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Ajaxx
Amateur Mycologist



Registered: 03/06/11
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questions for a large grow - substrate and monotub construction questions
#14204662 - 03/29/11 04:40 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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have a few questions im hoping you nice people can answer for me.
im 8 days into a rather large grow. 50 quart jars of golden teachers. all 50 are showing lots of nice, bright white mycelium. ive never done a grow this big, and ive never had all my jars successfully germinate. and theyre doing well for how far along they are. so im thinking about my near future, and what im going to do with the colonized goodies.
i think im going to go ahead and use large_dose's Bulk Pasteurizing Coir tek along with his version of the Ohmatic Monotub
so i guess my questions are:
1 - i believe ive heard that coffee and/or coir easily contaminate. ive also heard the opposite. which is true? anything i use will definitely be pasteurized.
2 - if i cant get my hands on the coffee, what can i substitute for it? just add gypsom? and how much per tub? im sure less is more.
3 - after i have the substrate and spawn mixed together, do i use polyfil to cover the holes at that point, or do i cover with tyvek until ready to fruit? this is probably a stupid question. i would think it would still need to breath during colonization. (so im guessing yes, use polyfil from the beginning of the monotub. just want to make sure)
4 - and after the tub is complete, i figure ill just stack the tubs up and throw a blanket over them to keep the temperature right. if covering with a blanket is a bad idea (like if it prevents the tubs from breathing) i have a heater i can set to about 80 degrees or so, so the closet the tubs are in is at a consistent temperature.
Edited by Ajaxx (03/29/11 04:45 PM)
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Psilocyentist
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Re: questions for a large grow - substrate and monotub construction questions [Re: Ajaxx]
#14204687 - 03/29/11 04:47 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Ajaxx said: have a few questions im hoping you nice people can answer for me.
im 8 days into a rather large grow. 50 quart jars of golden teachers. all 50 are showing lots of nice, bright white mycelium. ive never done a grow this big, and ive never had all my jars successfully germinate. and theyre doing well for how far along they are. so im thinking about my near future, and what im going to do with the colonized goodies.
i think im going to go ahead and use large_dose's Bulk Pasteurizing Coir tek along with his version of the Ohmatic Monotub
so i guess my question(s) is/are:
1 - i believe ive heard that coffee and/or coir easily contaminate. ive also heard the opposite. which is true? anything i use will definitely be pasteurized.
2 - if i cant get my hands on the coffee, what can i substitute for it? just add gypsom? and how much per tub? im sure less is more.
3 - after i have the substrate and spawn mixed together, do i use polyfil to cover the holes at that point, or do i cover with tyvek until ready to fruit? this is probably a stupid question. i would think it would still need to breath during colonization. (so im guessing yes, use polyfil from the beginning of the monotub. just want to make sure)
4 - and after the tub is complete, i figure ill just stack the tubs up and throw a blanket over them to keep the temperature right. if covering with a blanket is a bad idea (like if it prevents the tubs from breathing) i have a heater i can set to about 80 degrees or so, so the closet the tubs are in is at a consistent temperature.
1 - Coffe is very contam prone, coir is not.
2 - You can add gypsum with or without coffee, 5% by volume.
3 - Everyone used to say tape your holes or polyfil and place in a plastic bag. But lately there have been grows/evidence that colonizing with just polyfil will work fine.
4 - They don't need to be at 80, Pretty sure room temp will be fine. Remember, all that colonizing mycelium will be producing its own heat!
Good luck man, 50 quarts is a shitload! Stock up on coir and tubs now!
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Ajaxx
Amateur Mycologist



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Re: questions for a large grow - substrate and monotub construction questions [Re: Psilocyentist]
#14204717 - 03/29/11 04:53 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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will growing with just coir, vermiculite, and gypsum be good, or does using coffee make a noticeable difference?
i suppose ill go get some of starbucks' used coffee grounds, and try that in a few tubs. that way in case any of them contaminate i still have more tubs that are coffee, and hopefully contaminate free. i guess ill be running my own little experiment, so ill be able to answer my own question after the first harvest.
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afrosheen
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Re: questions for a large grow - substrate and monotub construction questions [Re: Ajaxx]
#14204733 - 03/29/11 04:56 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Lots of questions and not much detail. What are these 50 quart jars? BRF, WBS, rye?
So I'm gonna go ahead and guess it's some type of grain (which it should be in jars that large) and answer based on that.
1. Coffee is a contaminant magnet, coir is so naturally contam-resistant people used to use it for a casing layer a few years ago. You can leave it in an open bucket for weeks before anything even tries to grow on it. If you're going bulk, use coir+verm and this method.
2. Skip coffee but definitely add gypsum. If you use the tek shown above for coir+verm, you can add 5% by volume. I think someone said this is a cup (or more) of gypsum for that tek. You can also use gypsum during your grain simmer, which you've already gotten past, I'm assuming.
3. Cover the holes with duct tape or anything else that doesn't breathe. The goal is to keep CO2 levels high during colonization so the myc stays in a vegetative state so it'll fully colonize the substrate. The mass of air volume in your tub should be adequate for GE during that time.
4. Don't choke them out with a blanket. If the room is too cold throw a space heater in there with them. 80 degrees is too high, just remember, if you're comfortable in the room with the tubs, they'll be happy. 68-76 degrees is a decent range.
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Ajaxx
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Re: questions for a large grow - substrate and monotub construction questions [Re: afrosheen]
#14204836 - 03/29/11 05:14 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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im using organic rye berries BTW
i dont want to risk any contaminations, so ill just throw coffee out of the mix. i definitely like the tek you linked me to there. thats basically what i had been thinking about doing in my head. putting everything in a 5 gallon bucket and dumping boiling water into it.
i like how that tek uses 5 jars instead of 6, so that means i can have 10 tubs going, given that all my jars go. which, im pretty sure will do just fine. i leave them alone. i didnt look for 8 days until last night after inoculating and putting into an incubation chamber i made from 2 giant tubs and an aquarium heater. i cant believe all 50 jars germinated. some have a lot of mycelium, some have just some on the top, but theyre all doing great. im not going to look for another few days to a week. im sure ill have to shake them up next week
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afrosheen
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Re: questions for a large grow - substrate and monotub construction questions [Re: Ajaxx]
#14204857 - 03/29/11 05:19 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Cool, sounds like you're off to a good start, but another piece of outdated info is using incubation chambers. As long as you can keep temps at or above 68F you don't need a chamber. I'm sure they'll grow at temps lower than 68F but it's probably not optimal.
That tek will net you about 8q of expanded coir. As you can see by the thread count there, it's very successful and trusted.
Good luck to you. If you're doing 10 tubs at once go garage sale/thrift store hunting and get a big dehydrator. You're gonna need it if everything goes well.
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Ajaxx
Amateur Mycologist



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Re: questions for a large grow - substrate and monotub construction questions [Re: Ajaxx]
#14204944 - 03/29/11 05:35 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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ive tried just incubating jars at room temp. but ive never had as good of luck as i had with the incubation chamber. i like having control over the temp of the jars. id rather it be consistent than fluctuate like the room its in.
right now im looking at bulk coir bricks online. comparing online prices vs local prices. also need tubs lol. is there a certain size tub i should get? sorry if that was mentioned in the tek, ill have to look through it again.
so, 1 brick coir, 2 quarts vermiculite, 1 cup gypsum and dump a gallon of boiling water in the bucket and mix around. this is going to be fun 
ive learned a lot in my trial and error stage. im stepping up my game and learning as much as possible and doing everything precise. go big or go home!!!
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Pfffffff
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Re: questions for a large grow - substrate and monotub construction questions [Re: Ajaxx]
#14204970 - 03/29/11 05:42 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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WTF did you do to sterilize 50 quart jars? Got a massive cooker or did you just do a whole bunch of cooking for a couple days?
-------------------- **************************************************** I am part of this community as a role playing character. All information is gathered on the internet. In no way, shape, or form is any of what I say truthful or real life experience. Any advice given or received is purely for entertainment value and not intended for any kind of illegal activity. ****************************************************
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Ajaxx
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Re: questions for a large grow - substrate and monotub construction questions [Re: Pfffffff]
#14205044 - 03/29/11 05:57 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Pfffffff said: WTF did you do to sterilize 50 quart jars? Got a massive cooker or did you just do a whole bunch of cooking for a couple days?
lmao. yea it took a couple of days for me to put together 50 jars. idk how much grain weight wise i used.
i used a couple different pots to rinse the rye berries off, then once fully clean after around 10 rinses... i dumped it all into a 5 gallon bucket and filled with water and let sit over night, then dumped off that water, dumped back into a few different pots with new water and brought them to a full boil for 10 minutes. then dumped in a stainer to let the water evaporate off. then loaded the jars and PC them for 60 minutes @ 15psi in. the PC i used was an "all american" brand that fit 10 one quart jars in at a time.
it was a lot of work to make and sterilize 50 jars. then shooting them all up was some tedious work... like i said though, every single one of them is growing some really nice mycelium. i know contaminants can pop up at any time, but i have a really good feeling about this grow. i honestly think all 50 jars are going to colonize perfectly and in a good time frame.
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Ajaxx
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Re: questions for a large grow - substrate and monotub construction questions [Re: Ajaxx]
#14205350 - 03/29/11 06:59 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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ive got a couple more questions 
after the first flush, what do i do? i saw something about dunking the monotub, but that seems crazy for some reason. i dunked some trays my first grow and they just broke apart and seemed like they were waaay too fuckin wet. i didnt get a second flush.
would misting the shit out of the top layer be sufficient, or do i need to dump water in the tub and soak the entire thing, then dump it out?
after the flush and whatever i do to the substrate, do i put the tubs back into a colonization phase, then wait to fruit? just keep the light off and the temperature in the right area?
and roughly how long after the first harvest do pins for the second harvest begin to appear?
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afrosheen
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Re: questions for a large grow - substrate and monotub construction questions [Re: Ajaxx]
#14205687 - 03/29/11 08:03 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Ajaxx said: ive got a couple more questions 
after the first flush, what do i do? i saw something about dunking the monotub, but that seems crazy for some reason. i dunked some trays my first grow and they just broke apart and seemed like they were waaay too fuckin wet. i didnt get a second flush.
would misting the shit out of the top layer be sufficient, or do i need to dump water in the tub and soak the entire thing, then dump it out?
after the flush and whatever i do to the substrate, do i put the tubs back into a colonization phase, then wait to fruit? just keep the light off and the temperature in the right area?
and roughly how long after the first harvest do pins for the second harvest begin to appear?
You are really hard to reply to man.
Anyway, you want to dunk all those monos after first flush. Put something in on top of the cake (like a wire dish rack and something for weight) or use wooden dowels poked through the holes to keep the cake down, then fill the tub with water. Weak, dried out cakes may bust apart but it's no concern, they'll just fruit as 2 cakes for the second flush. You don't have to soak for 24 hours this way, I think 5-6 hours is adequate.
No, and yes.
Second harvest pins will usually show up after a week or less. Matter of fact, once you harvest the mature fruits from the first flush, if you have pins coming up, go ahead and dunk with them on it. They'll survive the dunk and keep growing.
One last note about cake strength. This can be improved by layering the spawn and substrate, and by using a higher spawn ratio. Spawning 1:1 will make strong cakes, no doubt. 1:4 and higher and you're in brittle territory, but if you have an unusually tough strain it may not matter.
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Ajaxx
Amateur Mycologist



Registered: 03/06/11
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Re: questions for a large grow - substrate and monotub construction questions [Re: afrosheen]
#14205845 - 03/29/11 08:30 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
afrosheen said:
You are really hard to reply to man.
lol whys that? all the questions? lol im just trying to figure everything out before i get to the point of attempting to do it.
thank you very much for the help! lol i cant think of anything else ask at the moment
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Pfffffff
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Re: questions for a large grow - substrate and monotub construction questions [Re: Ajaxx]
#14205923 - 03/29/11 08:42 PM (12 years, 9 months ago) |
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Well if you got 50 quart jars uncontaminated, you're extremely on the right track lol. Don't fuck with contams and "saving" something for a couple extra fruits, it IS NOT worth it. Keep that up and you'll do great.
-------------------- **************************************************** I am part of this community as a role playing character. All information is gathered on the internet. In no way, shape, or form is any of what I say truthful or real life experience. Any advice given or received is purely for entertainment value and not intended for any kind of illegal activity. ****************************************************
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