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lamorti
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Question about mycelium growth in monotub
#27783118 - 05/18/22 02:53 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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This is my first experience with a monotub and I have very limited experience in general with cultivating mushrooms. I have a monotub that has been colonizing for the past 10 days and I wanted to make sure the mycelium looks healthy as it doesn't look like many of the pictures/videos I see posted. I didn't want to open the tub so the pictures aren't the absolute best representation of the growth, but essentially the mycelium is clumping and growing into little mounds or balls, not sure how to best describe it, it's 3D rather than flat. In many of the videos/pictures that I have seen online, the mycelium seems to remain pretty flat throughout the substrate. Also, I am assuming the mycelium hasn't fully colonized since I still have these patches of manure mix still visible, is that accurate?
For a little extra detail:
- The mycelium is white I see no discoloration at all anywhere
- It seems to be hydrophobic I can see small circular droplets in some locations
- The grain spawn I used smelt very earthy and healthy
- I was as careful as possible to limit contamination when combining the grain spawn with the bulk substrate
I appreciate any help or insight, thanks.


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Bobbins
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: lamorti]
#27783129 - 05/18/22 03:01 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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How much air are you letting in the tub at this stage? I wouldn't be afraid of opening it to take a photo.
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hazyhorse
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: Bobbins]
#27783139 - 05/18/22 03:07 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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also, you don’t have to worry about contamination when you spawn. it’s inherently a dirty process & no amount of cleaning your room or whatever is going to stop millions of contaminate spores from flying in. if your spawn is clean & manure is pasteurized properly you’re fine.
you’re right, it’s not fully colonized yet. you want the top to be all white. how did you inoculate your spawn? there’s a chance it was somewhat bacterial, even if it smelled fine. also, what’s the tub set up? you could probably stand to give it more FAE. you want FAE to happen passively, don’t add any fans to the room or fan it manually. fans dry out subs & fanning is useless
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lamorti
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: lamorti]
#27783151 - 05/18/22 03:15 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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No FAE yet. I just have painter's tape for gas exchange while it colonized. I have filters ready to cover the holes for FAE, but I thought I wanted to wait until the substrate is fully colonized before doing so.
I inoculated by syringe into a sterile grain spawn bag.
The tub setup is just a tub with holes drilled currently, the holes are covered with painter's tape to allow some gas out but very little FAE. As I mentioned above I have filter sticker circles to cover the holes when I want to move to more FAE.
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hazyhorse
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: lamorti]
#27783168 - 05/18/22 03:25 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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syringe straight to grain is notorious for contamination. you can get lucky, but a lot of that spawn ends up bacterial & new growers don’t realize it because bacterial spawn can be really subtle until you know what to look for, so it’s entirely part of it. you can probably stand to put on the micropore/filters now. it looks wet in there & could probably stand some more FAE. i usually just cover my holes with micropore tape from spawn & call it good. you don’t really need to distinguish between “colonization” & “fruiting” as long as it’s not getting too dry
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lamorti
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: hazyhorse]
#27783172 - 05/18/22 03:29 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
hazyhorse said: syringe straight to grain is notorious for contamination. you can get lucky, but a lot of that spawn ends up bacterial & new growers don’t realize it because bacterial spawn can be really subtle until you know what to look for, so it’s entirely part of it. you can probably stand to put on the micropore/filters now. it looks wet in there & could probably stand some more FAE. i usually just cover my holes with micropore tape from spawn & call it good. you don’t really need to distinguish between “colonization” & “fruiting” as long as it’s not getting too dry
Since it is safe to take the top off for a short period, would it help if I got more up-close pictures of the sub? I'm not sure if it matters but I did heat the syringe red-hot before injection, I also cleaned everything with isopropyl alcohol throughly, as well as wearing gloves/mask in a throughly cleaned area etc.
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hazyhorse
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: lamorti]
#27783191 - 05/18/22 03:37 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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yeah take direct pictures of the sub. it’s ok to open tubs, you just don’t wanna be doing it obsessively every 10 minutes bc it starts to dry things out
did you work inside an SAB or in front of a flow hood? that’s the most important part. doing it in open air is really bad. you don’t need a mask or gloves, i work without them & so do many people. your ambient air has a million times more contams than you breathing does (though i wouldn’t recommend breathing directly into an SAB). the problem with spore to grain is mainly that syringes tend to be a bit dirty, even some of the best syringes still perform poorly once put straight to grain. you can get lucky, & im sure people have gotten clean spawn from it before, but i personally haven’t seen bags or jars from that method that didn’t look slightly bacterial. working with bags inside an SAB is pretty hard too, which is why a lot of people who don’t have access to a hood use jars.
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lamorti
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: hazyhorse]
#27783197 - 05/18/22 03:40 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
hazyhorse said: yeah take direct pictures of the sub. it’s ok to open tubs, you just don’t wanna be doing it obsessively every 10 minutes bc it starts to dry things out
did you work inside an SAB or in front of a flow hood? that’s the most important part. doing it in open air is really bad. you don’t need a mask or gloves, i work without them & so do many people. your ambient air has a million times more contams than you breathing does (though i wouldn’t recommend breathing directly into an SAB). the problem with spore to grain is mainly that syringes tend to be a bit dirty, even some of the best syringes still perform poorly once put straight to grain. you can get lucky, & im sure people have gotten clean spawn from it before, but i personally haven’t seen bags or jars from that method that didn’t look slightly bacterial. working with bags inside an SAB is pretty hard too, which is why a lot of people who don’t have access to a hood use jars.
I did not work inside of a SAB, but I did work in an enclosed small room that was heavily cleaned with no windows. I understand it's not as good as a SAB, but I have to imagine it is much better than just doing it in the living room or something, but I could be wrong. Let me go take a few pictures with the top off and I'll post back in a few minutes.
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lamorti
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: hazyhorse]
#27783201 - 05/18/22 03:47 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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Tried to take as many as I could of different areas.









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hazyhorse
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: lamorti]
#27783203 - 05/18/22 03:49 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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i mean yeah it’s maybe better than working in an open field, but i promise you unless you’re working in a HEPA clean room it’s still miles worse than working in an SAB. there are trillions of spores in the air, the SAB mitigates that risk by making a small section of still air that isn’t affected by literally everything moving in the room. if you could work reliably in open air like that, people would. if you really want something you can do reliably outside an SAB (or a method you don’t need a pressure cooker to properly do) you should really look into PF tek. you’ll have a lot more success with your syringes that way in the future.
my guess is the sub is mildly bacterial, i’d give it more FAE without letting the surface dry out & see how it does
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lamorti
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: hazyhorse]
#27783211 - 05/18/22 03:52 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
hazyhorse said: i mean yeah it’s maybe better than working in an open field, but i promise you unless you’re working in a HEPA clean room it’s still miles worse than working in an SAB. there are trillions of spores in the air, the SAB mitigates that risk by making a small section of still air that isn’t affected by literally everything moving in the room. if you could work reliably in open air like that, people would. if you really want something you can do reliably outside an SAB (or a method you don’t need a pressure cooker to properly do) you should really look into PF tek. you’ll have a lot more success with your syringes that way in the future.
my guess is the sub is mildly bacterial, i’d give it more FAE without letting the surface dry out & see how it does
Unfortunately, doing PF-Tek was a huge failure for me. Unless I did it widly incorrectly. Had lots of cakes and only 1 fruited and it was a very small yield, I still have 2 cakes just sitting doing nothing, like literally not a single thing for 4 weeks now.
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hazyhorse
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: lamorti]
#27783232 - 05/18/22 04:04 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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sometimes it can take awhile for spores to germ, but that’s weird. maybe they were too dry? you’d have to walk me through your exact process of making them for me to help speculate at all. PF tek is generally pretty reliable
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lamorti
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: hazyhorse]
#27783244 - 05/18/22 04:09 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
hazyhorse said: sometimes it can take awhile for spores to germ, but that’s weird. maybe they were too dry? you’d have to walk me through your exact process of making them for me to help speculate at all. PF tek is generally pretty reliable
My guess is that they were/are too dry. As far as this bulk attempt goes, I took a sniff of it and it doesn't smell great. I'm not sure exactly how to explain the smell, but it doesn't smell like mushrooms or dirt it has a sharp smell to it. If it is bacterial, what is my course of action, is it just a lost cause, will it just impact my yield, what can I expect?
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: lamorti]
#27783252 - 05/18/22 04:17 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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if you try again, make sure the BRF verm mix is at field capacity (a few drops to small stream of water should come out once squeezed). also in the future, you might find it easier to use coir. im assuming you bought the manure pre pasteurized, but doing it yourself can be tricky & i think a lot of new growers don’t fully understand pasteurization. coir takes that variable out of the question. if you plan on doing this more than like once or twice more, an SAB & pressure cookers are very worthy investments.
if it’s smelling off then it’s definitely bacterial. it will typically impact yields a bit, a tub fighting something doesn’t have as much energy to spend making fruits, but i wouldn’t say you’re shit out of luck yet. i’ve pulled decent yields off bacterial subs & as long as it’s not showing color (ie. mold) you can usually squeeze out a flush. but most likely it will contaminate during/after the first or during the second flush. it’s ok to harvest from a tub with some mold, just make sure there isn’t any on the mushrooms & that the mushies aren’t super soft or weird looking at the base. if you get mold before pins are 50% of the way to full mushrooms you’re usually fucked, but if mold comes toward the end of a flush you can salt it or cut it out & let the flush finish before tossing.
just increase the airflow a bit; bacteria thrives in stagnant wet conditions
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lamorti
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: hazyhorse]
#27783259 - 05/18/22 04:25 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
hazyhorse said: if you try again, make sure the BRF verm mix is at field capacity (a few drops to small stream of water should come out once squeezed). also in the future, you might find it easier to use coir. im assuming you bought the manure pre pasteurized, but doing it yourself can be tricky & i think a lot of new growers don’t fully understand pasteurization. coir takes that variable out of the question. if you plan on doing this more than like once or twice more, an SAB & pressure cookers are very worthy investments.
if it’s smelling off then it’s definitely bacterial. it will typically impact yields a bit, a tub fighting something doesn’t have as much energy to spend making fruits, but i wouldn’t say you’re shit out of luck yet. i’ve pulled decent yields off bacterial subs & as long as it’s not showing color (ie. mold) you can usually squeeze out a flush. but most likely it will contaminate during/after the first or during the second flush. it’s ok to harvest from a tub with some mold, just make sure there isn’t any on the mushrooms & that the mushies aren’t super soft or weird looking at the base. if you get mold before pins are 50% of the way to full mushrooms you’re usually fucked, but if mold comes toward the end of a flush you can salt it or cut it out & let the flush finish before tossing.
I did buy the manure pre-pasteurized. My cake attempt was with BRF/verm and I used an instapot to sterilize the jars with the BRF/verm mix. The cakes came out very white, very mushroom smelling. I did do a dunk for 24hrs for each. Just nothing ever happened. I used 3-4 inches of perlite in a SGFC. Nothing happened for 2-3 weeks I made another SGFC to try different "strategies" on separated cakes. I gave some more dunks and also sprayed more often which utterly failed (mold etc). The rest did nothing. 1 cake gave me a very small yield, I dunked it again after harvest and tried to get another flush with no luck. The other cake has just sat, no signs of mold, still smells "fresh" but it's just sitting there.
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hazyhorse
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: lamorti]
#27783262 - 05/18/22 04:30 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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i don’t have much experience with fruiting cakes so i can’t give specific advice, but it’s possible your conditions just weren’t right. my advice with cakes would be to break them up or bury them in a shoebox with coco coir & fruit them that way. much less fucking around than trying to fruit cakes, & it gives you some bulk spawning experience
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lamorti
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: hazyhorse]
#27783275 - 05/18/22 04:37 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
hazyhorse said: i don’t have much experience with fruiting cakes so i can’t give specific advice, but it’s possible your conditions just weren’t right. my advice with cakes would be to break them up or bury them in a shoebox with coco coir & fruit them that way. much less fucking around than trying to fruit cakes, & it gives you some bulk spawning experience
I will try that next time. So I've removed the tape and have replaced it with the filter disks, in this circumstance do I also want to fan a few times a day to make sure good airflow is coming through? Or should I stick with the standard of letting the airflow naturally?
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hazyhorse
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: lamorti]
#27783300 - 05/18/22 04:55 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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manually fanning doesn’t really accomplish much, you need consistent passive airflow, not a blast of air randomly once or twice a day. don’t add any fans to the mix either. just increase that passive airflow & make sure the surface of the sub is retaining tiny beads of moisture
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lamorti
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: hazyhorse]
#27783304 - 05/18/22 04:57 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
hazyhorse said: manually fanning doesn’t really accomplish much, you need consistent passive airflow, not a blast of air randomly once or twice a day. don’t add any fans to the mix either. just increase that passive airflow & make sure the surface of the sub is retaining tiny beads of moisture
So just to make sure I'm clear. I had painter's tape on there previously which should barely let any FAE. I've moved over to filter disks on the large holes and micropore tape on the small holes (near the top of the substrate). I should just leave it alone and let it do it's own FAE and see how it goes?
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hazyhorse
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Re: Question about mycelium growth in monotub [Re: lamorti]
#27783316 - 05/18/22 05:09 PM (2 years, 7 months ago) |
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yes. the added FAE should be fine so long as your surface generally looks like this at all times. you want a balance of fresh air vs. moisture retention in the sub & you’ll learn to dial it in with your conditions. most people just “fruit” from spawn now, meaning they don’t restrict FAE until 100% colonization. as long as it’s not drying out you can give it FAE from the get go. i use this mono tub design with micropore tape over the lower holes & partially over the upper holes. i don’t need to mist until around the first flush.
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