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greggabott2
Registered: 10/26/20
Posts: 40
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 1 year, 8 months
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High contamination rate with flow hood
#27028859 - 11/08/20 03:58 PM (3 years, 2 months ago) |
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Hello all,
I built a flow hood about a year ago but haven’t really used it much. Right after I built it, my life got a little wild and I didn’t have time for mushroom cultivation. Now, I’m trying to get back into it and I’m getting 100% contamination rate in front of my flow hood.
In fact, I did a test with an agar dish by opening it in front of the flow hood for 5 seconds and closing it and it still got contaminated. I did subsequent tests by keeping it open for 10 and 15 seconds as well. The second 2 contaminated a lot quicker (noticed contamination within 4 days). The first one took a bit longer to contaminate but did end up getting hairy mold.
The agar dishes are no-pour dishes with MEA agar. They’re small pp5 plastic containers with small holes on the side covered with 2 layers of micropore tape.
I have done some jars as well with older agar dishes that weren’t contaminated and had about a 50% contamination rate. This is with alcoholling or bleaching everything right before starting. I use unmodified plastic mason jar lids.
I have some ideas like putting plexiglass sides surrounding the work area (so the flow hood blows through an enclosed plexiglass area that I can do the work in). I’ve also read that I may need to run the flow hood for an entire day since it may have collected dust. I’ve also considered just going to Petri dishes.
Do you have any ideas? Here’s the filter/fan I used to create the flow hood
Fan- https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000TK3ZM6/ref=ppx_yo_mob_b_inactive_ship_o0_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Filter- https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01EC60IG8/ref=ppx_yo_mob_b_inactive_ship_o0_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I’m a bit lost. I feel like im doing everything right when it comes to cleanliness. I wear gloves and a mask when working and I alcohol my gloves regularly. I’ve had successful grows in the past but now everything is contaminating at a high rate.
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Stipe-n Cap


Registered: 08/04/12
Posts: 7,623
Loc: Canada
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Re: High contamination rate with flow hood [Re: greggabott2]
#27028873 - 11/08/20 04:07 PM (3 years, 2 months ago) |
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Thats is bad news, man. You should be able to keep a dish open pretty much indefinitely in flow without contamination.
1. You were sloppy and passed something over the plates, like an arm clothed in a dirty sweater;
2. Your filter is fucked or you don't have the appropriate filter/blower combo;
3. Your no pours are faulty;
4. You didn't sterilize properly.
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