomy smell' right when you birth from the jar. It's still there, but its more faint.

Casing: see the pics below for the history of the casing with captions underneath



Cakes just before casing 11/19


Just after casing 10 minutes later


11/26, I had put it in a dark chamber under colonization conditions


11/29, looks more than 50% colonized, so I decided to birth. Maybe I was too impatient?


12/5, just as the cakes were starting to go south (sorry it's cropped, the focus of the original pic was the cakes.
This is the last pic before scratching



12/9, 1.5 days after scratching (look close at the casing). There is a lot of uncolonized peat there.


12/10 (today) macro image


Today, non-macro image. Not much different looking.


This is the 'gray' cake taken from another angle with better light. (today)


This is the other cake, taken 12/10 with my finger for reference. Does it look bigger than last time?

Thanks guys you all rock. Do you think I should put the casing back in the colonization chamber where it is warmer, darker and still pretty humid? I can also keep humidity up by spraying and using plastic wrap over the top. Or is too much change bad for the casing? It's already been in this environment for some time. I feel like I've already messed around with it so much. On the other hand I want whats best for my babies.

BTW the casing is 50/50 + (crushed oyster shell and lime) (low magnesium). I was a little unsure how moist the casing should be also. It seems to have shrunk in a little around the sides.

Edited by Doomhammer (12/10/07 07:27 PM)

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