SirPsycho said:

Wait what?

---

MicroMycelium said:

SirPsycho said:

Wait what?

---

I had leftover agar on the inside sides of my media bottle and wanted to warm it up to rinse it out for my next batch with a different recipe…

As soon as the hot water I was using to rinse out the bottle made contact and shattered just like my hopes and dreams
Lesson learned lol

---

SirPsycho said:

MicroMycelium said:

SirPsycho said:

Wait what?

---

I had leftover agar on the inside sides of my media bottle and wanted to warm it up to rinse it out for my next batch with a different recipe…

As soon as the hot water I was using to rinse out the bottle made contact and shattered just like my hopes and dreams
Lesson learned lol

---

You microwaved an empty bottle to melt shit stuck on the sides?

---

I was feeling lazy, yes.

RoscoeReturns said:

It works fine with real Pyrex. I’ve had off brand Amazon stuff that claimed to be borosilicate, but wasn’t. That stuff will explode with rapid temperature changes.

---

Exactly what I was gonna get at. Should be able to withstand something like 300 degree temp changes.

And also, throw some water in the bottle before you microwave. Will melt shit much better. But also nuke it in small increments and make sure it moves around between each go. Super heated water blowing up in your bottle isn't fun either

ReverendMyc said:

To be fair, I am team beaker now thanks to you, I believe.



handles save delicate fingers
[/url]

You two look so much alike. I get confused.

---

ReverendMyc said:

Edit: Nope. It was Lotkid's post

You two look so much alike. I get confused.

---

It's the, as another shroomerite(?) put it, impenetrable sarcasm

Its still early to say for certain, but its looking like I may have solved my "dead agar" issues by switching the agar agar powder I was using. Both the mea plate and the pda plate seemingly have a little bit of growth from the wedge onto the plate. Its been like a day and a half or 2 days and thats more than my last plate got in 2 weeks, so im hopeful

MicroMycelium said:

Just dropping in to say,

If you’re thinking about microwaving your media bottle to melt the leftover Agar and then rinse it off with hot water..

Don’t.

My media bottle just shattered in my hand

---

Tri-Polar said:

Stipe-n Cap said:

I am 100% confident that your cycle time is irrelevant. If you could produce a gelling agent impervious to microbial activity, you'll probably win the Nobel peize for your engineering achievement.

The only folks with this dead plate problem are noobs. Not one TC has ever experienced this issue, so far as I'm aware.

I  challenge you to go outside and find some mold, place it on this dead agar, report back.

---

Challenge accepted



Now we wait

Hope it grows mold, I really do.

The whole point of it all is that I followed a recipe exactly, high quality ingredients + distilled water, cooked it for 40 minutes, poured, etc. Before wasting time doing transfers to non-viable agar dishes, I tested one by exposing it to very dirty air for 30 seconds, 4 days later I did it again and added a dab of spit (I know), waited another 4 days still nothing. Now that plate is the same that the mold was added to. If I can't purposefully contam a plate I can't use it to determine my sterile technique or the quality of my cultures, even if it DID decide to actually grow out some mycelium. This is my concern, and ultimately the issue i am attempting to troubleshoot

---

Tri-Polar said:

Tri-Polar said:

Lol found this unlabeled in the middle of an unused stack

Think I remember putting something to an old agar plate a couple weeks ago in the middle of moving my setup, must've got mixed up lmao, could be pumpkin, a. Burma, or vader

---

Damn, this is peak "weird agar issues" lmao

That old plate was just a straight MEA plate but it was made by my old boss. Found it, put some myc to it and grew out fine and continued to grow over the whole plate, little more than a week ago I took a transfer to one of my new MEA plates and these are the results, the transfer was even myc side down lol



Anyone besides me find that odd?

---

Tri-Polar said:

New brand of agar arrived so we testing plates


The 500ml is 8g agar agar, 7g LME(maltoferm 1001), 400ml water

The 1000ml is 8g agar agar, 1.6 grams powdered dehydrated hashbrowns, 5g honey, 400ml water

Was going to do a 4% MEA as well but cracked a bottle prepping it, and then in my butthurtness forgot I had bought more media bottles, and thought I was down to two

---

I think the Agar Arc is nearing its conclusion

I can say with confidence these new plates are growing great
Pda (2-3 days)

Mea (2-3 days)

Problem plate mea (over 2 weeks)


Wedges all taken from the same donor plate

I feel extremely grateful to have that over with, and I'd like to offer a big "fuck you" to Telephone brand agar agar powder

Would love to know what is actually going on, but who knows

Pandaskis said:

Loving the visibility of these holygrail no pours,

Hows this culture looking? Theres quite a bit of sectoring but otherwise looks clean

---

SirPsycho said:

I don't understand the issue and yes, I have followed your struggle. Shit is clearly growing on them now. Is it that it hasn't kept colonizing?

---

The problem with the old plates was no growth

The new plates are good, I think they will continue to grow fine, hopefully

Basically to sum it all up, about a year year and a half ago my agar plates stopped showing any meaningful growth, went through a cult pause and then came back to it some months ago, still had same issues with plates, worked off LC during that period, through my troubleshooting process these last new plates were made with a different brand of agar, and that seems to have hopefully solved my problem

Tri-Polar said:

SirPsycho said:

I don't understand the issue and yes, I have followed your struggle. Shit is clearly growing on them now. Is it that it hasn't kept colonizing?

---

The problem with the old plates was no growth

The new plates are good, I think they will continue to grow fine, hopefully

Basically to sum it all up, about a year year and a half ago my agar plates stopped showing any meaningful growth, went through a cult pause and then came back to it some months ago, still had same issues with plates, worked off LC during that period, through my troubleshooting process these last new plates were made with a different brand of agar, and that seems to have hopefully solved my problem

---