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SpitballJedi said:
Yes and it worked fine. I have a lot of bricks though. Actually, I have a lot of verm too, but I will still use it in the subs.

I tried to find some other posts with limed coir casings, but I couldn't. I didn't search very long. I'm thinking of picking up some pH strips tomorrow to test it.

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FC Trial:

Substrate recipe:

Coir    650g (1 brick)
Verm    2 qts
Water    5 qts


Day 1:

I just boiled the water and poured it on the coir and verm in a cooler. Waited 30 mins, then mixed it up. Then, I let it sit an hour and cracked the lid to cool. The next day, I dumped in a tray and put in my FC.



This is an upside down tote with a tray inside. The tote has a hole at each end at the top with loose poly. I'm depending the imperfect lid for FA to come in from below and escape from the holes in top.

I'll update some more info when I get home; I didn't realize the time and have to be somewhere.

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Day 3:
After 24 hours, I removed the loose poly. It has now been 24 hours since I removed the poly and there is no condensation on the walls and only 1* temperature difference inside and outside the FC at substrate level. With the loose poly, there was a very thin almost invisible layer of condensation,At substrate level, my cheep hygrometer reads 90%. There are no signs of drying on the surface of the casing and I have not misted. I got my meter today and the pH is ~7.1.

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Day 3:
After the first 24 hours, there was a heavy layer of condensation on the walls and only 1* difference in temperature between inside and outside of the FC. The condensation was only heavy above the top of the tray. Below the top, it appeared dry. so, I removed the loose poly and now, after 24 hours, it looks like this:



It's hard to see, but there is still some condensation on the walls up high. What this tells me is air is coming in from the bottom because it's drying from the bottom up. The sub shows no signs of drying and it has not been misted.


pH Stuff:

I got my pH meter today and checked the casing, with teaspoon of lime, and it reads barely over 7, like 7.1. The CV in the other tub, no lime, reads 6.75. I just wanted a base measure to get an idea of how much the lime impacted the pH. Also, before I left the house earlier, I mixed 2 cups verm, 1 tsp lime, and 1 cup water. About 3 hours later, the pH is 7.5. Being as I'm aiming for an initial pH of 7.5, I will make up a small batch with 1 tsp lie per cup of casing and see what the pH is.

I'll post another update when something worth mentioning happens. My intuition says it will be to report needing to mist or it shows contamination. I'll update in a few days even if it's just to say nothing has changed.

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Casing Trial:

Day 9:
I've misted a couple of times and the casing isn't showing any signs of contamination. It's still damp, but not at field capacity.

I added a bunch of water to get it up to field capacity.

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FC/Sub Trial:

Day 6:
I have not misted the substrate and it's not quite field capacity, but the surface doesn't appear to be dry. Signs of mold appeared.

Day 9:
Mold is growing slowly. I'm going to let it grow a little to try and identify it. Pics to come in a couple of days.
The dynamics will change, of course, once I'm working with actual spawn. I expect FAE to increase once the heat from metabolism is added and I suspect the addition of myc will, in combination with increased FAE, also combat mold. I will also be using a better quality coir, so that may help, too.

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