Quote:

By Randolph Carter (Randy_Carter) on Friday, August 29, 2003 - 06:17 am:

and the Bleach wins it by a landslide.
A friend told me the following..

"I'd like to thank Hippie for his bleach tech. Upon birthing 11 apparently normal and healthy white PF cakes it was noticed within three days the signs of what appeared at the time to be pinning(these cakes were dunked in their jars 16 hours in distilled water as I normally do). These "pins" rapidly formed into mutant fungal Blobs..rapidly covering the surface area of the cakes. No discernable caps or stems just semi-hard slight off white encrustations that vaguely resemble sclerotia combining with each other to form a kind of matting affect. There was noted a seeping through "pores" in these blobs of clear sometimes slightly yellow liquid. There was also noted a foul bacterial odor coming from the fruiting chamber within about 4-5 days of birth. Being not inexperienced I knew this to be the same bacterial contam I had about 6 months ago(which destroyed the entire crop that time around). It seems to co-exist with the mycelium and only shows it's face after birth. It does not harm the mycelium much apparently, but infected cakes RARELY if EVER put out any normal fruits...the Blobs just take over..scrap them off they grow back..leave them they get bigger and nastier. Both the last time and this time I believe the contam was introduced through the innoculation solution itself(contaminated syringe).
I was VERY close to tossing them as soon as I realized what had/was happening...they were not after all the only thing I had going at the time. However in the back of my mind the Bleach tech came knocking. I thought what the hell..nothing really to lose in trying. I had never tried it before..never really had a need except that time 6 months ago. So..at 5 days after birth I mixed up some 200-1 part bleach water. I proceeded to remove as many of the "Blobs" as possible(harder than it sounds they are embedded in and are apart of the mycelium network and weaken it slightly under them making chunks of mycelium pull away with them if you aren't carefull) and gave them a 24 hour bleach dunk. I did not even give them a wash with normal water before I placed them back in the chamber. They smelled quite strongly of bleach. Nothing happened for about 2 days..they looked quite pitifull actually...then to my pleasant suprise they began fluffing back up.The bleach smell was gone by day 3 leaving a normal shroomy smell. By the 4th day there were new NORMAL pins forming. By day 6-7 I had fully normal baby mushrooms..and this next bit suprised me even more. I noticed a few of the "blobs" I had missed on the cakes were morphing (back)into NORMAL pins/baby mushrooms. A few of these have formed mutant mushrooms shaped strange, but otherwise totally healthy looking. The new pins are forming totally normal mushrooms. The Blob has not reappeared on any of the cakes nor has the foul bacterial smell. This seems to be THE way to rid oneself of this particular contam without sacrificing a crop.
I have seen others complain about this contam from time to time with little or no response on how to deal with it(besides tossing them)..well there it is.. Bleach Dunk. Thanks for your experimentation Hippie.
P.S. Even though Bleach Dunk has healed these cakes...I do not know about eating the fruits from them. The cakes were after all contaminated with an unknown bacteria that put off a FOUL odor. The bacteria seem dead but that doesn't mean they haven't possibly left some toxins in the mix. I have myself not eaten any of them..don't know if I will even. Proceed with caution."

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