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Sherlock Shrooms
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Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. 1
#26852536 - 07/29/20 07:42 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Hey friends. Been having troubles for some time now. I can make a detailed list about everything I'm doing if that helps, or just answer any questions one by one if folks want to ask me about my processes. Basically I've been seeing the same green take my tubs anywhere between 8 days of colonization to the end of the second flush, many go before the first flush though. I lose about half of my tubs conistently for a few years now. I have new cultures started from spores from different varieties that I'm hoping go better. I work with agar in a flowhood that's been tested with blank plates and jars and shows no troubles. My first generation of spawn A2G always looks clean. The second expansion sometimes shows a little wetspot but not always. I use CVG that I use to bucket tek but since having consistent problems I've gone to pastuerization but that didn't change anything. I know that's a waste of time but one will try anything after the problems I've had.. Surely I don't have clean spawn, or the myths about pathogenic spores in a home that's been cultivated in foolishly for too long are true. Either way please help me figure this out. I have tons of pics I've posted in random threads I've created and some in the general cultivation thread. I'm happy to upload any here or take new ones and write about any of my processes. I'll leave it there for now. Thanks guys, mush love
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms] 1
#26852552 - 07/29/20 07:48 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Here's a recent plate of Texan multispore third transfer away from spores. I took some cuts out of it and let it keep growing..  Here's a jar of colonized spawn. Most of them look like this  Here's a bag of colonizing spawn [ur=https://files.shroomery.org/files/20-31/588753346-IMG_1920.jpg] [/url] This is one of my tubs that contam'd before the first flush
 And here's the same strain thats putting out a nice pinset and looks healthy so far. Same culture and the same treatment all the way through
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Anastomosis
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms] 1
#26852556 - 07/29/20 07:50 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Are you drying your grain long enough before loading in jars? How many burst grains do you have? Spawn with bacteria will still produce crops, but the mycelium is definitely weaker and more prone to other nasties, like your green.
-------------------- "120mph with a trailer full of dogs and a truck full of drug addicts."
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms] 1
#26852560 - 07/29/20 07:55 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I'm using a flowhood I built. This
 I make agar with 7.5 grams of malt extract and 10 grams of agar powder per 500mL of water. I do A2G into rye berries that have been soaked 6 to 8 hours, brought to a simmer until the middle is fully gelatinized, and then strained and spread out on drying racks until the grains are dry to the touch with a little bit of a whitish look to the surface before I load them into jars. Then I PC for 2 hours and let cool overnight and load directly into my flowhood from the PC the next day. I flame sterilize with a map gas propane torch that sits right at the edge of my flowhood. I wipe down the entire flow hood with alcohol and anything that gets brought inside of it then let it run for a while before I start doing transfers. I do all my work about a few inches in front of the filter..
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Anastomosis] 1
#26852567 - 07/29/20 07:59 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Anastomosis said: Are you drying your grain long enough before loading in jars? How many burst grains do you have? Spawn with bacteria will still produce crops, but the mycelium is definitely weaker and more prone to other nasties, like your green.
I probably have about 10% burst grains if I were to guess, maybe a bit less. I find that if I soak longer before I cook than I get less burst grains however if I soak over 8 hours I worry about reproducing endospores as the grains are soaking... I dry the grains quite well I think. I've dried them more than what I described in the previous post and the mycelium doesn't colonize well, as if the grains lose too much moisture (that's like 10 or 12 hours drying). I let them sit on lizard cage screens propped up on jar rings with fans blowing over the grains for at least 4 hours before loading them into jars, sometimes 6 or 8 depending on how humid it is..
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms] 1
#26852573 - 07/29/20 08:01 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I used to do oats but saw too much wet spot bacteria and went back to rye berries as I don't see any visible wet spot in any of my A2G jars. After doing one expansion G2G I see a little wet spot here and there, maybe 1 out of every few jars and just a small spot.. Good enough to spawn according to what I've read on this site. I never do any expansions beyond the one G2G because I've seen wet spot get worse at that point. My jars smell fine before I spawn them too, like a rich fungi smell with nothing else.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms] 1
#26852574 - 07/29/20 08:03 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I'm back to doing all jars for my spawn until I get these problems sorted out, I know bags will amplify any issues
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Anastomosis
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms] 1
#26852586 - 07/29/20 08:11 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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10 percent is a lot.
-------------------- "120mph with a trailer full of dogs and a truck full of drug addicts."
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Mycobro420
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Anastomosis] 1
#26852605 - 07/29/20 08:34 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Ok I skimmed threw most of the thread only problems I saw that could potentially cause problems would be that your flow hood has a non pourous surface witch could harbor contams in there crevices.or that you soak for 6 hrs.i use rye as well I soak mine for 17 hr with about a handful of gypsum. I do that to ensure that the endospores have long enough to germinate so they are easier to kill off in the PC cycle.how many times do you rinse your grain before soaking too
Edited by Mycobro420 (07/29/20 08:37 PM)
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Anastomosis
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms] 1
#26852612 - 07/29/20 08:40 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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If some tubs are good and some are not, the problem could be your technique. Some jars you do great. A few maybe you fuck up? If mold spores are getting in at g2g, they may not show their ugly face until after spawning.
-------------------- "120mph with a trailer full of dogs and a truck full of drug addicts."
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Anastomosis] 1
#26852628 - 07/29/20 08:51 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Thanks guys. I've put several coats of clear coat on all the wood surfaces inside the flow hood. Ya know that's crazy about the soak time. I geeked out reading Bod and Blinding leaf talk back and forth on a long and scholarly thread about endospores in grains debating whether or not a long or short soak was better. And they seemed to come to the conclusion that it either didn't matter or that longer soak times like over 8 or 10 hours could cause endospores to reproduce canceling out the benefit of germinating some to kill them more efficiently. But when I started growing 4 or 5 years ago I always did 18 hour soaks with rye berries and got better results. Roger Rabbit talked about germinating the endospores to kill them more effectively but after reading Bod's long thread I figured that was old outdated info. Fuck me maybe that's it. I'll try a longer soak next round of grains.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (07/29/20 08:56 PM)
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms] 1
#26852633 - 07/29/20 08:54 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Good point about the hit or miss with some tubs making it and some not and maybe being determined by my sterile techinique slipping on some jars and not with others. That really fits. I thought after all this experience and trauma of losing stuff my technique was really good and I have been paying attention. But as everyone says you can never be careful enough. I'll slow down and make sure I move methodically and flame sterilize efficiently. Thanks guys. On a bright note I just went and checked on some tubs and no new contams today. Lots of ripping pinsets coming in! Praying the mean green doesn't show up and spoil my fun
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms] 1
#26852642 - 07/29/20 09:04 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Hopefully the longer grain soak time will help prevent burst grains too. At 8 hour soaks when bringing them up to a simmer I keep breaking grains open and by the time the grains are all fully gelatinized through the center I have 5 to 10% burst grains. I figured that was acceptable but maybe not? I just flipped to the grain prep section of Stamet's book GGMM. I'm going to reread the book and get back to basics here..
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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El Chupacabra
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms] 1
#26852667 - 07/29/20 09:23 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Just bookmarking
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Anastomosis
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms] 1
#26852685 - 07/29/20 09:40 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Make each jar count. If you use 4 jars in a tub and 1 out of 4 jars is fucked.... 1 good jar is better than 100 not good jars.
-------------------- "120mph with a trailer full of dogs and a truck full of drug addicts."
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Mycobro420
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: El Chupacabra] 1
#26852688 - 07/29/20 09:44 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I never have bursted grains if I do it's only a few an I probably boiled a tad to long.also are you sure your substrate is feild capacity and not over.if your sub is too wet it makes it easier for contams to take hold.what temps is your fruting room set at.and how low or high do the temps fluctuate threw out the day.
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Crackatoa
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Mycobro420] 1
#26852695 - 07/29/20 09:52 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I have your same blues. I'm doing a couple different things right now. One thing though is when I do my G2G I do my shake and that's it. It takes a little longer to colonize but some jars colonize quickly and some colonize for the most part, those get trashed. I feel like doing it this way I catch that 1 bad jar out of 6 that would fuck up my tub. Here lately I've been using that jar to inoculate a 4 quart bag. That's my current experiment, hope it helps some what.
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Mycobro420] 1
#26852714 - 07/29/20 10:07 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Mycobro420 said: I never have bursted grains if I do it's only a few an I probably boiled a tad to long.also are you sure your substrate is feild capacity and not over.if your sub is too wet it makes it easier for contams to take hold.what temps is your fruting room set at.and how low or high do the temps fluctuate threw out the day.
Hopefully soaking longer gives me less burst grains. At 8 hour soaks then simmering the rye berries by the time the grains are fully gelatinized 5 to 10% burst. If I don't get the grains fully gelatinized then the myc doesn't colonize well, it moves slow and becomes wispy. As soon as the grains fully gelatinize I cut the heat and strain them immediately then spread them out to dry in front of fans for several hours turning them over often. I read Caps talk about field capacity a lot and I went down on my field capacity to where a kung fu grip just barely makes water appear between my fingers without running down and dripping, so I'm under field capacity according to the standard. My fruiting room stays between 68 and 70. I have a few thermometers in there to be sure I'm getting accurate readings. The thermometers are at the average height of tubs. As a side note I also protect my spawn jars in cleaned out tubs to reduce spore load on the filer discs.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Crackatoa] 1
#26852719 - 07/29/20 10:14 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Crackatoa said: I have your same blues. I'm doing a couple different things right now. One thing though is when I do my G2G I do my shake and that's it. It takes a little longer to colonize but some jars colonize quickly and some colonize for the most part, those get trashed. I feel like doing it this way I catch that 1 bad jar out of 6 that would fuck up my tub. Here lately I've been using that jar to inoculate a 4 quart bag. That's my current experiment, hope it helps some what.
Damn dude sorry to hear about your troubles. When I do g2g I shake them in front of the flow hood after I've transferred all the jars and wrapped clingwrap around the rings and labeled them. I shake them away from the filter and out of the sterile work area but still in the generally clean area and then load them directly into cleaned out tubs to keep the jars and filter discs clean. I only give them the initial shake and let them fully colonize on their own after that. I never see a single one stall out. They look healthy. If there's an uncolonized grain or 2 on the top surface that dry out after full colonization I pick it out with a scalpel just before I mix it into the substrate and spawn the tub.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Mycobro420] 1
#26852722 - 07/29/20 10:16 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Mycobro420 said: Ok I skimmed threw most of the thread only problems I saw that could potentially cause problems would be that your flow hood has a non pourous surface witch could harbor contams in there crevices.or that you soak for 6 hrs.i use rye as well I soak mine for 17 hr with about a handful of gypsum. I do that to ensure that the endospores have long enough to germinate so they are easier to kill off in the PC cycle.how many times do you rinse your grain before soaking too
I rinse the shizz out of my grains in hot water until the water in the bucket is clear upon filling and stirring. My grains never clump..
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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El Chupacabra
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26852725 - 07/29/20 10:19 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Just taking a stab at it here Do you vent your PC for 10 minutes or more?
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: El Chupacabra]
#26852730 - 07/29/20 10:23 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Yes I vent my PC for 20 minutes now. Keep it coming, any question is a good question. Surely I'm missing something..
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Mycobro420
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26852737 - 07/29/20 10:27 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Everything you said sounds good I like to set fruiting at 72 but 70-68 fine. Use gypsum wen u soak an soak longer. Your qt jar looks good. Agar is more tomentose than mine but you inoculate with spores.i usually clone with fresh fruits.alot less strains to deal with wen cloning from a fruit. I usually get rizomorphic of first dish.but I can say excatly how good your agar is cause I don't go spores to agar.check my gallery to see my agar.it looks ok in my opinion
Edited by Mycobro420 (07/29/20 10:29 PM)
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Mycobro420]
#26852743 - 07/29/20 10:34 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Mycobro420 said: Everything you said sounds good I like to set fruiting at 72 but 70-68 fine. Use gypsum wen u soak an soak longer. Your qt jar looks good. Agar is more tomentose than mine but you inoculate with spores.i usually clone with fresh fruits.alot less strains to deal with wen cloning from a fruit. I usually get rizomorphic of first dish.but I can say excatly how good your agar is cause I don't go spores to agar.check my gallery to see my agar.it looks ok in my opinion
Your agar looks good man. Take a pic with it grown out covering the whole plate, sometimes if there's hidden bacteria or something it doesn't show until the plate is fully grown out in my experience. Like little rhizos lifting up indicating bacteria or weird fuzzy sections indicating hidden molds. But those plates look good where they are to me. I'm taking clones off this run as I have a bunch of multispore from different varieties coming in. Clones definitely come out more rhizomorphic. I'm looking forward to cloning some of the bigger fruits and running those next round.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26852745 - 07/29/20 10:35 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I've read about people using gypsum in their grains but have never tried it as people often said it helps reduce clumping and I never get clumping. Does it serve some other purpose?
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Mycobro420
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26852749 - 07/29/20 10:39 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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It helps with clumping that's why I use it For grain.but I also use it in my bulk substrate as well. Excatly why I read a thread from RR that said it's beneficial for both excatly why I'm not 100% sure. I know it increases the pH in substrates.but only a little
Edited by Mycobro420 (07/29/20 10:40 PM)
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Mycobro420]
#26852753 - 07/29/20 10:41 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Cool yea I use it in my substrate. Maybe not enough though. Not that it has much to do with my contam problem but how much do you use in your substrate recipe?
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26852754 - 07/29/20 10:43 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I've been using 1 600-650g brick of coir, 1 quart of medium vermiculite, and an 1/8 cup of powdered gypsum per 64 quart mono. I wonder if the gypsum raises the PH or buffers the PH as in keeping it closer to neutral. Either way if that's true maybe upping my gypsum content will help out. I vaguely remember RR saying 3% was good. Is that right? If so I'm way under the recommended amount.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (07/29/20 10:50 PM)
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Mycobro420
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26852757 - 07/29/20 10:45 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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How much water do you use. I use same amount of coir 650g but 2qts of verm fine grade and two handfulls or qt cup of gypsum
Edited by Mycobro420 (07/29/20 10:46 PM)
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Mycobro420
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Mycobro420]
#26852760 - 07/29/20 10:47 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Do you pasteurize the coir
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skullhuman
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Mycobro420]
#26852764 - 07/29/20 10:56 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I think a lot of contamination problems in bulk subs are from improper pasteurization. That's why I only pasteurize inside a big pot with the LID ON now so that the temperature inside the pot is uniform (none of that submerging jars and boiling them nonsense). Once I get my core temps up, I keep them there for FOUR hours. No more issues.
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Mycobro420]
#26852766 - 07/29/20 10:58 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Yea I've been pasteurizing the coir. I did bucket tek in a cooler for a while but I was having so many problems that despite almost everyone saying it's a waste of time I started pasteurizing again. I read a thread where Van Hatton saw coir he bucket tek'd and left in a bin without inoculating grow white mold in 2 days. The problem I see with bucket tek is that it's hard to get every single small chunk of coir broken up while it's piping hot to ensure that all the coir is hydrated and the mold spores or culture fragments are killed. JHOVA and another experienced grower chipped in and said they saw coir sitting in the bucket mold too. So I hydrate it with tap water, mix up the ingredients, load it into spawn bags, and stuff 8 of those bags (1 bag is 1 tub worth of sub) in a big 22 gallon stainless pot (crawfish cooker) with a strainer. The bags are in a strainer propped up on blocks of wood with water underneath. I ran a temp probe from the center of one of the bags through a hole I drilled in the lid, clamp the lid down and blast the heat until the core temp hits 108 then cut the heat. the temp rises to 145 and hovers there for an hour and then I unload all the bags into cleaned out tubs (1 bag per tub) to cool off or they'd sit there and hold temp forever with all that thermal mass. It sounds like a lot of work but I have the process streamlined pretty well.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (07/29/20 11:02 PM)
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26852770 - 07/29/20 11:00 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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My pasteurization is done with the lid tightly clamped down and is driven entirely by steam as none of the bags are touching water. You let it sit for 4 hours? Wouldn't that get into partial sterilization territory? I thought the standard was 140 to 160 degrees for 1 to 1.5 hours? I like to keep mine between 140 and 150 for 1 hour then unload so they cool quicker..
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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El Chupacabra
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: skullhuman] 1
#26852773 - 07/29/20 11:07 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Maybe but idk. Coir is very contam resistant whether you sterilize or pasteurize or even just simply hydrate it. I've seen it done with plenty of success as long as moisture content is good. It is a super common thing to use in moist terrariums with shitty reptiles shitting all over it. If a tub contams then it almost MUST be bad spawn or maybe a foreign object in the coir IMO. What about your lids.. What kind of filters? Have you tried different types of lids and/or filters over the years?
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Mycobro420]
#26852774 - 07/29/20 11:07 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Mycobro420 said: How much water do you use. I use same amount of coir 650g but 2qts of verm fine grade and two handfulls or qt cup of gypsum
I find that regardless of the brand of coir I use 3.8x the weight of the coir (in grams) in mL of water and 160 mL of water per 1 quart of medium vermiculite gets me to just under field capacity. The coir bricks are always different weights so I don't like to use a set volume of water per brick of coir. A set volume of water by weight of the coir gets me consistent field capacity
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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skullhuman
the skullman cometh



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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26852777 - 07/29/20 11:09 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I'm sure two hours is sufficient, but yeah- I steam pasteurize as well to make sure temps are uniform and that every bit of substrate is kept in pasteurization range for at least an hour. I found with the boiling method that temps throughout the jars were not consistent enough, and an hour was definitely not thorough. Most people are measuring core temps but I found the top of the jar to be the last to get up to temp. So uniform, thorough steam pasteurization is now the ticket for me.
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: El Chupacabra]
#26852780 - 07/29/20 11:13 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
El Chupacabra said: Maybe but idk. Coir is very contam resistant whether you sterilize or pasteurize or even just simply hydrate it. I've seen it done with plenty of success as long as moisture content is good. It is a super common thing to use in moist terrariums with shitty reptiles shitting all over it. If a tub contams then it almost MUST be bad spawn or maybe a foreign object in the coir IMO. What about your lids.. What kind of filters? Have you tried different types of lids and/or filters over the years?
I know tons of folks do that no problem but there are reports of coir that has small amounts of mold in it as a brick, like people have seen white on the edge of the brick. Seems possible being that it comes from a humid environment and travels so far, and has low quality control, etc.. I figure hydrating it, breaking up every little chunk, and then pasteurizing it removes the variable for now. And if there are seeds in it or something nutritious then pasteurizing that helps as well. When things go better I'll go back to the bucket tek.
My filter discs are synthetic filter discs from FP and I have new ones in my lids. I replaced all of them to eliminate that variable too. I stick with synthetic filter discs as they seem to be the best choice. I don't want any variables ya know..
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Anastomosis
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Anastomosis]
#26852788 - 07/29/20 11:19 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Anastomosis said: If some tubs are good and some are not, the problem could be your technique.
-------------------- "120mph with a trailer full of dogs and a truck full of drug addicts."
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Anastomosis]
#26852796 - 07/29/20 11:25 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Anastomosis said:
Quote:
Anastomosis said: If some tubs are good and some are not, the problem could be your technique.
For sure. I'll definitely be paying closer attention with my sterile work. I appreciate the advice, and it almost fits. However I am a bit skeptical because I haven't seen a single jar or plate contam in well over a year, no BS not a single one. If my technique was bad, as it was when I started growing, then I'd see an occasional jar or plate get contam'd like I used to. No one's perfect but I'm damn careful, and if my technique was so bad that I was losing half of my tubs then I would definitely be seeing some contams in plates or jars sometimes. I can't even remember the last time I saw a plate or jar contam... I treat sterile work like I'm handling biological warfare that would wipe out all of humanity if I slip.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26852799 - 07/29/20 11:29 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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In the cultivation general discussion someone mentioned that I may be overcooking my grains converting starches to sugars and making them available to competitors upon spawning. He said it fucked him for a few years. I have been cooking my jars excessively for 2.5 hours at 18 psi. I recently went down to 2 hours at 16 psi. Hopefully that helps. In this thread some folks recommended I do longer soaks to germinate endospores in order to kill them more efficiently and get less burst grains when simmering. Will definitely be doing that next grain run too..
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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jackrabbitcytoplas
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Anastomosis]
#26852800 - 07/29/20 11:30 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Did you consider trying muda bottles? Eliminating a few stages could help localizing the source of contaminations.
Just throwing it out there, sorry if I'm missing something obvious.
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: jackrabbitcytoplas]
#26852803 - 07/29/20 11:32 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Ya know I never tried muda bottles. I thought the loosened lid as air exchange was shady so I never bothered trying..
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26852804 - 07/29/20 11:34 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Didn't seem to be an efficient means to grow a bunch of mushies either. I mean maybe it is and I'm mistaken, but my girlfriend eats a lot of mushrooms
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (07/29/20 11:35 PM)
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26852805 - 07/29/20 11:35 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Oh I see, as a means of identifying the source of contamination. How so?
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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jackrabbitcytoplas
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26852813 - 07/29/20 11:46 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Sherlock Shrooms said: Oh I see, as a means of identifying the source of contamination. How so?
Because you're sterilizing the whole thing, inoculating once from a clean plate (via LI) and then the next time you're exposing it to open air is after the mycelium colonized the bottle. You're not expanding G2G, you're not spawning and you don't have it colonizing in a non sterile container supposedly exposed to your spore load.
If bottles comes out 100%, it could mean one of the things you didn't have to do for bottles is the problem.
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Anastomosis
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26852844 - 07/30/20 12:17 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Sherlock Shrooms said:
Quote:
Anastomosis said:
Quote:
Anastomosis said: If some tubs are good and some are not, the problem could be your technique.
For sure. I'll definitely be paying closer attention with my sterile work. I appreciate the advice, and it almost fits. However I am a bit skeptical because I haven't seen a single jar or plate contam in well over a year, no BS not a single one. If my technique was bad, as it was when I started growing, then I'd see an occasional jar or plate get contam'd like I used to. No one's perfect but I'm damn careful, and if my technique was so bad that I was losing half of my tubs then I would definitely be seeing some contams in plates or jars sometimes. I can't even remember the last time I saw a plate or jar contam... I treat sterile work like I'm handling biological warfare that would wipe out all of humanity if I slip.
Your technique for how you handle plates vs a2g vs g2g are all different. It's the g2g I'm talking about.
-------------------- "120mph with a trailer full of dogs and a truck full of drug addicts."
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sandman420
Saint PP



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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26852956 - 07/30/20 04:31 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Sherlock Shrooms said: I'm using a flowhood I built. This
 I make agar with 7.5 grams of malt extract and 10 grams of agar powder per 500mL of water. I do A2G into rye berries that have been soaked 6 to 8 hours, brought to a simmer until the middle is fully gelatinized, and then strained and spread out on drying racks until the grains are dry to the touch with a little bit of a whitish look to the surface before I load them into jars. Then I PC for 2 hours and let cool overnight and load directly into my flowhood from the PC the next day. I flame sterilize with a map gas propane torch that sits right at the edge of my flowhood. I wipe down the entire flow hood with alcohol and anything that gets brought inside of it then let it run for a while before I start doing transfers. I do all my work about a few inches in front of the filter..
You need to lift that rack up several more inches. The bottom of a flowhood is full of turbulence that brings a backwash of contaminated air alllllllllll the way up on the bottom.
i can show you with a particle counter how bad the bottom of a flowhood is.
Never work on plates that close to the bottom anyone reading this.
When you first described your problems to me it sounded like you have trichaderma/penicillium/whatever green mold that has gone myco-parasite on your mycelium. I don't know what cubesnsis mycelium looks like when this has occurred. No one probably does because you need a scanning electron microscope to see the interaction. Here is an interesting article on similar
The interaction pics are towards the bottom.
But your plates etc don't really look very off or anything, for the most part at least.
Lift that rack up.
Edited by sandman420 (07/30/20 04:40 AM)
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: jackrabbitcytoplas]
#26853044 - 07/30/20 06:53 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
jackrabbitcytoplas said:
Quote:
Sherlock Shrooms said: Oh I see, as a means of identifying the source of contamination. How so?
Because you're sterilizing the whole thing, inoculating once from a clean plate (via LI) and then the next time you're exposing it to open air is after the mycelium colonized the bottle. You're not expanding G2G, you're not spawning and you don't have it colonizing in a non sterile container supposedly exposed to your spore load.
If bottles comes out 100%, it could mean one of the things you didn't have to do for bottles is the problem.
That's a good idea, the quesion I have is that it's kind of like fruiting out of a jar and just because it doesn't contam how would I know that it's not the fact that it didn't have to recolonize in open air? I've always thought that was the archilles heel of our common cube method, the 5 or 6 days it takes to colonize a substrate once exposed to open air/pandoras box of contaminants..? Like if a muda bottle goes well compared to the tubs I've been spawning, does that mean it wasn't exposed to the sporeload in my home while recolonizing or does it mean I didn't introduce a contam during my typical grain to grain process? I feel like I'd still be at square one where I am right now, because those seem to be the 2 likely possibilities.
And then again if it is my grain prep, whether it's the burst grains or endospores germinating in the spawn again, those things cause problems once the grain spawn is broken up in to a tub and recolonizing a substrate. If it never recolonizes I can almost guarantee it won't contam. Then I'm still in the situation I am currently in. And if it does contam I'm still in the same situation. Maybe I'm missing something feel free to correct me. I'd just hate to go through an entire process where either result doesn't tell me anything...
And several months ago I had a dozen or so spawn jars of 2 different varieties that sat around for a few weeks fully colonized so I decided to just case them and fruit them out of the top of the jar. Every single one of them didn't contam for like 3 or more flushes until I threw them out.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: sandman420]
#26853050 - 07/30/20 06:57 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
sandman420 said:
Quote:
Sherlock Shrooms said: I'm using a flowhood I built. This
 I make agar with 7.5 grams of malt extract and 10 grams of agar powder per 500mL of water. I do A2G into rye berries that have been soaked 6 to 8 hours, brought to a simmer until the middle is fully gelatinized, and then strained and spread out on drying racks until the grains are dry to the touch with a little bit of a whitish look to the surface before I load them into jars. Then I PC for 2 hours and let cool overnight and load directly into my flowhood from the PC the next day. I flame sterilize with a map gas propane torch that sits right at the edge of my flowhood. I wipe down the entire flow hood with alcohol and anything that gets brought inside of it then let it run for a while before I start doing transfers. I do all my work about a few inches in front of the filter..
You need to lift that rack up several more inches. The bottom of a flowhood is full of turbulence that brings a backwash of contaminated air alllllllllll the way up on the bottom.
i can show you with a particle counter how bad the bottom of a flowhood is.
Never work on plates that close to the bottom anyone reading this.
When you first described your problems to me it sounded like you have trichaderma/penicillium/whatever green mold that has gone myco-parasite on your mycelium. I don't know what cubesnsis mycelium looks like when this has occurred. No one probably does because you need a scanning electron microscope to see the interaction. Here is an interesting article on similar
The interaction pics are towards the bottom.
But your plates etc don't really look very off or anything, for the most part at least.
Lift that rack up.
Holy crap that makes sense! I'll lift the rack up and see if that helps. Again it's weird though that for over a year I haven't seen a single contam in a plate or jar. I'd think if I was occasionally wafting random spores into my plates then surely at some point I'd see a contam in my work before it goes to tubs. But either way I'll lift up the rack to eliminate the variable. Good tip!
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26853054 - 07/30/20 07:00 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Right now I've got all my spawn created for this round so all these tips with my grain prep, raising the rack on my flowhood, fruiting from jars or creating muda bottles, and sharpening up my grain to grain transfers will take some time to get feedback on. Once I go through those steps I'll log them all here and let you guys know how it goes. So far I've gotten several good insights. Gratitude
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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rickyswamps
Bad Apple



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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26853057 - 07/30/20 07:02 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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You are overthinking your grain prep for sure. They don't need to be soaked or rinsed, just boiled and hydrated. A few burst grains are no big deal. What kind of bags are you using (filter size) and how are they sealed? What is your water source for spawning?
Your pics aren't particularly helpful, because the plate looks good, the jar looks good, the bag looks good I think, one tub looks good, but the other doesn't. But they aren't even connected to each other. We would need to see all the jars or bag that was used to spawn that green tub. Also, was it a proven variety that you had success with before or something new? Sometimes I carry from plate to tub a new variety and it goes horribly. I think the plate is good, but I'm wrong...
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: rickyswamps]
#26853083 - 07/30/20 07:19 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
rickyswamps said: You are overthinking your grain prep for sure. They don't need to be soaked or rinsed, just boiled and hydrated. A few burst grains are no big deal. What kind of bags are you using (filter size) and how are they sealed? What is your water source for spawning?
Your pics aren't particularly helpful, because the plate looks good, the jar looks good, the bag looks good I think, one tub looks good, but the other doesn't. But they aren't even connected to each other. We would need to see all the jars or bag that was used to spawn that green tub. Also, was it a proven variety that you had success with before or something new? Sometimes I carry from plate to tub a new variety and it goes horribly. I think the plate is good, but I'm wrong...
Well I hope it is my grain prep because that could be easily addressed. And ya know in the beginning when I had way more success I soaked for 18 hours and got barely any burst grains. I got frustrated part way through this run and finally started posting this thread when it was too late to track a plate to a jar to a bag to a tub, but I will definitely be doing that on this thread for the next run with several different plates, and jar, etc.. from the same variety and from different varieties so please keep following along.
My water source for spawning is the tap water from a well that gets mixed into my coir and verm, it then gets pasteurized and loaded into a tub the next day. I do fill up a mister with tap water and lightly mist the walls of the tub and the top surface of the tub once it's spawned. Very lightly just to up the humidity in the tub right away. Then I leave it closed for several days until its fully colonized and open it up to check for contams and dry spots.
About these current pics, even though they aren't tracked from start to finish for a more proper diagnosis which I will do and post here next time... they are a perfect reflection of what has been going on for years now. Plates look fine, jars look fine, some tubs make it 1 or 2 flushes and half the others get thrown out before the first flush. Consistently every run regardless of the variety. I didn't cherry pick good looking plates or jars to post pics of. It's what everything always looks like..
Basically I don't have any proven varieties anymore. All the stuff that gave me success when I started growing is over 4 years old and has since been replaced with new stuff. When I started having problems and posted them here a year or so ago people told me my cultures were probably senescent and I should start new stuff. I've started several varieties from spores and have made transfers until the culture looks clean like in the initial pics on this thread and use those. I also have taken clones from multispore tubs and grow those out. Every single culture I have suffers the same plight, the same exact shade of green around the same time when fruiting. I haven't seen a unique contam in ages. When I started growing I'd see rhizopus, cobweb, different shades of green, etc.. Now it's always the same exact green on every different variety. Which has always made me suspect an overwhelming presence of one particular kind of pathogenic or parasitic mold in my home. But that could still come back to bad sterile technique or the old myth about spore loads in a home. I bombed my whole house before this run and it didn't seem to help though..
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: rickyswamps]
#26853088 - 07/30/20 07:24 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
rickyswamps said: You are overthinking your grain prep for sure. They don't need to be soaked or rinsed, just boiled and hydrated. A few burst grains are no big deal. What kind of bags are you using (filter size) and how are they sealed? What is your water source for spawning?
Your pics aren't particularly helpful, because the plate looks good, the jar looks good, the bag looks good I think, one tub looks good, but the other doesn't. But they aren't even connected to each other. We would need to see all the jars or bag that was used to spawn that green tub. Also, was it a proven variety that you had success with before or something new? Sometimes I carry from plate to tub a new variety and it goes horribly. I think the plate is good, but I'm wrong...
The bags are unicorn bags with .2 micron filters and they are sealed with a 16 inch impulse sealer from FP, a nice one. Folks have mentioned tiny pinholes at the seal from excess heat but I've inspected every bag closely and I can't see any. They also hold their air volume well when mixing up. There's about 4 quarts per bag. I was loading them with 4 quarts then noc'ing them with 1 full quart but Pasty said to keep em at 4 quarts to avoid anaerobic bacteria, so I load them with 3.25 quarts and noc them with a full quart now.. I store them 2 bags per 64 quart cleaned out tub while colonizing to keep the spore load on the filters down.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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rickyswamps
Bad Apple



Registered: 11/08/18
Posts: 1,192
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26853108 - 07/30/20 07:57 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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A sub making one or two flushes before contaming is normal. Thats considered success. Some people will say that they get 20 flushes with no contams, thats fantastic...but....IME, during the spring, summer, and fall, where I live, I get 2 flushes from very clean spawn. Then a contam comes in. This is normal. Also, I get far less contams in shoeboxes because I think the sub stays a little drier.
If you have a tub go bad before a pinset, then its to blame on your spawn and its most likely not grain prep. Bacteria is easy to spot. It gets wet and greasy looking. Hidden fungal or white mold contams can be trickier. If a plate is growing slower than than others...toss it. If it takes a lot longer for a jar or bag to colonize than your other ones...toss it.
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Mycobro420
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26853111 - 07/30/20 08:01 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Have you ever took a agar plate open it for a minute infront of your flowhood.move it slowly all around the flowhood Then parafilm it. Then leave it at room temp to make sure your flowhood is blowing steril air.
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PMBastian
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Mycobro420]
#26853395 - 07/30/20 11:44 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Interesting thread, following.
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Tweeq
Tweeq of Nature


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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Mycobro420]
#26853404 - 07/30/20 11:49 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I've been reading this whole thread and while Im also no expert:
Grainprep: Ive stopped rinsing, never used gypsum, soak for 12 hrs, boil untill first hull bursts
Sterilisation: the general concensus seems to be that 90 minutes @ 15 psi is the way to go. I think you are way oversterilizing those grains.
The problem seems to be your grains. Too many broken hulls and over sterilized they are too easy to get invaded by other stuff is my 2 cts
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sandman420
Saint PP



Registered: 06/17/04
Posts: 5,384
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Tweeq]
#26853459 - 07/30/20 12:31 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Spawn bags always have a lot of busted grains and are sterilized for 3-4 hours....Thats not it imo.
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Tweeq
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: sandman420]
#26853642 - 07/30/20 01:51 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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sandman420 said: Spawn bags always have a lot of busted grains and are sterilized for 3-4 hours....Thats not it imo.
Like I said, im no expert lol.
My process works for me at least.. sometimes with much worse looking agar than his.
Ill certainly hang around bc now Im curious af what it will turn out to be in the end
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MLPismyOPSEC
That One Ponyfucker


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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Tweeq]
#26853913 - 07/30/20 03:55 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Have you tried different brands of coir? What brand do you use? It has to be coming from something that has been constant in your technique, which makes me think either grain or coir. You say you bombed your house to clean it, what exactly did you do?
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maxmush
Always learning...
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Posts: 440
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: MLPismyOPSEC]
#26854230 - 07/30/20 07:01 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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tagged
-------------------- Disclaimer: all information presented is intended for educational purposes only. All photos are only representations and not directly from the user.
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: rickyswamps]
#26854301 - 07/30/20 07:51 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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rickyswamps said: A sub making one or two flushes before contaming is normal. Thats considered success. Some people will say that they get 20 flushes with no contams, thats fantastic...but....IME, during the spring, summer, and fall, where I live, I get 2 flushes from very clean spawn. Then a contam comes in. This is normal. Also, I get far less contams in shoeboxes because I think the sub stays a little drier.
If you have a tub go bad before a pinset, then its to blame on your spawn and its most likely not grain prep. Bacteria is easy to spot. It gets wet and greasy looking. Hidden fungal or white mold contams can be trickier. If a plate is growing slower than than others...toss it. If it takes a lot longer for a jar or bag to colonize than your other ones...toss it.
Thanks for the feedback. I consider 2 flushes a success as well. I'd like to be more successful Yea I'm going to do a bunch of minis and see how they compare, I usually always make it 2 flushes with those guys. Maybe better air exchange, less mass, drier, not sure why exactly.. Pain in the ass multiplying the work but whatever it takes. Yea I never see wetspot on any a2g only here and there little bits after g2g. My plates and jars always colonize at pretty much exactly the same time, I'd throw stuff out too if it slowed down as there's no reason for it except hidden problems.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Mycobro420]
#26854304 - 07/30/20 07:53 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Mycobro420 said: Have you ever took a agar plate open it for a minute infront of your flowhood.move it slowly all around the flowhood Then parafilm it. Then leave it at room temp to make sure your flowhood is blowing steril air.
Yes I've done that with plenty of plates as well as jars. I also flame sterilize the scalpel and wave it around in front of the hepa filter after it's cooled and do blank transfers to make sure my technique is good. Never seen one of them contam after sealing them up and keeping em at room temp for several weeks..
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Tweeq]
#26854311 - 07/30/20 07:59 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Tweeq said: I've been reading this whole thread and while Im also no expert:
Grainprep: Ive stopped rinsing, never used gypsum, soak for 12 hrs, boil untill first hull bursts
Sterilisation: the general concensus seems to be that 90 minutes @ 15 psi is the way to go. I think you are way oversterilizing those grains.
The problem seems to be your grains. Too many broken hulls and over sterilized they are too easy to get invaded by other stuff is my 2 cts
About the rinsing, are you using rye? because any time I have under rinsed the rye berries they clump in the jars. Since experiencing that I have never even bothered to try not rinsing them. With oats and others rinsing may not be necessary but I'm not sure how one gets away with not rinsing rye and avoiding clumping unless your supplier has super clean rye berries.
You may be right about the sterilization times and burst grains. At some point I figured more was better with PC time and temp but that may not be true. I'm definitely scaling back from 2.5 hours for jars to 2 hours. And bags I was doing 3.5 hours so I'll scale that back to 3 hours. 1.5 hours feels a bit light on the PC time but maybe I'm wrong. Many experienced cultivators seem to be doing 2 hours for jars. Maybe I'll try a round at 1.5 hours and see how it compares. I think the longer soak for rye berries will def reduce the burst grains. You guys do make sure when simmering the grains that all of them have become fully gelatinized through the center right? My experience was that leaving a small bit of white ungelatinized material in the center of the grain produced hardly any burst grains but slower and less vibrant colonization...
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Pastywhyte
Say hello to my little friend



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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26854315 - 07/30/20 08:04 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Sherlock Shrooms said:
Quote:
El Chupacabra said: Maybe but idk. Coir is very contam resistant whether you sterilize or pasteurize or even just simply hydrate it. I've seen it done with plenty of success as long as moisture content is good. It is a super common thing to use in moist terrariums with shitty reptiles shitting all over it. If a tub contams then it almost MUST be bad spawn or maybe a foreign object in the coir IMO. What about your lids.. What kind of filters? Have you tried different types of lids and/or filters over the years?
I know tons of folks do that no problem but there are reports of coir that has small amounts of mold in it as a brick, like people have seen white on the edge of the brick. Seems possible being that it comes from a humid environment and travels so far, and has low quality control, etc.. I figure hydrating it, breaking up every little chunk, and then pasteurizing it removes the variable for now. And if there are seeds in it or something nutritious then pasteurizing that helps as well. When things go better I'll go back to the bucket tek.
My filter discs are synthetic filter discs from FP and I have new ones in my lids. I replaced all of them to eliminate that variable too. I stick with synthetic filter discs as they seem to be the best choice. I don't want any variables ya know..
If there are seeds in the coir, pasteurizing won’t help. At that point your only hope is that the colony can reach and take the seeds before molds do.
You already seem to know you need to break it all down to track the vector. Blank samples of every media run should be kept and checked. Deep clean the grow area and maybe even try a few things more forgiving like bulk bottles or bags. That can really help you spot the weak point.
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: MLPismyOPSEC]
#26854317 - 07/30/20 08:06 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
MLPismyOPSEC said: Have you tried different brands of coir? What brand do you use? It has to be coming from something that has been constant in your technique, which makes me think either grain or coir. You say you bombed your house to clean it, what exactly did you do?
I've tried 4 or 5 different brands of coir and got the same exact results. Can't be that although I know that has been a problem for others. I bought a small fogger and Decon 30 made by Benefect which is a botanical mold killer. It's the only plant based sanitizer that's been federally registered and approved for use in hospitals and restaurants. It's called Decon 30 because with 30 seconds of contact time it's been proven to kill/decontaminate 99.9% of bacteria and mold spores. A lot of mold remediation businesses have started using it because it doesn't cause cancer like pretty much any other chemical based fungicide. It's been lab tested and shown to be as effective as chemical agents. I unloaded 2 gallons of decon 30 across my whole house and garage and ran it through my grow room twice..
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (07/30/20 08:16 PM)
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Pastywhyte]
#26854330 - 07/30/20 08:14 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Pastywhyte said:
Quote:
Sherlock Shrooms said:
Quote:
El Chupacabra said: Maybe but idk. Coir is very contam resistant whether you sterilize or pasteurize or even just simply hydrate it. I've seen it done with plenty of success as long as moisture content is good. It is a super common thing to use in moist terrariums with shitty reptiles shitting all over it. If a tub contams then it almost MUST be bad spawn or maybe a foreign object in the coir IMO. What about your lids.. What kind of filters? Have you tried different types of lids and/or filters over the years?
I know tons of folks do that no problem but there are reports of coir that has small amounts of mold in it as a brick, like people have seen white on the edge of the brick. Seems possible being that it comes from a humid environment and travels so far, and has low quality control, etc.. I figure hydrating it, breaking up every little chunk, and then pasteurizing it removes the variable for now. And if there are seeds in it or something nutritious then pasteurizing that helps as well. When things go better I'll go back to the bucket tek.
My filter discs are synthetic filter discs from FP and I have new ones in my lids. I replaced all of them to eliminate that variable too. I stick with synthetic filter discs as they seem to be the best choice. I don't want any variables ya know..
If there are seeds in the coir, pasteurizing won’t help. At that point your only hope is that the colony can reach and take the seeds before molds do.
You already seem to know you need to break it all down to track the vector. Blank samples of every media run should be kept and checked. Deep clean the grow area and maybe even try a few things more forgiving like bulk bottles or bags. That can really help you spot the weak point.
Good insight about seeds in coir not being helped by pasteurization. Makes sense. I'm going to leave some blank plates and jars tonight, I'll do blank transfers into them as well. I'm toward the end of the sterile work of this round so it'll be a few weeks before I can start properly logging and tracking plates to jars to tubs from start to finish and post it all here. I'll make blanks along with each of those other logged items and track and post them too. I'll also do bottles or bags to fruit directly out of and see how that compares. I'll stay on top of documenting everything. I have faith we'll get to the bottom of this. Thanks for tagging along guys. What a great community
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26854335 - 07/30/20 08:18 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I gotta read up on mudafuka's bottle tek and do a round of those. That'll be fun
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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jackrabbitcytoplas
Stranger

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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26854603 - 07/30/20 11:20 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Another left field idea here. If you've got someone who knows you're growing and that you trust, how about spawning in their house? Only bring in your colonized grain, prep brand new coir there and get a new mono. Might be more trouble then it's worth.
As for bottles, the thread is long and the first post isn't updated. So if you're wondering about the recipe:
Quote:
MudaFuka said: I've gotten to point where all I use is WBS coir and Verm. I don't actually measire anything but I use roughly half grain 40 percent coir and 10 percent verm.
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Tweeq
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: jackrabbitcytoplas]
#26854725 - 07/31/20 12:52 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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@Sherlock: Yes Im using rye. It never clumps in the jars but I let it dry approx 8 hrs after boiling before I load them in the jars
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: jackrabbitcytoplas]
#26858593 - 08/02/20 10:46 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
jackrabbitcytoplas said: Another left field idea here. If you've got someone who knows you're growing and that you trust, how about spawning in their house? Only bring in your colonized grain, prep brand new coir there and get a new mono. Might be more trouble then it's worth.
As for bottles, the thread is long and the first post isn't updated. So if you're wondering about the recipe:
Quote:
MudaFuka said: I've gotten to point where all I use is WBS coir and Verm. I don't actually measire anything but I use roughly half grain 40 percent coir and 10 percent verm.
Thanks for tip about MudaFuka's updated recipe, that's very helpful. About a year and a half ago I did exactly that, I made a ton of spawn at my house and brought it to a buddy's house after it had fully colonized. He had never grown before so he bought tubs and all the substrate and loaded them and fruited them at his place and no bullshit 95% of the tubs made it 3 or 4 flushes, he only lost 1 out of a few dozen. And yet at the same time at my place with the same variety I lost about half of everything I did. Which is one of the reasons for a while I've been feeling that there is a very high sporeload in my home of some pathogenic contaminant that is effecting my results. I should of shared that earlier. Good question/suggestion. I should try that again and just spawn a few tubs at a friends house.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Tweeq]
#26858595 - 08/02/20 10:47 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Tweeq said: @Sherlock: Yes Im using rye. It never clumps in the jars but I let it dry approx 8 hrs after boiling before I load them in the jars
Wow that's fasscinating. I'll give it a shot. If it doesn't need to be I wonder what causes me and so many others to have experienced clumping without sufficient rinsing, just not being dried enough?
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (08/02/20 10:48 AM)
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26858884 - 08/02/20 01:13 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I did some tests and took some pics of a few things to track for now until I get clones from this round and start some new stuff to follow from start to finish. I plan on doing more comprehensive tests next run when I take clones. They look a lot cleaner and simpler on agar and behave more consistently so I'd rather properly test those than multispore. But for now you can see how my spawn and tubs look while they're colonizing and see how these tubs fruit.
These 2 plates are the 4th transfer from spores. The 2 halves labeled Y and Z I cut up and dropped into jars of rye. The other 2 halves already looked a little suspect due to the uncolonized areas so I'm tracking Y and Z since they look clean on agar. I divided up Y between 4 jars and Z between 4 jars. I normally don't spread a plate this far in a2g but due to some traveling coming up I don't have time to do a2g>g2g and finish hopefully 2 flushes after spawning. I'm making 2 minis out of Z and 2 minis out of Y, 2 jars of spawn per mini. The minis are a 30 quart size.
Here are the plates before they were opened. The agar recipe is 7.5 grams malt extract, 10 grams agar, 500mL of distilled water. Vented the PC for 20 minutes and cooked for 35 minutes at about 16 or 17psi. When I make agar I wrap the plates in cling wrap and store them for weeks before use and never see any of them contam after pouring.

 Here are the jars a day after they were inoculated. These are organic rye berries soaked for 8 hours, simmered, then dried on a screen with fans blowing over it for several hours before loading into jars. They were vented for 20 mins then cooked for 2 hours at 16 to 17 psi.



-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (08/02/20 01:48 PM)
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jackrabbitcytoplas
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26858922 - 08/02/20 01:27 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Sherlock Shrooms said:
Quote:
jackrabbitcytoplas said: Another left field idea here. If you've got someone who knows you're growing and that you trust, how about spawning in their house? Only bring in your colonized grain, prep brand new coir there and get a new mono. Might be more trouble then it's worth.
As for bottles, the thread is long and the first post isn't updated. So if you're wondering about the recipe:
Quote:
MudaFuka said: I've gotten to point where all I use is WBS coir and Verm. I don't actually measire anything but I use roughly half grain 40 percent coir and 10 percent verm.
Thanks for tip about MudaFuka's updated recipe, that's very helpful. About a year and a half ago I did exactly that, I made a ton of spawn at my house and brought it to a buddy's house after it had fully colonized. He had never grown before so he bought tubs and all the substrate and loaded them and fruited them at his place and no bullshit 95% of the tubs made it 3 or 4 flushes, he only lost 1 out of a few dozen. And yet at the same time at my place with the same variety I lost about half of everything I did. Which is one of the reasons for a while I've been feeling that there is a very high sporeload in my home of some pathogenic contaminant that is effecting my results. I should of shared that earlier. Good question/suggestion. I should try that again and just spawn a few tubs at a friends house.
Man, I'm stumped for ideas. Definitely looking forward to following along and seeing what's what.
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: jackrabbitcytoplas]
#26858943 - 08/02/20 01:34 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I stopped using liners a while ago and I found that the sub reabsorbing all the water that runs down the sides helps sustain the first flush, and it makes bottom watering between rounds easier. I've read some say that water pooling and saturating the sides where it runs down onto the sub becomes a vector for contamination, however I don't see contams in those saturated areas any more often then I see them anywhere else. Anyone have thoughts on liner vs no liner in tubs?
You can see where the water has run down onto the sub and saturated it a bit here
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26858985 - 08/02/20 01:50 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Sandman, I raised the rack up in my flowhood. Do you think this is high enough?
 I'm also pouring an epoxy glaze surface for the bottom, like bar top stuff, and using some high gloss polyurethane on the interior sides and top. There's already a clear coat on all the inner surfaces but I think this will create a smoother, easier to clean, more resistant finish all around.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (08/02/20 01:53 PM)
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Crackatoa
Stranger in a strange land



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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26859068 - 08/02/20 02:34 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I think it looks better
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Crackatoa]
#26859121 - 08/02/20 03:11 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Cool, thanks. It's too late to of followed these minis from start to finish but I have a new way of loading them. I like water running down the sides into the sub so I don't use a full liner. But I don't want to damage shrooms trying to get the sub out while it's fruiting without a liner, so I cut a strip of plastic a little skinnier than the width of the sub and it just runs across the bottom of the tub and comes up an inch or so on both short sides of the tub as little handles to lift the sub out for easy harvesting. With this type of liner I imagine most of the water will still reabsorb into the substrate.
I break up the spawn and mix it thoroughly with the sub in a separate clean mini. Then I scoop the sub and pour it into the other clean mini with the cleaned liner while holding the plastic up. Once I get all the sub into the mini with the liner I level it out and very slightly tamp it to level out the surface. When I say tamp I'm not really packing it down just very lightly tapping the top surface to level it out. Then I case/frost it with half a quart of CVG and level that out. I trim the plastic handles so only they stick out an inch or so, then lightly mist the sub surface and side walls and close it up for colonization. Don't mind my gloves and plastic sleeves in the picture, I'm very careful these days since I don't know what the hell is causing all of my problems. I'll see how this little liner thing works out, it'd make my life easier to easily lift fruiting subs out to harvest.





-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (08/02/20 03:14 PM)
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polaritymind
relaxed attention


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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26859187 - 08/02/20 03:52 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Ok didnt wanna read the whole thread, is the problem solved? Some ideas are how is your bulk substrate prepared, some coir comes with added trichoderma spores, and I even had trouble just bucket pasteurizing dowels. But tbh with those things, I can hardly imagine that sterilzing hurts since I dont really think there are that many beneficialy bacteria etc that could get killed off there, as with compost. BUsted HEPA is another good idea, but then why do you have success with your plates, doesnt make sense, what is your success rate there? Otherwise try a SAB just for the experiment, i see how the airflow, if it *is* busted could introduce more contams but yeah again, doesnt add up.
-------------------- "to affirm life is to also affirm death" -Albert hofmann
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: polaritymind] 1
#26859302 - 08/02/20 05:13 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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No the problem is not solved. I don't wish to rehash all that we've gone over in this thread so read up if you're interested in all that we've covered, but yea my plates are consistently fine. 0 out of the past 500 have contaminated. I haven't seen a visible contam in a plate or jar aside from a small bit of wetspot occasionally after g2g in over a year..
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Pastywhyte
Say hello to my little friend



Registered: 09/15/12
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26859306 - 08/02/20 05:17 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I would try a completely new grain. That or look for a giant garbage can full of trich under the stairs.
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26859310 - 08/02/20 05:20 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I opened a plate and held it in front of different areas in front of the hepa filter for about 2 minutes, then flame sterilized my scalpel let it cool and waved it around in front of different areas of my hepa filter and made a blank transfer. I did this with 2 separate plates, sealed them, and labeled them. They are now sitting at room temp and I will post updates of them over the next few weeks. At the end of the few weeks I'll drop them into separate jars and monitor what they do in grains. After that I'll do g2g with them and continue monitoring them.
Before blank transfer

After blank transfer, I chopped the agar up a bit just for fun
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
Neophyte



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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Pastywhyte]
#26859327 - 08/02/20 05:28 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Pastywhyte said: I would try a completely new grain. That or look for a giant garbage can full of trich under the stairs.
Haha yea I've keep looking for the hidden trash can full of trich and haven't found it I've tried different grains over the past year. I've used conventional rye berries from a totally different source, I've used producer pride oats, and another brand of oats I forget the name now, and the organic rye berries I'm currently using. Same results, only a small portion of the tubs make it to the end of the second flush, many crap out before the first flush is over and some shortly after. The only other person I know that grows is using the same grains I currently am (organic rye) and he gets most tubs past the second flush before they contam, the only difference is that he jar pasteurizes his substrate with poo. He swears that he used to get contams all the time using just coir or CVG and when he switched to jar pastuerizing poo he became way more successful. Strange. I think it's a pain in the ass and haven't wanted to go down that road but I'm about to try some tubs with poo and see how they compare. My friend thinks these things vary by the region one lives in. That's why some are having easy success using some methods and others work their ass off very carefully and just keep having problems. I have no idea..
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (08/02/20 05:45 PM)
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26859379 - 08/02/20 05:48 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Here's the 5th transfer away from spores of TX. Looking nice so far, more rhizomorphic than the previous transfers.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Pastywhyte
Say hello to my little friend



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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26859460 - 08/02/20 06:30 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Try some grain that’s not oats or organic.
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Anastomosis
Stranger


Registered: 05/20/20
Posts: 227
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Anastomosis]
#26859509 - 08/02/20 06:49 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Sherlock Shrooms said: No the problem is not solved.
Quote:
Anastomosis said: If some tubs are good and some are not, the problem could be your technique. Some jars you do great. A few maybe you fuck up? If mold spores are getting in at g2g, they may not show their ugly face until after spawning.
And..
Quote:
Anastomosis said: 10 percent is a lot.
-------------------- "120mph with a trailer full of dogs and a truck full of drug addicts."
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Anastomosis]
#26859621 - 08/02/20 07:52 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Anastomosis said:
Quote:
Sherlock Shrooms said: No the problem is not solved.
Quote:
Anastomosis said: If some tubs are good and some are not, the problem could be your technique. Some jars you do great. A few maybe you fuck up? If mold spores are getting in at g2g, they may not show their ugly face until after spawning.
And..
Quote:
Anastomosis said: 10 percent is a lot.
I think I was over estimating the 10% thing. My grains look more like 1 or 2% burst.
 We'll see about the g2g thing soon, I'll test it. It's a good point but I forgot to mention, I forgot about it in general until you got me thinking about the g2g thing. About a year ago I did a whole run a2g, it was a pain in the ass. I didn't get any better or worse results. I didn't do it because I suspected g2g transfers of being the problem, back then I thought the culture was just expanding too far and getting tired so I went a2g to reduce potential senescence. I didn't realize it but that did sort of test my g2g technique by doing a whole run without it and getting similar poor results. Besides g2g with jars is pretty simple. I can't imagine how I'd keep screwing that up so consistently after all this time. I mean maybe but it doesn't seem to fit. Wipe down the master jar very well with alcohol. Unload all the receiving jars directly into the flowhood with foil on the tops. Carefully remove the lid making sure your fingers never cross the work areas. I flip the lid of the receiving jar upside down on top of another jar in front of the filter. Twist the master so grains fall into the receiving jar keeping only the opening of the master jar barely over the receiving jar and angled behind it so no contams from the body of the jar fall in. Then put the lid of the receiving jar back on being very careful with the placement of my fingers and repeat for all 8 or 10 receiving jars..
Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (08/02/20 08:24 PM)
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26859802 - 08/02/20 09:47 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I'll pay closer attention next time I do g2g. Maybe I am missing something there. Now I'm wondering if the receiver jar lid flipped upside down has any contams from around the ring blow onto the underside of the lid That would be fucked if flipping the lid and resting it has been causing problems, I've been doing that since the beginning. Is that normal procedure for folks doing g2g with jars? flipping the lid of the receiving jar and resting it on top of another jar in front of the hepa filter while you transfer grains into it?
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (08/02/20 09:51 PM)
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Anastomosis
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26859811 - 08/02/20 09:57 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Maybe pouring your master jar a little higher from your recieving jars would be beneficial because it would give the laminar flow a chance to blow a bad spore you missed on your master away? I keep the recieving jar lid in my hand and immediately put back on after pouring. Once completed with all jars, I then tighten all the lids
-------------------- "120mph with a trailer full of dogs and a truck full of drug addicts."
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Anastomosis]
#26859820 - 08/02/20 10:02 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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That's a good idea, I do keep the master jar a bit close to the receiving jar. I'll lift it higher when I do transfers, I'll also practice holding the receiving lid in my hand while I do the transfer with the other and putting the lid back on quickly. Do you line up all your jars across the face of the hepa filter or put them 2 or 3 deep on 1 side of the flowhood then rotate them between transfers like I do?
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Anastomosis
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26859835 - 08/02/20 10:12 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I do 3 rows deep plus 1. 1 master to 10 receiving jars. I do the single jar first. Then the first full row (furthest from the filter) and continue forward, doing the row closest to the filter last. I hold the master in my right hand, so I work from right to left and only reach over jars after they are inoculated.
-------------------- "120mph with a trailer full of dogs and a truck full of drug addicts."
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Anastomosis]
#26859842 - 08/02/20 10:22 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Tweeq
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26859929 - 08/03/20 12:44 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Sherlock Shrooms said:
Quote:
Tweeq said: @Sherlock: Yes Im using rye. It never clumps in the jars but I let it dry approx 8 hrs after boiling before I load them in the jars
Wow that's fasscinating. I'll give it a shot. If it doesn't need to be I wonder what causes me and so many others to have experienced clumping without sufficient rinsing, just not being dried enough?
That would be my best guess. Not dry enough.. From what I've gathered around the boards, rye can sometimes take up more moisture than is needed or what you should want.
Back when we let dry for only one or two hrs we had a lot of problems with bacteria, clumping, contams and so on. It has bettered a lot since we let the grain dry for 6 - 8 hrs.
However, by no means an expert over here this is what works for us
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Tweeq]
#26860432 - 08/03/20 10:05 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Tweeq said:
Quote:
Sherlock Shrooms said:
Quote:
Tweeq said: @Sherlock: Yes Im using rye. It never clumps in the jars but I let it dry approx 8 hrs after boiling before I load them in the jars
Wow that's fasscinating. I'll give it a shot. If it doesn't need to be I wonder what causes me and so many others to have experienced clumping without sufficient rinsing, just not being dried enough?
That would be my best guess. Not dry enough.. From what I've gathered around the boards, rye can sometimes take up more moisture than is needed or what you should want.
Back when we let dry for only one or two hrs we had a lot of problems with bacteria, clumping, contams and so on. It has bettered a lot since we let the grain dry for 6 - 8 hrs.
However, by no means an expert over here this is what works for us
Right on, good insights. Thanks. We dry for at least 4 hours sometimes 6 or so. We have the racks spread out with like 3 fans running so air is moving pretty fast. I found that the last time we pushed it and dried the grains for 8 or 10 hours with our setup the grains actually shrunk and were too dry, when I inoculated them the mycelium was moving super slow. The same thing happened in the past when I simply didn't fully gelatinize the grains when simmering and the myc had a hard time colonizing them except this time we did fully gelatinize them yet seeemed to overdry them. Funny though that even though they took over 3 weeks to colonize when we overdried them none of those bags showed any wetspot at all whereas I got used to seeing at least a spot of wetspot here and there in almost every bag. So I think there is a perfect equilibrium of being fully gelatinized and thoroughly dried without excessively drying and shriveling the grains leading to slow colonization. Grain prep more and more seems to be a science and an art and quite critical. How the hell people boil the shit out of grains with no soaking, dry them in colanders for an hour or 2 and have amazing runs defies all logic to me..
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (08/03/20 10:07 AM)
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26860469 - 08/03/20 10:20 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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A little pin porn
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Tweeq
Tweeq of Nature


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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26860538 - 08/03/20 10:48 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I agree sherlock. The right grain prep seems critical for good results. No idea how some people manage by just hard boiling. Maybe they live in drier climates idk.
You'll find that magical equillibrium eventually for sure!
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Tweeq]
#26875639 - 08/11/20 06:06 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Here are the 2 plates that have sat for about two weeks at room temp after I did blank transfers into them and waved them around open in front of the hepa filter for a minute or two each. No signs of anything so my agar technique and flowhood seem to be good. The next time I make grains I'll transfer the agar from these plates into grain masters and let them sit at room temp for a few weeks to make sure there aren't hitchhiking contams that only grow on grains and that my a2g technique is good. After that I'll do g2g with those blank masters and make sure that technique is good too.

 I'm still seeing contams pop up in plenty of tubs before the first flush is finished, and the rest of the tubs contaminate midway thru the second flush. I just bought some millet so I can compare the performance of different grains on my next run.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
Neophyte



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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26875658 - 08/11/20 06:12 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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The last plates I transferred into rye grains and posted pics of earlier in this thread are colonizing very slowly. It looks like healthy mycelium and I'm certain that I over dried the grains. After listening to the various suggestions on this thread I thought maybe I wasn't drying my grains enough but I think now that I was and my problem is elsewhere. Anastosmosis even said the grain jar I took pics of looked quite dry. This is what they look like on day twelve after breaking up the colonized grains and redistributing them I haven't seen growth this slow in a long time, since like a year ago when I over dried or underhydrated a batch of oats. These I'm certain I simmered until the center was fully gelatinized so they're too dry..
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26875669 - 08/11/20 06:18 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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All of my second flush contams always come up on stem butts I sliced off and let the stub stay in the sub. I used to twist and pull all the shrooms but at some point decided to cut them all off as close to the sub as I can to leave more hyphal knots for more fruits on the second flush. I'm wondering if this is a vector for contamination as I've read some experienced growers say that it is in the past, but then I have read some say otherwise in more recent times and that if you see contams pop up in stems or craters it is still due to the spawn you start with. I'm starting to think that isn't necessarily true. It seems like the stem butts become bacterial and become a breeding ground for contaminants. Anyone have experience with this?
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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MLPismyOPSEC
That One Ponyfucker


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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26875757 - 08/11/20 06:58 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I've done about 100 tubs (~50 monos, ~40 shoeboxes), always cut the stipe, and never have contams because of it. I dump them after a third flush, but my first 30 monos and 20 SB's didn't contam at any point. I know it's not a lot of experience, but i feel pretty confident that the stumps don't cause contamination.
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: MLPismyOPSEC]
#26875824 - 08/11/20 07:42 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
MLPismyOPSEC said: I've done about 100 tubs (~50 monos, ~40 shoeboxes), always cut the stipe, and never have contams because of it. I dump them after a third flush, but my first 30 monos and 20 SB's didn't contam at any point. I know it's not a lot of experience, but i feel pretty confident that the stumps don't cause contamination.
Thanks for the feedback. What size are your monos? As in the quart measurement of the whole tub. And what depth of sub do you normally do?
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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MLPismyOPSEC
That One Ponyfucker


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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26878859 - 08/13/20 04:12 PM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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32qt and 4" always, the mycelium always overgrows the stumps and the next flushes grow around em.
Edited by MLPismyOPSEC (08/13/20 04:13 PM)
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: MLPismyOPSEC]
#26889930 - 08/20/20 11:24 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Interesting that your monos are all 32 quart. I consider my 30 quart size minis even though most here think of a 20 quart or so to be the standard mini size. All the problems I've been having are in 64 quart monos. Whenever I do a 30 quart tub I almost always get 2 flushes before seeing contams, and sometimes 3 or 4. It seems that the higher you go in size whether it be spawn containers or fruiting containers problems get amplified. Not sure if it's heat, moisture, air flow, or something else. I know many people use 50 and 60 quart monos and seem to be fine but I've got to follow what works for now. I have a bunch of 30 quarts going at the moment, most are midway through their 1st flush and a few have finished the first flush, no contams yet. We'll see how long they last..
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#26889937 - 08/20/20 11:34 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I am using pour epoxy on every interior surface of my flow hood. I even propped the flow hood at an angle \ and did a pour to make the transition from the floor/walls to the filter perfectly smooth. So there are 8 separate pours, 1 for each wall/floor and 1 for each angled transition to the filter. The inside of my flow hood work area will be like one smooth sheet of glass in all directions. I'll take pics and share them when it's done. Pour epoxy is cool stuff. The blow torches we use for flame sterilizing are the perfect thing for getting bubbles out of the epoxy after it's poured. Hold the flame 6 or so inches away and do brief passes back and forth to pop all the bubbles and get a perfectly smooth finish, do that 2 or 3 separate times within 30 or 40 minutes of pouring Just be careful not to light the hepa filter on fire I used metal flashing to create a flame/heat barrier in the areas I was torching..
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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ricelick
Barkeep
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#27076425 - 12/07/20 01:27 AM (3 years, 1 month ago) |
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Did you ever get this figured out? How did that last tub turn out?
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teeter
Mindfucked



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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: ricelick]
#27162654 - 01/21/21 11:36 PM (3 years, 6 days ago) |
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Quote:
ricelick said: Did you ever get this figured out? How did that last tub turn out?
-------------------- "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern." - William Blake "Psychedelics helped me to escape.. albeit momentarily.. from the prison of my mind. It over-rode the habit patterns of thought and I was able to taste innocence again. Looking at sensations freshly without the conceptual overlay was very profound." - Ram Das
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: teeter]
#27255525 - 03/16/21 11:28 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Hey everyone. I tried everything mentioned in this thread and much more over and over again and got the same poor results. And then I read a study on the effect of alkalinity on mushroom cultures, particularly contamination. The controlled study demonstrated beyond any shadow of a doubt that the substrates with a more alkaline PH had a far lower rate of contamination (interesting that they Ph'd the sub rather than a casing layer). And then I remembered that in the beginning of my adventures growing shrooms I always used a PH adjusted casing layer, the recipe straight from RR's vids. I've always tried going back to what worked in the beginning but I had forgotten and completely overlooked the casing!
So over the past few months I have been applying a casing that has been PH adjusted with oyster shell flour and hydrated lime and I have been crushing. I get 3 flushes out of every single tub now consistently over and over again. It's been glorious after 3 years of consistent failure. And what do you know, it really was spore load. I have further proof that it was spore load too, I'll share it below. It's funny because it goes against all the dogma I've heard time and time again on this site...
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
Neophyte



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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#27255549 - 03/16/21 11:52 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Evidence number 2 is that after a month or so of consistent results I started spreading manure out in tubs to dry. I use manure, coir, verm and now also straw in my tubs. I have streamlined a pasteurization setup and I like growing in more varied nutritious subs. The shit results I had gotten over 3 years were indifferent to bucket tek coir and pasteurized manure subs, neither changed anything.
Anyways I get composted cow manure in bags and like to spread it out and dry it before mixing it up and bringing it to field capacity. I spread the manure out in tubs and could see white mycelium in different parts of it and actually thought to myself in that moment that it could become a problem regarding spore load and atomized mycelium particle load since I am drying the manure out in the same room I have tubs fruiting (that was stupid ). Then I was like naaaah it'll be fine. Sure enough about a week after I began spreading manure out in my fruiting room I started seeing contams pop up really quickly right at the beginning of the second flush in quite a few tubs. Note that at this point I had been getting 3 flushes out of all my tubs for over a month.
I quickly realized what was happening with the increased contam spore and atomized contam mycelium load in the room from the manure. So I setup a manure drying room elsewhere in the house (duh ), took all the tubs out of the fruiting room, fogged the shit out of the room with Decon 30 and then put the tubs back in it 12 hours later. And what do you know, about a week after fogging the room and removing the manure the contams slowed to a halt and I've been consistently getting 3 flushes from all of my tubs again ever since. Yet many say that spore load doesn't matter or is at least so negligible that it isn't worth considering, "it's your spawn" almost everyone chants over and over again. I mean yea I get it, all newcomers and even experienced people should always look to their sterile technique and sterilization procedures first. But the pervasive dogma and downright bullying of people who suggest there are other important variables like spore load is discouraging, a disgrace to science, and objectively untrue in my experience. It's worth noting that I haven't slipped and seen a single plate, jar, or bag show a visible contam in almost 2 years. I'm pretty sure that my sterile technique is on point at this point.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (03/16/21 11:55 AM)
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#27255559 - 03/16/21 12:03 PM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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I also think I know why my house had a particularly high spore/mycelium load. The first year I was growing I'd carve out contams from the tubs like a fool, that didn't help. And the other factor is that I have always mixed up my substrate materials in my kitchen before pasteurizing them. Surely I was launching spores and mycelium particles everywhere in clouds of dust and over time it all started to add up. It didn't help that everywhere I looked on this site with very few illumined exceptions everyone mocked and bullied anyone who suggested spore load was a factor, then it would sometimes turn into a scholarly pissing contest. And aside from Violet, Lotkid, and a few others who stood firmly in the wisdom they forged though experience no one was pointing toward the problem I was actually having, instead they were pointing every other direction and pissing on me or others who dared consider the impact of spore load. I mean ya know, it's not like most real mushroom farms actually bomb their grow areas between each round. Oh wait they do
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (03/16/21 12:10 PM)
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#27255561 - 03/16/21 12:04 PM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Pasty called it, thanks Pasty. I found that garbage can of thrichoderma under my steps, although my house was the garbage can That brings a kind of MC Escher image to mind 
And big thanks to everyone who chipped in and helped me find my way. Sorry I didn't write back sooner but I've been on a sort of technology fast. You guys are sharp and very generous, this is an amazing resource and community here. Much love.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (03/16/21 12:09 PM)
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Professor X
School for the Gifted



Registered: 04/18/19
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#27255589 - 03/16/21 12:28 PM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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I grow in a room housing 5 adult male rats and a dog with a carpeted floor. Talk about spore load. No such issues. Sounds like your casing solved your problem but tbh I think your real problem is growing cubes in archaic unnecessary crap. No benefit and all that trouble. Glad you got it ironed out.
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Blackrainbow2
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Professor X]
#27255654 - 03/16/21 01:40 PM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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I was gonna say skip the Verm and use straight coir..but I'm glad you figured it out. Now tell me how you PH your sub and casing.. I need details.. Since I fucking hate green mold.. I'd love to make it's life more difficult.. ProX It's interesting you keep rats.. I had a pet rat as a kid and they are cool pets.. just like any other animal.. a friend has snakes..fun fact they are now using rats to smell out old landmines in battlefields of the world..very interesting.... now..Pro X if you could train your rats to smell clean plates and spawn..we could make some coin.. I just need 20%for my consulting fee...
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Blackrainbow2]
#27255709 - 03/16/21 02:26 PM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Professor thanks for chiping in but your assertion is unrealistic and can't possibly apply to my situation. You're literally disregarding everything I described about my trials and errors to push your predetermined point of view. You have no idea how greatly things can vary regionally not just in your environment but with raw materials available, including grains. And you have absolutely no idea how many thousands of contaminants there are in the world and how some people can get struck by lightning unlucky in the ones they unintentionally selectively breed in a growing space. I grew in straight coir for over 2 years every flipping way imaginable before going back to pasteurization. I pasteurize for fun, like I said I LIKE growing in a varied nutritious substrate. Some people enjoy what they do and don't feel the need to strip things down to the bare essentials of what works. And it does make a difference, if you haven't seen the thicker, whiter, and more vigorous mycelium of a varied nutritious substrate then you either haven't done any experimentation or aren't paying attention. Also the straw has more moisture holding capacity than coir, way more. I didn't believe it either about the spore load. But it's real, get over it. The PH casing didn't change anything except for the increased ability for my sub surface to resist airborne contaminants. And the consistent improved results that came and stayed since then coincided with no other systemic changes in what I do.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (03/16/21 02:33 PM)
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#27255725 - 03/16/21 02:37 PM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Sure one could say that my spawn is always bacterial and makes my sub more susceptible to airborne contaminants so ideally the casing should be unnecessary. But I've posted plenty of pics of my spawn and there are no systemic bacterial problems. I have tried many different grains, tried a wide range of PC times, tried varying degrees of dryness to the grains, etc.. and my spawn always looks the same and like it is supposed to. All my plates look super clean, flat, and symmetrical. My subs all colonize and fruit in 15 days from spawning and the sub colonizes quite evenly and consistently. No little fingers sticking up or melted ice cream look indicating bacteria. So I can't see how the PH casing could be a band-aid for bacteria rather than a realistic solution for something spore/mycelium load related.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (03/16/21 02:44 PM)
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Professor X
School for the Gifted



Registered: 04/18/19
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#27255735 - 03/16/21 02:47 PM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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So you say that fixing your casing solved your problem and you need this extravagant casing because you are using this extravagant substrate that absolutely does not make any difference whatsoever except to cause yourself massive headaches and hardships but that's not the issue, ninja spores from across the world are.
I have tried all sorts of crap in my substrates including crap, straw, coffee, worm castings, gypsum, and other archaic an nonsensical ingredients not needed for our species. None of it made any difference. The biggest difference was in cultures, conditions and clean spawn.
You come off as very condescending by the way. I bet you like to argue how superior shit is even though it ooked you in the dooker for years.
You also bump yourself constantly
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#27255744 - 03/16/21 03:00 PM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Blackrainbow2,I don't PH my sub I only mentioned that it is what they did in the published study. My PH casing recipe is the same as RR's from his old video series only that I use oyster shell flour instead of lime and I add 1/2 teaspoon of hydrated lime per jar of casing. It is 10 parts verm, 10 parts peat moss (pick out the large sticks), 1 part oyster shell flour (make sure it is flour and not chunks), and hydrated lime (1/2 teaspoon per jar, they say avoid high magnesium lime but I've used both a high and a low magnesium lime and can't tell a difference). I bring it to field capacity and pasteurize it in a water bath. You'll either have to let the casing sit a long time after bringing it to field capacity and check it again because the verm slowly absorbs a ridiculous amount of water, or do what I do and mix it up a specific amount over field capacity initially and put it right into the jars because I have figured out exactly how much more water the verm soaks up after while it sits and by the time I use it it's at perfect field capacity.
I do all of my sub pasteurization in bags in an extra large steamer. But the casing I do in quart jars in a water bath because I don't need that much and in jars it is easier to add to subs without cross contaminating the casing which might happen if I did a larger amount in a bag and scooped small amounts out for each tub (If one of the spawn bags for a tub had hidden contams in it..).
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
Neophyte



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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#27255751 - 03/16/21 03:04 PM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Professor don't get your knickers in a twist. And you don't have to make shit up either. It's not an extravagant casing. It's literally the standard casing recipe people have been using for close to 20 years. Blinding leaf most recently wrote about it in noteworthy way but RR preceded him by like 10 years. And if you paid attention to my catalogued trials over the past few years you would know that I have always grown on coir and just recently started pasteurizing again. And if you would of asked I cuold explain to you that I have also grown on straight coir in my trials over the past several months alongside the pasteurized sub, NO DIFFERENCE. Can I say NO DIFFERENCE in some other way or larger letters or something to help you understand it?
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
Neophyte



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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#27255755 - 03/16/21 03:10 PM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Professor I get along with everyone great. But you and others like you are like wind up toys that have nothing to contribute but dogmatic shit talking. It literally spoils the boards. So why bother being cordial with an ass when there is obviously no possibility of receptivity. Because of people like you I rarely ever spend any time on this site anymore.
I'm not the only one who has seen and acknowledged that nutritious substrates create slightly whiter, slightly more vigorous, and slightly quicker colonizing substrates. It's so well documented it is ridiculous stating otherwise. Now I will say it only make slight differences and unless someone would enjoy seeing that it might not be worth the effort, but the differences are there. Grow in whatever the fuck you want and I'll do the same. But when the substrate has been eliminated as variable through experimentation then let it go and discuss something more fucking relevant dude.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (03/16/21 03:11 PM)
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#27255760 - 03/16/21 03:14 PM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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And no I don't argue how superior my shit is you assumption making fool. I have done nothing but struggle for years and am finally seeing consistently excellent results. I am very grateful and will remain vigilant in all my techniques. I am far from an expert. Piss off.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Professor X
School for the Gifted



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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#27255765 - 03/16/21 03:15 PM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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I'm good. Not going to bother reading those 3 posts you just made about me. Have a good one. Hope it all works out for you.
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Professor X]
#27255794 - 03/16/21 03:36 PM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
Violet said:
Quote:
Smartattack said: My hopes are to get into the ears of people who likely waste a shitload of time and resources "sanitizing" their air and workspace after a bad damn tub.
Eh... This statement below from earlier, brought to us by someone reading scientific research papers, has already done more to validate concerns with environmental contaminants than experiments like yours could ever do to invalidate them for reasons stated earlier, and we have other additional reasons to clean the air in mushroom cultivation anyway.
Quote:
Munchauzen said: Just to add to this... trich will aerosolize mycelium particles along with the spores. In fact, there may be as much as 390 times the amount of mycelium versus spores in the air if you've got some green growing. And living fragments latch on and grow much more readily than spores. Just some additional info I was reading in the research paper "Fungal Fragments as Indoor Air Biocontaminates."
For sure though, getting better at making spawn and thoroughly sterilizing it is important. For a while I went on about trying to minimize my sterilizer cook times when using plastic containers for energy efficiency and learned pretty quickly not to by very much due to bacteria, and early on in learning cultivation if I didn't hydrate grains fully it practically wouldn't matter if I sterilized them for 2 hours. So yeah, getting spawn improved is definitely far far far more important than cleaning the air, and "wasting a shitload of time and resources sanitizing their air and workspace" wouldn't be the place to start, nor would most of those resources and efforts pay off anyway, like bleaching which only kills things on a smooth non-porous surface and actually kinda "feeds" mold otherwise.
Edited by Sherlock Shrooms (03/16/21 03:48 PM)
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#27255803 - 03/16/21 03:44 PM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Quote:
renagaderX said: Amazing.
How many contaminated tubs have you had to date?
Does the external environment really make that much of a difference on whether you get trich or not on that scale?
Quote:
filthyknees said: 1) many after flushing twice, sometimes after first flush, and rarely before first.
2) I do believe it may be possible, my house is very moldy from poor building practices. We simply do the best practices we can in our situation. For example, emptying contaminated tubs three times a week, followed by a sweep, mild bleach mop, and mild bleach spray on walls, wiping down shelves. We have a HEPA scrubber, and have an additional a/c unit in the hot summer months to keep the temp down away from the 80s. All to say, yeah the environment will effect the tubs, some people don't grow in the summer months for this reason (if their environments get very hot).
But what I can also say is that despite all the pitfalls of a poorly built house leading to water damage and mold problems, we can still get tub after tub after tub of full flushes where you look at it like it's a problem that there are too many mushrooms, in the same room as tubs not doing as well. So it will remain a mystery to me to say for certain, we just do the best we can.
Any bigish edibles mushroom farm fruiting room one can see on youtoob would probably have a pressure washer taken to it, chemical fogged or some methods in between rotations to maintain a relatively clean area.
Quote:
TedsDead said: i definitely agree that a light bleach spray makes much less trich on 2nd flush tubs. Even with green totes in the fruiting area I too rarely see trich on 1st flush tubs and if so I attribute it to bad spawn
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#27255820 - 03/16/21 03:54 PM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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So since I carved out a shit load of contams like a retard launching tons of spores and aerosolized myccelium into my space the first year I was growing. And off and on mixed a ton of dry unpastuerized manure and other materials since then in my space launching spore and mycelium particles all over the place. And finally a Ph'd casing literally solving all my problems after trying everything else imaginable, it is pretty obvious what has been going on. SPORELOAD! To any other unfortunate ones out there who are experiencing my problem and were told every where they looked that spore load is never an issue, good luck. I hope you find your way.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Violet



Registered: 12/06/11
Posts: 4,205
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#27257424 - 03/17/21 01:04 PM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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I mostly agree with you. You should probably keep it to one post at a time though, I think there’s even a bit of a rule about it.
Quote:
Professor X said: I grow in a room housing 5 adult male rats and a dog with a carpeted floor. Talk about spore load. No such issues. Sounds like your casing solved your problem but tbh I think your real problem is growing cubes in archaic unnecessary crap. No benefit and all that trouble. Glad you got it ironed out.
Tell me which of those animals and objects create mold cells and spores please
Carpets are super gross if not brand new but motion of any kind on any floor stirs up dust and stuff. What’s on the floor and in the environment does matter more.
-------------------- Intentionally or not, here in mushcult we are purveyors of love culture and enlightenment movement. Let's try to act like it! PODS TEK - Growing Invitro with BRF/verm or Grass Seed containers The simplest, quickest, safest tek! For beginners, culturers, lazy people, stealth lovers, contam haters, and alternative seekers! • Violet's Teks and Posts •
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Sherlock Shrooms
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Violet]
#27259798 - 03/19/21 12:34 AM (2 years, 10 months ago) |
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Sorry about that won't do it again. Thanks for the feedback Violet. I can't say for certain what happened I just can't see any other explanation than something environmental at this point. If anyone read through some of what I did and has a different perspective I'd love to hear it.
-------------------- "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you."

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Violet



Registered: 12/06/11
Posts: 4,205
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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Sherlock Shrooms]
#27272467 - 03/27/21 11:46 PM (2 years, 9 months ago) |
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It's alright. I can't say for sure what anyone's problem is when it comes to this mess, but nobody can even try to convince me anymore that environmental contams are not a legitimate concern. I've seen too much incredibly compelling evidence, whereas the detractors only say "but I can scratch my butt and spawn to bulk" and "but I have animals/carpet." Not only is my own "anecdotal" evidence far more compelling, but science supports it too. In that thread you quoted me from I went and found and posted the study that Munch brought to our attention, it's easy to dig up. It shows that living mold not only produces countless fresh quick-germinating spores, which we already know, but can also aerosolize fungal cells which as we all know cause new growth even faster and more aggressively.
I for one in more than one place I've lived saw immense improvements in contamination rates when I reverted my grows entirely to substrates in heat-treated containment, like containers and mycobags. Also I've seen mold spots hidden in my fruiting tent shelves create blooms of green mold throughout the chamber in moisture sitting on the surfaces of mycobags! The exact same conditions with all the mold cleaned away are far less likely to produce that result, though I do insist upon a daily "dry spell" (outside pinning conditions) short enough to not damage the young mushrooms but enough to dry up any germinating molds, because even after cleaning I believe I am at a bit higher risk.
-------------------- Intentionally or not, here in mushcult we are purveyors of love culture and enlightenment movement. Let's try to act like it! PODS TEK - Growing Invitro with BRF/verm or Grass Seed containers The simplest, quickest, safest tek! For beginners, culturers, lazy people, stealth lovers, contam haters, and alternative seekers! • Violet's Teks and Posts •
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Inthepit
Aum Mani Padme Hum


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Re: Please help me get this right, contamination blues.. [Re: Violet]
#27272585 - 03/28/21 03:27 AM (2 years, 9 months ago) |
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HI Violet," because even after cleaning I believe I am at a bit higher risk."
Can you expand on that, it sounds counter to how this thread was going. Also I hadn't even considered the floor, it's clean alright, but prolly not lab clean.
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