This tek is part of bod's cultivation is easy as fuck link listBod's Unmodified Monotub TEKQuote:
Bodhisatta said:
All TEKs, by any author, that have results, can and will work. The TEK can only take you so far. Discrepancy in results is due to experience and skill. Yes some people will pull it off the first time. Well wrote TEKs aim to help anyone achieve the best results on their first attempt by being as clear and descriptive as possible. Despite that no TEK can provide you with first hand experience. Rest assured knowing that bad results have pretty much everything to do with operator error and there's an abundance of examples of most all current methods working extremely well. You can figure it out and the people of the online mushroom community can help. The more you document and correctly follow methods the easier diagnosis of problems will be. Best of luck to all cultivators
This TEK is specific to these tubs
Sterilite® Air Tight Storage Tote - Transparent with Aquarium Blue Latch 32 54 & 80 Qt sizes. The 80q is my least favorite. I largely use the 54 but the 32 is great too.
Other tubs may work, if you're familiar with the principles of operation feel free to experiment and contribute. As always think outside the box, things can be a lot more simple and efficient often times.
I have not recommended any other tubs because I have not used any other ones. I'm sure that other kinds of tubs would work just fine. You'll want a clear lid at the very least. If you use a different tub I expect you to have enough experience to be able to judge your conditions accordingly, or if you don't have any experience to be willing to deal with your learning curve.
To make a Monotub you will need Spawn and SubstrateHere's how I make grain spawn with OatsHere's how I make my substrateHere's the video of how I add spawn to substrate and mix it in one of these unmodified tubsHow It Works
Flip the lid upside down.
This creates air gaps around the 4 lid locks which is important for allowing air exchange as well as substrate moisture regulation.


The lid is NOT latched down, EVER
after having done some trials I put my tubs into fruiting conditions(lid upside down for air gaps) immediately. I have noticed faster colonization times, faster times to pinning as well. Cubensis is an aerobic organism, While some old books talk about high co2 during colonization my own tests show clearly that FAE right away is superior. Try it out for yourself and do your own side by sides and let the community know.
I now make no distinction between colonization conditions and fruiting conditions. I just chose to call it
Growing ConditionsMy tubs do not dry out being in "fruiting conditions" during "colonization"
My yields have stayed the same. My time to full colonization has decreased as has the time to pinning and harvest.
I have always had exposed top grains, doing "fruiting conditions" immediately has not caused an issue even with exposed grains.
This tub fruiting method is extremely low maintenance. No fanning is required, mist if needed, which will be infrequently. Some occasions I find I have to actually remove the lid because the surface is too moist, other times the corners get a little dry and need a light misting. If you can brush your teeth at home you have more than enough time to visit a tub once or twice during fruiting.
As said above you
may have to mist twice a day or once every few days or even not at all. I will sometimes bottom water by pouring water down the sides of the tub after the pins are in, and as always only mist if the surface needs it. Bottom watering is usually helpful for subsequent flushes. If you're using this tek you shouldn't need to ask me how to water your mushrooms. You need to develop a feel for it and deal with that learning curve or already have the experience under your belt in dealing with fruiting substrates. Of course you can jump right in but don't expect to know everything overnight.
surface conditions are very important. You can't simply whip one of these together and expect it to work with no experience, no eye for things, no mycologist's green thumb.
Skill plays a much of a roll as methods. You also need to be able to produce clean spawn and determine conditions.
Lightingyou can use tube fluorescent lights for multiple tubs. There's far more than one correct way to arrive at great results.
I have long since abandoned using the one light per tub and now use shop lights for multiple tubs. Lighting from the side and top doesn't matter. I strongly suggest using florescent lights rather than LED lights. Florescent tubes are actually MORE EFFICIENT in watts per lumen as well they also put out a more full spectrum of light than almost all LED lighting even if both are listed as 6500K.
Florescent T8 4 foot long tubes work well
The Spectralux 901616 4 ft. - 32 Watt - T8 - 6500K - 2900 Lumens - High Output bulb works well in a appropriate fixture. You don't need the exact same lighting setup as me. Mushrooms don't photosynthesis but like humans act funny if kept completely devoid of light. Yes they will grow in complete darkness but they will look fucking stupid and no be nearly as presentable. Mushrooms do derive a noticeable positive benefit from adequate lighting.
Some additional things to be aware ofYou will have to adjust as necessary to get everything just right so the surface does not dry out in between the times you're able to visit your grow.
I brush my teeth twice a day so I can handle looking at my tubs once or twice a day. Often times there needs be no adjustment at all, and every other day on average a misting.
I fruit these just fine in 10-20% RH indoors so I suggest skipping the casing layer, but some people need have their ways. Do what works for you always.
I almost never use a casing layer myself, On occasion I will use a top layer of coir 1/8-1/4 inch thick. With varieties like PE that take a bit longer to pin this can aid some people in keeping conditions good. The top layer of coir is more of a pesudocasing
most of the time I opt to just go with straight up mixed spawn+substrate with no top layer at all (grains showing on the surface)
When spawning I have in the past used a trash bag as a liner. I mixed in the trash bag and then put into the tub. and then pushed it flush to the corners and tried to make the surface as level as possible
you should give good attention to making your substrate surface level.
Currently I completely avoid use of a liner at all period. If you look at my
harvest TEK you'll see I get no side pins even without the use of a liner.
Using a liner is a crutch to help with side pinning, side pins can be avoided by proper surface conditions and a nice flat even level surface. If you chose to use a liner a clear one works just fine, it works by preventing a micro-climate at the sides, light has nothing to do with side pins.
Space ManagementYes, you can stack them. Rocket science commence in
3.
2.
1.

yes it's sturdy. No, they don't stack as nice as a traditional 6 hole monotub would

I put colonizing tubs on the top of the stack since heat rises they'll stay perhaps a bit warmer than the rest.
(I no longer stack I use shelving)
Timetable, Yields, Biological Efficiency(BE%)Fastest possible way if you already have mycelium. Add the time it takes to get clean mycelium on agar or a clean grain jar fully colonized from a spore syringe if you have no inoculum ready
Agar wedge to grain water LC takes 3-5 days before you can use. Agitated once a day with glass in the bottom.
LC to quart of spawn takes 3-4 days to colonize if you use the right amount
g2g is 3-4 days to colonize using 1:10
spawn run is 8-10 days. pins in 10-14 days. harvest in 15-21 days.(best case)
yield 1-2 oz per quart using MS cultures. more with clones.
I use only oats and only coir. people are tied up using verm and gypsum and substrates that require lengthy and energy intensive pasteurization.
coir goes into a bucket I pour boiling water on it. wait a day and use it.
oats get boiled 30m, drained and ready to be sterilized.
oats are $12 for 50 pounds
case of petri dishes 75$ (lasts me about a half a year)
enough oats to make 103 quarts $12
enough coir to make 20 tubs (5q per tub) $30
agar agar powder is 1$ to make a few liters. so negligible. the media itself is leftover water from boiling oats. same with the LCs. So that's free
Depending on other expenditures you're at 1-2 dollars per oz for initial returns.
Once you have everything you need and only need to buy oats and coir to re-supply it gets under a dollar an ounce. if you grow 2oz per quart you're at 50c or less.
any good monotub is completely set and forget requiring no fanning or misting at all start to harvest. Your time is worth money. If you so chose you can completely neglect a monotub if your substrate moisture and FAE are dialed in.
At any given time if you had no LC or spawn ready but had mycelium ready on agar
to harvest mushrooms would be 25 days, at the best case scenario shortest time, if you go LC route
if you had no mycelium on agar you could put spores right to grain. Wait 2-3 weeks for the grain jars to colonize. use the best one for g2g and spawn the rest if healthy and get mushrooms in a hair over a month + more spawn.
most people don't get caught in a situation where they have to start from absolute scratch but the first few times they grow. It becomes an assembly line so your time table approaches 0 days to harvest if you do enough mycology work every week.
Once you are established and only need to buy oats and coir to maintain a grow cycle
one bag of oats and enough coir is $43-45. that will make bare minimum 103 ounces of shrooms if you run into no failure.
using just coir and oats I can calculate BE very easily as well
650g of coir in your grow and 220g of dry oats per quart
say you use 5q of spawn to one brick 650g of coir for a a tub
that's a dry weight of ingredients of 1750 grams.
to calculate BE it's wet weight / dry weight of everything used
so you will need 1750 wet grams or 350 grams wet per quart to achieve 100% BE
my cubes dry up to be about 93% water usually
1750 wet gives me ~122.5 dry or ~24.5 dry per quart.
so anything over 24.5g dry per quart is over 100% BE for me. simply 1oz dry per quart is over 100%(~114%) and 2oz dry is over 200%(~228%)
HarvestingBod's Easy AF harvesting TEK
Results



Other people's resultstoo much to quoteQuote:
Sparky101 said:

Thanks for the tek, works good!
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Sparky101 said:
First flush in the 32qt mono. 761g wet

This is the first time I’ve used the tubs specified in bods Unmodified mono tek. I didn’t have to mist much with this tub, it basically took care of itself 👍
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Germs said:
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Kaladin said:
My third go with unmodified tubs. Turned out real nice.

Better results than some who have been growing for ages
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PopaCap said:
A bit smaller fruit than I was hoping for, but not a bad flush. I already harvested about 80 grams that were way ahead of the pack.

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Captain Shadow said:
14 day harvest.



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Madcapper144 said:

7qt b+ spawn 1 brick coir. I've been having issues with side pins so I added a light casing and boom!! Will update with weight soon as I get em all dry!!
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Captain Shadow said:
The 80qt from 3qt of spawn. Took 23 days until harvest.

I wish my mushrooms would all open at the same time.
I wish I could get a thicker pinset.
Otherwise loving the tek.. 
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Captain Shadow said:
Went with the bread knife. Worked like a charm.

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Myco Mako said:
Bump for the latest success story with this tek. If you haven't tried it, it truly is EAF...



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amidogen said:

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sherpashaman said:

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Captain Shadow said:
@ Day 19
https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/25288835/fpart/1/vc/1
19 days no misting fanning or anything 0 maintenance
vc77 said:

Thanks bod
vc77 said:
Thanks guys but I didn’t really do anything. Been on this tek for a while and that’s the best thing about it.