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zorak
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Contam?
#28882483 - 07/22/24 03:48 PM (5 months, 23 days ago) |
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This tub was spawned 10 days ago. I started with spores on agar, then took agar to popcorn, then spawned to cvg. This is my first time ever growing with bulk substrate, only other experience was doing one pf tek grow many years ago.
After spawning, I realized that the substrate was on the very dry end of field capacity. Probably would've still been fine but I wanted to add some more moisture, so 2 days ago I misted very heavily directly on the top of the substrate. Today I opened it and saw this little blob in the corner. Is this mold or trich? And if so, could I possibly pluck it out now and save the rest of the bin?


Hopefully the pics work this time.....
Edited by zorak (07/22/24 03:51 PM)
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Seriously_trippin
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Re: Contam? [Re: zorak]
#28882485 - 07/22/24 03:50 PM (5 months, 23 days ago) |
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The pics are working. I don't know the first thing about contamination that isn't green lol I'm just now learning.
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AzureCultivator
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Sure, try to carve it out. Sooner the better. No matter what, you’ll know in a few more days. And, maybe check the substrate that you remove. What’s it look like?
And, what makes mycelium grow like trees? So weird
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So Anyway
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Top left corner? I'd just keep an eye on it and let it ride, doesn't look that odd to me. Colonized CVG isn't going to easily contam from misting if at all ime. Surface conditions don't look fantastic but maybe just the pics; if you need to mist, for me misting less but more often as needed is usually better than going hard on over misting all at once
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zorak
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TY all, I think I will wait it out. I was about to get impatient and just scoop it out before I saw the 2nd reply here, but then I took another look at it and it seemed more like it's just some mycelium with a little moisture sitting on top of it.
I have 3 of these 2qt tubs in the same FC and this is by far the healthiest most vigorous looking one so I was super bummed about the potential contam, really don't want anything like that to spread to my other tubs. Buuuut now I'm pretty sure its not contam so I'll wait and see what happens, unless I get more responses that change my mind.
I just now removed the lids on each individual tub to introduce fruiting, cant wait to see a full canopy on this little guy.
Edited by zorak (07/22/24 05:23 PM)
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AzureCultivator
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Re: Contam? [Re: zorak]
#28882594 - 07/22/24 05:14 PM (5 months, 23 days ago) |
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Great call. I like the ‘set and forget’ methodology. Hoping for a good harvest!
Can you send out pics when it starts fruiting? 🙏
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Drink the Water of Life and become Paul Muad’Dib
Edited by AzureCultivator (07/22/24 05:15 PM)
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Herme5
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Looks like excess water droplet coagulation to me, not contam.
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zorak
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Will do. Might not post until after harvest but I'll take pics along the way.
As far as the tree-like growth, this colony was a T1 transfer of a single rhizoid (or maybe a hyphae is the right word? I just mean a single strand) that was growing up the side of the original no-pour agar cup, after it had fully colonized the agar and started overgrowing up the sides. So I guess it might have something to do with it being so vigorous and mycorrhizal that it was climbing up the walls.
Once it grew out on the next agar plate it seemed to be growing in 2 distinct segments, so once it was mostly colonized I separated them into 2 different grain jars. The 2nd one was spawned at the same time as this one but it doesn't look the same, at all.
Edited by zorak (07/22/24 11:59 PM)
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zorak
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Re: Contam? [Re: zorak]
#28893620 - 07/30/24 12:34 PM (5 months, 15 days ago) |
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Here we are now 8 days into fruiting, 18 days since spawning. The one I posted earlier is on the right, looking fine. No pins yet.
The one on the left has some spots that seem to be turning a little green-ish. Should I be worried?
Edited by zorak (07/30/24 12:40 PM)
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vicepope
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Re: Contam? [Re: zorak]
#28894448 - 07/31/24 04:05 AM (5 months, 14 days ago) |
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Always be worried and it will be fine. But either there pinning or those blobs mycelium is fighting bacteria. That looks 100% different then your last tub pictures
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PBJ710
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IME *if* you have adequate FAE, those fuzzballs of mycelium on the surface are from bacteria presence...not necessarily a death sentence, but temper your expectations.
All you can do at this point is maintain surface conditions and ride it out until it fruits or trichs out.
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zorak
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Re: Contam? [Re: PBJ710]
#28894514 - 07/31/24 06:31 AM (5 months, 14 days ago) |
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Oh interesting, I've been reading that this strain is known to produce a lot of overlay so I assume that was what I was seeing. One thing I'm confused about is misting for surface conditions. If I'm not seeing droplets on the surface, but humidity is 99% and there is water on all the walls, should I still mist to get droplets? The humidity has been staying high so I haven't been misting much, don't want to overdo it. But I haven't seen droplets on the surface since it got so fuzzy
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PBJ710
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Re: Contam? [Re: zorak]
#28894537 - 07/31/24 06:55 AM (5 months, 14 days ago) |
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Yoru hygrometer is very likely not accurate at the extremes and is pretty pointless for cubes. Just look at the surface conditions and let it tell you if you need more/less.
You have a giant box with only a small amount of spawn/substrate creating metabolic activity going on, so it's not going to maintain RH% like a typical monotub/ezdial would when filled with 4" of substrate. Everytime you open the tub to fuck with them, you're destroying the humidity that took so long to get built up. Mist lightly and LITFA as much as possible.
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zorak
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Re: Contam? [Re: PBJ710]
#28894612 - 07/31/24 07:43 AM (5 months, 14 days ago) |
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I know I cant trust the hygrometer completely but I have 2 and if they both show >90%, and come back down to the same level when removed from the FC, I think they're at least letting me know its nice and high.
I think this FC should be at least as stable as a monotub, humidity-wise, because the wet perlite on the bottom is providing the humidity and it has more surface area than the surface of a monotub plus it isn't drawing all the moisture from out of the sub itself, drying it out. Having more space per unit of colonized sub inside the FC, means the air inside gets depleted of oxygen and saturated with co2 more slowly so that should be good too.
I'm just not sure if surface beads are so important that I should keep misting to get them even when humidity is already high?
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PBJ710
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Re: Contam? [Re: zorak]
#28894715 - 07/31/24 08:50 AM (5 months, 14 days ago) |
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Quote:
zorak said: I know I cant trust the hygrometer completely but I have 2 and if they both show >90%, and come back down to the same level when removed from the FC, I think they're at least letting me know its nice and high.
I think this FC should be at least as stable as a monotub, humidity-wise, because the wet perlite on the bottom is providing the humidity and it has more surface area than the surface of a monotub plus it isn't drawing all the moisture from out of the sub itself, drying it out. Having more space per unit of colonized sub inside the FC, means the air inside gets depleted of oxygen and saturated with co2 more slowly so that should be good too.
I'm just not sure if surface beads are so important that I should keep misting to get them even when humidity is already high?
Your tub might be 'stable' but it's not the same as a tub full of spawn/substrate pumping water out of the substrate through metabolic activity. Warm air holds alot more moisture than cold air. If you open my tubs theres a sauna like release of warm extremely humid air. Think about where cubes grow naturally...it's typically 80-90f at night with 95-99%+ humidity when they are fruiting. You're highly overrating the CO2 creating ability of those little cakes. 66qt EZDial tubs only have 16 x .25" holes to provide FAE for 20qts of spawn/substrate and they do great.
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zorak
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Re: Contam? [Re: PBJ710]
#28896575 - 08/01/24 02:28 PM (5 months, 13 days ago) |
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Oh thats a good point about metabolic activity, I wasn't thinking about that. Well I woke up this morning and found pins! There are more around the sides than the surface, unfortunately. I guess I should've used a liner.
Maybe I will "birth" these cakes onto some foil to give the side pins more room to grow. I think I've only seen people doing that with pf cakes, but I assume that would work fine for a popcorn+cvg tub like this too though? Or would it break up too easily?
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AzureCultivator
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Re: Contam? [Re: zorak]
#28896607 - 08/01/24 02:56 PM (5 months, 13 days ago) |
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Pins! Awesome! And, wtg!
Set-and-forget. Best not move anything right now. The mushrooms are having a party
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Drink the Water of Life and become Paul Muad’Dib
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LyleChipperson


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Re: Contam? [Re: zorak]
#28896726 - 08/01/24 03:30 PM (5 months, 13 days ago) |
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Quote:
zorak said: Oh thats a good point about metabolic activity, I wasn't thinking about that. Well I woke up this morning and found pins! There are more around the sides than the surface, unfortunately. I guess I should've used a liner.
Maybe I will "birth" these cakes onto some foil to give the side pins more room to grow. I think I've only seen people doing that with pf cakes, but I assume that would work fine for a popcorn+cvg tub like this too though? Or would it break up too easily?
You don't need a liner. What you needed to do was to make sure that there were water droplets on the surface so the pins had an incentive to grow there. You got mostly side pins because the sides provided better conditions for pins to grow than the top. I'm sure that there were trapped droplets between your box and the substrate on the side.
This is why hygrometers are completely unnecessary in this hobby and you should rely on your eyes. You trust a gadget that measures the air at the spot it's placed with up to a 15-20% difference from reality in some cases. But the pins only care about how moist it is where you want them to grow, not on the tub walls or the air inside the tub.
I bought a couple hygrometers at first too and they're rotting in a box somewhere, as they should be.
If your substrate can hold itself together, you can take it out of the box like a pf cake. But be careful and proceed at your own risk.
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zorak
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I guess I should've been more specific. I don't plan to touch them right now. I meant I was thinking of doing that after the 1st flush. I will probably need to remove the cake to harvest the side pins anyways, so I may birth the whole cake or just dunk and add a liner
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JJames-77
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Re: Contam? [Re: zorak]
#28897799 - 08/02/24 01:57 PM (5 months, 12 days ago) |
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IMO yes contam but you can always try saving it buy cutting it out- though it's probs not going to help to be honest.
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