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Rotnpins
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Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง 31
#27900393 - 08/12/22 10:03 AM (1 year, 5 months ago) |
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When I first started working with agar, I had an abundance of plates that I thought were too contaminated to clean up.. I thought about using antibiotics, but i had read that it could also hinder the mycelium growth and I didn't want to get stuck using it as a crutch.. So I decided to try making some water agar..
What is "water agar"? Water agar is exactly what it sounds like, water and agar without any added nutrients.. the mycelium grows out very quickly (compared to the contams) looking for food.. this gives it a chance to out grow any contamination that may be riding along.
How to make water agar: The recipe I use is 7g Agar powder per 500ml H2O
I leave the plates clear and add a different food coloring to each of my nutritional plates so I can easily distinguish between the type of plates.. (for example: H2O Agar=clear, MEA= blue, YMEA= yellow, etc,.)

You would prepare the water agar the same way as your nutritional agar plates.. the method I use is this:
1: add 100ml cold/room temp H20 to media bottle. 2: measure out remaining water (400ml for a 500ml batch) and heat water using preferred method. I personally bring it to a light boil on the stove. 3: while the water is heating, measure out your agar powder (7g per 500ml) and add it to your media bottles. Then give the bottle a little bit of a shake/stir. 4: once it is hot, add the remaining water to the media bottle. Put the lid on and shake it up. 5: prepare your PC with enough water for a 20 minute cycle.. put the water agar media bottle in the pc. If you have any nutritional agar, instruments that need sterilizing, no pour plates, etc,. you can throw them in the PC at the same time. 6: vent steam from PC for 10-15 minutes, add your weight, bring PC up to 15-17psi, reduce heat to low,, set a timer โฒ and let cook for 20 minutes. 7: when PC cycle is done, turn the heat off and wait for pressure to drop to 0 on its own. 8: take your bottle(s) to your work space and wait for them to cool to pouring temp (I usually pour between 140-120 degrees)
How to use water agar: Once your plates have cooled, it's time to do some transfers..
I make my transfers the same way I would when transferring to a nutrient plate.. I find an area that seems to have the most organized growth and I take a small transfer to the new plate.. smaller transfer wedges may be a little more difficult to work with at first, but they are less likely to carry contamination to the new plate. So try practicing taking smaller transfers each time until you're able to easily transfer a piece that is about the size of a grain of rice.
Wait for the mycelium to grow out.. it will be very thin and whispy, and it will grow out toward the edges much quicker than any contamination that tags along.
When the mycelium has grown out enough that I feel confident it has outgrown the contamination (its a good idea to let it at least half way to the edge, or all the way to the edge for more piece of mind), I take a few transfers from the water agar plate and move them to nutritional plates.
Next step is easy: watch your new plate as the mycelium grows out clean!
Edit: Here's a video I found that discusses a couple applications for water agar that I didn't mention
Pictures added 8/28:
Here are some pictures to show you guys the growth on a few plates.. they aren't the best pictures, but you should be able to see the leading edge to get an idea of the speed of growth.
Plate stared 8/10 (18 days ago):
8/11 (17 days ago):
8/12 (16 days ago):

Agar to grain comparison Water Agar vs Nutrient Agar
10/28: I'm on a mission to start using up some of my ridiculously large plate collection.. So, I decided to do a side-by-side, plate to grain, comparison using 2 fully grown out Phobos plates.. One plate is water agar, the other is MYA. I decided to do 3 jars from each plate.
Quick picture before getting to work:
Here are the plates I'll be using
Plate 1 (MYA- cut into 3 wedges, leaving the center and outer ring behind:
Used plate 1 to inoculate 3 jars of oats:
Here is plate 2 (WA- cut in a similar pattern to plate 1)

Used plate 2 to inoculate the other 3 oat jars:

I plan to post updates comparing any differences in the length of time it takes for the mycelium to jump off, how long it takes the jars to colonize, etc...
11/3
The WA plates are finally starting to jump off to the grain a little bit.. they are definitely running a few days behind the jars that were inoculated using nutrient agar.. like I said in a previous post, this could be due to the age of the plates.. it is a possibility that the mycelium was in a dormant state, due to the fact that they're around 3 months old.. I still plan to run another test with fresh plates to see if the results differ from this batch.
Enigma (WA)
Phobos (WA)
Phobos (MYA)

Edited by Rotnpins (11/03/22 10:56 AM)
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baz
Registered: 08/14/22
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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: Rotnpins] 1
#27905150 - 08/16/22 04:31 AM (1 year, 5 months ago) |
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I germinated tidal wave spores on water agar! It took 3 days to germinate and have many colonies while other plates itโs not very visible. This pic quality isnโt best but it is covered in myc colonies, white and wispy
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zilker
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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: baz] 3
#27907494 - 08/17/22 11:25 PM (1 year, 5 months ago) |
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You beat me to it.
I found an uncommon shroom in my back yard last weekend, Reddening Lepiota (red lip sounds better ). I left the spore print in open air until the ID was confirmed, then scraped into foil with a razor so it's contaminated to hell and back. Figure this is a pretty good study on the difference between the two agars?
Made 40 plates last night, half LMEY & half WA. Last task of the night was adding the spores to the plate. LMEY plate was cooled enough but had to wait on the WA until this morning...9 hour time difference. Although I'm not sure what the myc is supposed to look like for this genus/species, I assume it doesn't resemble bacteria, as suspected in the LMEY pic.
Time difference...even after ~equal time, WA still looks less contaminated 9 hours later than the LMEY did. I'm going on memory, didn't take pic, but I'll have time-equal pics soon and will edit post. Not sure either of these will make it, but hopefully it gives somewhat of a controlled study on how contam reacts to the WA??
Haven't USFSE, but wonder if anyone has tried spraying ISO on a spore plate with extreme bacteria contam, prior to myc growth?


8/18 - About 24hrs from last post, 48hrs from LMEY noc, and 36hrs from WA noc. LMEY is contaminated AF! WA is holding the contams back for the most part. WA has myc growth in two spots. Not visible in the pic and I barely caught it with a ray of sun today, but it's there.
The dark spot in the 1st microscope pic appears to be a mushroom crumb from the MS sample I saved. 2nd appears to be spore germination. 3rd is closeup of 2nd pic. Probably transfer WA to WA tomorrow.
Mind you, this mushroom was growing in the yard, finger fucked to death w/o gloves, and the spore print was left in open air to dry for well over 12hrs. Pretty impressive IMO.
Again, nice job Rotn.
LMEY:
WA:
Microscope 1:
Microscope 2:

Microscope 3:

8/25 - Updated pics on the two plates. Never attempted to transfer Plate #1 which is the nutrient plate b/c it never showed signs of growth. Going in the trash today. Made 3 transfers from Plate #2 on 8/19. As you can see, although it did a great job keeping the bacteria at bay, it's now showing signs of the same mold (stachybotrys chartarum?) that #1 has. I originally had plans to transfer to nutrient, but I think I'm going to transfer to water one more time to be safe.


I'll end the progress reports here and say that WA did the job it was supposed to do. Took something dirty AF, cleaned it up nicely in 7 days, whereas it would have been trash with a standard nutrient plate. Any future transfers are SOP and any future reporting would be redundant. Cheers!
Edited by zilker (08/25/22 10:41 AM)
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Rotnpins
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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: Rotnpins]
#27910025 - 08/19/22 05:43 PM (1 year, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
p9hu7 said: Water agar is a great tool to have in the toolbox
For sure! I'm surprised how little it's been discussed around the forums..
I had heard it mentioned a couple times, but never with any results posted or certainty that it works..
I wish I had taken more pictures of some of my worst plates so I could share more of the results...
I just transfered some APE today that started out really bacterial and I thought it was a "trash plate". I didn't know about water agar when I was first working in this plate, so the mycelium grew through the bacteria and sat on this plate for a month before transferring to water agar.


This was the plate after transferring from water agar (I only left it on WA a few days, I didn't let it grow out very far, and it looks like it still did its job)

Note: I'm still learning, and haven't tested it on grain yet.. it still looks a bit disorganized, which is why I still did another transfer before doing a test jar.. I'll post the results once I have them
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zilker
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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: Rotnpins] 1
#27917434 - 08/24/22 11:21 PM (1 year, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Rotnpins: I really liked how he used it to get a sample straight from some substrate.. I don't think I would have thought of doing that.
Whaaaaat??? Don't tell me I thought about something before you did, amigo? C'mon Rotn, that's gotta be worth a rating for this newbie, eh?!? Also, transferring from one water to another can be tricky because it wants to stick the blade. I had a really hard time with one of them and ended up slicing into the agar, touching the bottom. That fucker has equal growth on the top AND bottom of the plate all the way to the edge (it grows REALLY fast on water...need to transfer much sooner than you do a nute plate). I can't get a good picture of it, but it's pretty damn cool looking.

Not sure why, but I've noticed my plates tend to condensate at night...I guess that has something to do with metabolic growth versus resting stages?? When I pulled these out for a look-see a few hours ago, no condensation. Tonight isn't the first time I've noticed. Neither here nor there, I suppose.
This guy also has some very informative info https://www.youtube.com/c/SouthwestMushrooms. He's all gourmet, but a lot of the general knowledge is universal. I actually have about 60/40 gourmet/cube at the moment. Only way I can grow cubes with family interaction...my 11yr old loves this shit as much as I do. I only grow 1 tub of cubes at a time and tell her they're backyard finds that I'm growing for practice, and don't EVER eat them b/c they're toxic (not necessarily a lie, so don't judge me!!!).
These are transfers from cakes; Warm Button and Shiitake...getting transferred to another water agar tomorrow before going to nutrient.
Quote:
HILLBILLY OUTLAWS: Before I first actually got started I bought and read like 5 different books on the subject and watched prob every you tube vid there is. Took it all in and filtered out what I thought either logically wouldnโt work and focused on what actually made sense. Didnโt find shroomery until right after my first grow was over. Would have been much easier if I stumbled upon this place about 9 months ago. Lol
Similar story here...I thought mushrooms grew in shit, so they had to be easy...had 4 grows gone bad before I registered. 
Quote:
Grind365: So I haven't finished the video yet but I had to come back here to ask is agar really pronounced auger? Edit: I also noticed he said more nutritious agar gives fast vigorous growth I know the opposite to be true what gives?
In TX, auger is an attachment to a tractor used to dig holes for fence posts and planting young trees. This dude's pronunciation of agg-ARE was like nails on a fucking chalkboard to me.
Quote:
san pedro guy: agg-R is how i say it in my head, never said it outloud 
Close, but you're missing the TX draw...agg-ARE
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Grind365
AlwaysGrinding

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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: zilker] 1
#27917462 - 08/24/22 11:53 PM (1 year, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
zilker said:
Quote:
Rotnpins: I really liked how he used it to get a sample straight from some substrate.. I don't think I would have thought of doing that.
Whaaaaat??? Don't tell me I thought about something before you did, amigo? C'mon Rotn, that's gotta be worth a rating for this newbie, eh?!? Also, transferring from one water to another can be tricky because it wants to stick the blade. I had a really hard time with one of them and ended up slicing into the agar, touching the bottom. That fucker has equal growth on the top AND bottom of the plate all the way to the edge (it grows REALLY fast on water...need to transfer much sooner than you do a nute plate). I can't get a good picture of it, but it's pretty damn cool looking.

Not sure why, but I've noticed my plates tend to condensate at night...I guess that has something to do with metabolic growth versus resting stages?? When I pulled these out for a look-see a few hours ago, no condensation. Tonight isn't the first time I've noticed. Neither here nor there, I suppose.
This guy also has some very informative info https://www.youtube.com/c/SouthwestMushrooms. He's all gourmet, but a lot of the general knowledge is universal. I actually have about 60/40 gourmet/cube at the moment. Only way I can grow cubes with family interaction...my 11yr old loves this shit as much as I do. I only grow 1 tub of cubes at a time and tell her they're backyard finds that I'm growing for practice, and don't EVER eat them b/c they're toxic (not necessarily a lie, so don't judge me!!!).
These are transfers from cakes; Warm Button and Shiitake...getting transferred to another water agar tomorrow before going to nutrient.
Quote:
HILLBILLY OUTLAWS: Before I first actually got started I bought and read like 5 different books on the subject and watched prob every you tube vid there is. Took it all in and filtered out what I thought either logically wouldnโt work and focused on what actually made sense. Didnโt find shroomery until right after my first grow was over. Would have been much easier if I stumbled upon this place about 9 months ago. Lol
Similar story here...I thought mushrooms grew in shit, so they had to be easy...had 4 grows gone bad before I registered. 
Quote:
Grind365: So I haven't finished the video yet but I had to come back here to ask is agar really pronounced auger? Edit: I also noticed he said more nutritious agar gives fast vigorous growth I know the opposite to be true what gives?
In TX, auger is an attachment to a tractor used to dig holes for fence posts and planting young trees. This dude's pronunciation of agg-ARE was like nails on a fucking chalkboard to me.
Quote:
san pedro guy: agg-R is how i say it in my head, never said it outloud 
Close, but you're missing the TX draw...agg-ARE 
Yes that's what it reminded me of everytime he said auger I was expecting to hear bit after it lmfao. I actually grew up in Amarillo so I guess Texas is a second home to me.
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Rotnpins
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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: zilker]
#27917596 - 08/25/22 04:09 AM (1 year, 5 months ago) |
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I'll give credit where it's due.. I just left you a rating.. plus you made me smile 
As far as condensation goes, I'm curious, where we're those in your plate stacks? The top few plates of my stacks tend to have condensation, so I keep some older plates around that I'm not using, and I put 3 on top of each stack

In this picture, the black plates are mostly there for condensation control
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Stipe-n Cap


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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: Rotnpins] 2
#27921058 - 08/27/22 11:13 AM (1 year, 4 months ago) |
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So I think this might make for a cool experiment, I am not set up to run it so I'll run it by you for obvious reasons:

I just posted this while talking about slime molds on our Discord server, run controls etc but this is the basic idea.
This is basically how they test slime molds in the lab, they always search out the food source even when obstacles are present.
Not sure how it will work out for Psilocybe species but a Mycelial foraging experiment sounds fun.
Interested?
Edited by Stipe-n Cap (08/27/22 11:26 AM)
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Rotnpins
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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: Stipe-n Cap] 2
#27921080 - 08/27/22 11:28 AM (1 year, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
p9hu7 said: So I think this might make for a cool experiment, I am not set up to run it so I'll run it by you for obvious reasons:

I just posted this while talking about slime molds on our Discord server, run controls etc but this is the basic idea.
This is basically how they test slime molds in the lab, they always search out the food source even when obstacles are present.
Interested?
Very much so. Thank you for the idea.. I'd be very interested in seeing the results... I've got a bunch of water agar plates on standby, so I'll put someone together in the next day or 2
Mycelium and mushrooms have an intelligence that I never noticed before getting into cultivation...
I've seen mushrooms in a water tub (growing out of the bottom of the cake, toward the water) turn and start growing sideways to avoid hitting the water..
Same with the lid of a tub.. when the first fruit got close to the lid it turned, and all the smaller fruits started turning by the next day, even tho they weren't close to being tall enough to hit the lid..
Thanks p9, I think this experiment would make a great addition to this thread
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Rotnpins
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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: Rotnpins] 1
#27922242 - 08/28/22 08:38 AM (1 year, 4 months ago) |
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Here are some pictures to show you guys the growth on a few plates.. they aren't the best pictures, but you should be able to see tge leading edge to get an idea of the speed of growth.
Plate stared 8/10 (18 days ago):
8/11 (17 days ago):
8/12 (16 days ago):
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Rusty2096
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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: Rotnpins] 2
#27933386 - 09/04/22 10:21 AM (1 year, 4 months ago) |
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WA vs BRF agar experiment
I'm posting here because I will be trying to clean a culture using water agar and I thought it would be fun as I will also compare the results with BRF agar. My logic here is WA could work due to the rapid expansion of the myc looking for nutes and maybe be able to outrun the bacteria. For BRF I was just thinking: if bacterias have a hard time in BRF cakes, maybe it will also have a hard time on BRF agar vs the original PDA plates.
In the picture below, PDA plates 1 and 4 were inoculated from grains coming from a jar noct with a very bacterial LC. As you can see it's still really bad.
I'm hoping the myc on plate 1 will manage top grow past the bacteria (towards where the purple arrow is pointing) to make a simple transfer. That being said I'm realistic and I'm not counting on it so much.
In case it doesn't grow past it, I made transfers from plate 4 to both plates 2 and 3. I used a scalpel to scrape a tiny amount of myc on the grain and then dipped my blade in 2 locations on both plates 2 and 3 (don't worry I did flame sterilize my blade between plates).

Anyways just a fun little experiment of how well it's gonna go to clean the original PDA plate transfering to BRF agar vs WA.
I will post my progress in a few day.
-------------------- Currently looking for nothing. You guys who sent me stuff are straight up awesome!. We don't own things - things own us. Semi-solid liquid culture (SSLC)
Edited by Rusty2096 (09/04/22 10:23 AM)
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my_mycelium
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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: Rusty2096]
#27934077 - 09/04/22 05:55 PM (1 year, 4 months ago) |
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Hey there shroomies,
Quick question please, I'm trying to grow B+ on agar from a print. This looks pretty good to me but want to check this isn't some weird contam that I'm not aware of. Am I ok here?
Also, I'm going to do a couple of agar to agar transfers, am I close to the point at which I should do the transfers?
Thanks alot for all the advice!
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Rusty2096
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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: my_mycelium] 1
#27934089 - 09/04/22 06:03 PM (1 year, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
my_mycelium said: Hey there shroomies,
Quick question please, I'm trying to grow B+ on agar from a print. This looks pretty good to me but want to check this isn't some weird contam that I'm not aware of. Am I ok here?
Also, I'm going to do a couple of agar to agar transfers, am I close to the point at which I should do the transfers?
Thanks alot for all the advice!

Welcome to the Shroomery!
In the spirit of not hijacking this water agar thread (unless you did use WA and forgot to mention it) maybe you should post there instead --> AGAR ENVY
-------------------- Currently looking for nothing. You guys who sent me stuff are straight up awesome!. We don't own things - things own us. Semi-solid liquid culture (SSLC)
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Rotnpins
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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: Rotnpins] 3
#27935562 - 09/05/22 03:17 PM (1 year, 4 months ago) |
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I started the experiment p9 and I were talking about

I may do a couple versions once I have some different things to work with. Such as putting bacteria in one corner and nutrients in the other, but for now I just did a very basic starting version to see what happens..
One sample is a transfer of Semperviva from a MYA plate and the other is a clean sample from the same plate. The hypothesis is that the mycelium will seek out the nutrient sample instead of just branching out evenly in all directions
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Rusty2096
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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: Rusty2096]
#27939486 - 09/07/22 08:56 PM (1 year, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Rusty2096 said: WA vs BRF agar experiment
I'm posting here because I will be trying to clean a culture using water agar and I thought it would be fun as I will also compare the results with BRF agar. My logic here is WA could work due to the rapid expansion of the myc looking for nutes and maybe be able to outrun the bacteria. For BRF I was just thinking: if bacterias have a hard time in BRF cakes, maybe it will also have a hard time on BRF agar vs the original PDA plates.
In the picture below, PDA plates 1 and 4 were inoculated from grains coming from a jar noct with a very bacterial LC. As you can see it's still really bad.
I'm hoping the myc on plate 1 will manage top grow past the bacteria (towards where the purple arrow is pointing) to make a simple transfer. That being said I'm realistic and I'm not counting on it so much.
In case it doesn't grow past it, I made transfers from plate 4 to both plates 2 and 3. I used a scalpel to scrape a tiny amount of myc on the grain and then dipped my blade in 2 locations on both plates 2 and 3 (don't worry I did flame sterilize my blade between plates).

Anyways just a fun little experiment of how well it's gonna go to clean the original PDA plate transfering to BRF agar vs WA.
I will post my progress in a few day.

UPDATE
Not much growth yet from the 2 tiny tiny scraped myc transfers. But I do have some progress from another plate as per the picture below. The plate the transfers were taken from was PDA. My hypothesis is that the myc transferred to the BRF plate is still looking for PDA and the one transfered to the WA plate is going to expend looking for any nutes.
-------------------- Currently looking for nothing. You guys who sent me stuff are straight up awesome!. We don't own things - things own us. Semi-solid liquid culture (SSLC)
Edited by Rusty2096 (09/07/22 08:59 PM)
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Rotnpins
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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: Rotnpins] 3
#27941574 - 09/09/22 07:22 AM (1 year, 4 months ago) |
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Here's an update on the first nutrient sample test plate day 4:

So far, the growth is stretching out in all directions.. however I'm taking note of a few things that could be influencing the results...
1) the size of the mycelium transfer I took from the nutrient plate... I was working pretty quickly and since the donor plate was clean, i just took a normal sized transfer without giving it a second thought..
It looks like the mycelium is still feeding off the nutrients from the original plate.. the growth is still rather strong/aggressive.. It should be interesting to see what happens once it's grown out a little further, and its starting to run out of food.
2) The proximity of the nutrient sample.. Theoretically, the nutrient sample wouldn't need to be placed very far away from the transfer on the WA plate...
If our goal is to direct the mycelium in one direction, away from bacterial contamination, and then grab a clean transfer to a new plate; it would then make sense that we want the nutrient sample to be far enough that it wouldn't provide food for the bacteria, but close enough that we could use this strategy to grab a quick sample of clean growth.
3) As Baba Yaga pointed out.. the amount of time that the nutrient sample is on the WA plate before the test could play a role.. if the nutrients are allowed to start to leaching into the WA plate, it could be easier for the mycelium to detect trace amounts, while still remaining far enough to not effect the growth of any contamination that is present.
These are just a few of the thoughts/observations I have so far.. it's still pretty early to make any judgements about the outcome.
I plan to test out a few different distances for the nutrient sample in future tests. I'll also do some tests with smaller sized transfers, and try comparing plates that are prepared ahead of time vs ones that have the nutrient sample added at the time of the test..
Even if the mycelium continues to go out in every direction, the nutrient sample could make it easier to identify different types of mycelium growth when choosing where to take a sample when transferring back to your nutrient plate.
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Rusty2096
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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: Rusty2096] 2
#27947344 - 09/12/22 07:17 PM (1 year, 4 months ago) |
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*****EDIT: Results in red below so you that have to read all that again*****
Quote:
Rusty2096 said:
Quote:
Rusty2096 said: WA vs BRF agar experiment
I'm posting here because I will be trying to clean a culture using water agar and I thought it would be fun as I will also compare the results with BRF agar. My logic here is WA could work due to the rapid expansion of the myc looking for nutes and maybe be able to outrun the bacteria. For BRF I was just thinking: if bacterias have a hard time in BRF cakes, maybe it will also have a hard time on BRF agar vs the original PDA plates.
In the picture below, PDA plates 1 and 4 were inoculated from grains coming from a jar noct with a very bacterial LC. As you can see it's still really bad.
I'm hoping the myc on plate 1 will manage top grow past the bacteria (towards where the purple arrow is pointing) to make a simple transfer. That being said I'm realistic and I'm not counting on it so much.
In case it doesn't grow past it, I made transfers from plate 4 to both plates 2 and 3. I used a scalpel to scrape a tiny amount of myc on the grain and then dipped my blade in 2 locations on both plates 2 and 3 (don't worry I did flame sterilize my blade between plates).

Anyways just a fun little experiment of how well it's gonna go to clean the original PDA plate transfering to BRF agar vs WA.
I will post my progress in a few day.

UPDATE
Not much growth yet from the 2 tiny tiny scraped myc transfers. But I do have some progress from another plate as per the picture below. The plate the transfers were taken from was PDA. My hypothesis is that the myc transferred to the BRF plate is still looking for PDA and the one transfered to the WA plate is going to expend looking for any nutes.

EXPERIMENT RESULTS
Ok so here are my conclusions, and what I like to think I learned from this experiment (I may be wrong all the way, not sure).
Plates 1 and 2 were inoculated (2 inoc points each) with a VERY LITTLE AMOUNT of myc scraped off a dirty grain on september 4th.
Plates 3 and 4 were inoculated with normal size transfers from a very dirty plate on September 5th. Didn't expect those to work out at all. All my hopes were in plates 1 and 2.
This is what I see in the pictures:
- Picture 1: Slow but healthy looking growth and could be used for a transfer (sorry we can't see shit on that pic because of the BFR sediments I didn't handle properly).
- Picture 2: Only the left inoc point shows real growth. I think I scalpelled the microscopic quantity of myc too deep in the agar in the right inoc point. Myc looks a little weaker, I guess from the lack of sediments, but clean symmetrical growth. Could be used for a transfer.
- Picture 3: Solid healthy growth, somewhat asymmetrical (for now at least).
- Picture 4: The coolest of all. Look at that growth. The 2 arrows point some kind of "headhunting for food mycelium". Could definitely be used to take a transfer away from contam, if contam was visible. I bet those "food hunters" would outrun most tam. Could be used for transfer.
 
 
Conclusion: I think WA is definitely a great tool to have to clean cultures. I got lucky and I will proceed to transfers from plate 3. But if I did not get that lucky, I would have used the "headhunters" from plate 4 or even the think cool looking growth from plate 2.
I hope sharing this taught something to someone. At least it did taught me.
-------------------- Currently looking for nothing. You guys who sent me stuff are straight up awesome!. We don't own things - things own us. Semi-solid liquid culture (SSLC)
Edited by Rusty2096 (09/12/22 07:43 PM)
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Rotnpins
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Registered: 01/11/22
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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: Rotnpins]
#27955926 - 09/18/22 11:38 AM (1 year, 4 months ago) |
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Quick update picture from the nutrient sample experiment:

Growth is still even.. should be interesting to see if the growth gets stronger once it has a chance to feed off the nutrient sample
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Rusty2096
rah rah raw in Lady gaga



Registered: 08/23/22
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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: Rotnpins]
#27955933 - 09/18/22 11:47 AM (1 year, 4 months ago) |
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I'm curious what would have happened if you did it this way:

I like to think the myc would have communicated that food is that way and growth would be around the nutes piece of agar (purely theoretical)
Edit: of course this would be a WA plate, forgot to write it on the drawing
-------------------- Currently looking for nothing. You guys who sent me stuff are straight up awesome!. We don't own things - things own us. Semi-solid liquid culture (SSLC)
Edited by Rusty2096 (09/18/22 11:48 AM)
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Rusty2096
rah rah raw in Lady gaga



Registered: 08/23/22
Posts: 4,946
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Re: Let's talk about Water Agar!! ๐ง [Re: Rotnpins] 1
#27956023 - 09/18/22 12:49 PM (1 year, 4 months ago) |
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Well I 100% agree what I suggested does no good to clean contam, I was just curious about the myc behavior.
Interested in more experiments and results from you

Pix tax: (T3s done 5 min ago from a WA plate in my experiment earlier in this thread)
-------------------- Currently looking for nothing. You guys who sent me stuff are straight up awesome!. We don't own things - things own us. Semi-solid liquid culture (SSLC)
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