I’d argue majority of contams are rarely from environment until after spawning. Majority of contams IMO come from either the spore source, or we introduced it with our hands or something (which means it can easily come from outside your house). After initial cleanup you should have no more contams to deal with.

Nichrome said:

Not all of them but most yes. Some of us actually have microscopes and use them. Also identification of sporulation is key anyway. If its making spores then extreme measures are taken or the dish is just tossed. As far as bacteria go there are very few that can become airborne and those are easily identified without a microscope by growth pattern and color usually staining the inside of the dish. Viruses need living cells to replicate so there is little worry there.

I clean up a lot of wild cultures and have been doing so for more than 20 years. Never have I gotten sick or made anyone else sick.

Funny how all these trusted cultivators preach such crap and then kiss each others asses about it like a petty bully troupe. Highschool shit. It really ruins the flow of conversation. Measuring contest for sure.

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RogerRabbit said:

urbanfarmer said:

I set up my horizontal flow hood on the side of the workspace, blowing across the workspace from left to right.  In theory this is better as there is less chance of blowback of contams on my body onto the workspace as my torso is outside the airstream

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Rule number 1 is NEVER open a contaminated petri dish in front of the flowhood, regardless of configuration.  You don't want those spores going everywhere.  If a dish is contaminated and you're trying to isolate healthy mycelium away from it, always shut off the hood just before you make the transfer, so you're working in still air, or use a glovebox instead.
RR

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Mad Season said:

Also glad to see another Canadian

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bodhisatta said:

The shroomery is the place you go when you want to find hobby cultivators that need nicer stuff than people running businesses. There's real farms that support 5-50 people's incomes using off the shelf Walmart humidifiers and prestos. There's people here with $500 misting setups and three all American's. Either way results and whatever floats your boat is what matters to me

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RogerRabbit said:

You should never open a contaminated petri dish in front of a flow hood.  If I'm isolating away from molds or bacteria, I'll run the flow hood right up until just before I open the dish, and then shut it off, make the transfer and then turn it back on.

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Mad Season said:

turn it off for the transfer

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natedawgnow said:

Dont get much contams on my plates but when there is a random colony, I save
that plate for last and transfer it right after turning off my hood. Has yet
to fail me in cleaning up a plate.

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This is what I've done since I got my flow hood. When I first finished it I had a few very nasty plates that I wanted to save, and I tested this out. Ran the thing and did all my other transfers then shut it off and worked as fast as I could to finish all the contaminated plates, then closed them up and turned the FH back on. I've done it a couple times since then too, and I've had great success doing this and as a result haven't had to pull out my SAB.

LotKid said:

I've made transfers away from sporulating mold in front of my filter before without dying or losing all my work...

I think the trick to pulling it off is to not be stupid about it and I wouldn't reccomend a noob do it.

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