koma23 said:

AspectOfTheCreator said:

They were dry. Broke up fine. Spawn smelled of perfectly good mushrooms. Makes no sense. 95% of my grows fail now. That tub is nats too which are more resilient. I just keep throwing all my projects out its so frustrating. Theres never any hint of anything going wrong until weeks post spawn when I should be getting shrooms I get contam instead. Totally goes against the model of the way things are supposed to work according to what this site preaches. Ive been at this for years now and this has largely been my experience. Sometimes I get lucky and get good tubs that live and produce forever but otherwise more than half my shit gets tossed even at the best of times.

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Well if agar and grains are perfect, then you know, ... it's most probably the bulk substrate. I've just had the same thing happen to me. 6 out of 8 shoe boxes triched out on me. A very peculiar thing, which never happens. Only one that survived was a very fast and aggressive colonizing cambodian clone. And spawn was, similar to you, also perfect. So it must have been something with the process of spawning, obviously. I just bought a new bag of coir, which was kinda weird, so it might be that.

However, ending up with bacterial tubs is weird. When I had bacterial issues, the problem was with poor sterile practice, agar to grain. The grain was coming out wet and clumpy. Since going the LC route, I haven't had such issues since (I use a SAB). What substrate do you use?

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SupaThaRipper said:

There's a few things you could try out.

Your grain looks great, but try a different grain. For me, oats always fucked me, even when they looked great.

Try a few different sub pasteurizing methods other than what you've been doing.

Try sterilizing your sub.
Try beneficial bacteria.

Try leaving all of your grain underneath the sub. I've done this a few times and got some surprising results.

There's options to play around with. This isn't a one size fits all. What works for many, may not work for you.

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QuantumZ00 said:

Sterilizing coco bliss? I've been told a lot of times by different TCs that is super unnecessary. Is that idea changed now? If your grain spawn is clean, your coir shouldn't be responsible for corrupting it... i thought?

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Stipe-n Cap said:

If you're not able to troubleshoot, then you're unable to articulate what the source of the problem was.

Correlation ≠ causation.

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Stipe-n Cap said:

Do not try beneficial bacteria. Just hydrate your coir in a CLEAN bucket with boiled water. The boiled water is hot enough. If your bucket is contaminated with starches from grains or something, you will cross contamine the coir. No amount of boiling water will fix cross contamination.

If your problem persists after that, it's your spawn.

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Ive never soaked grains in the bucket i use to prep coir. I always prep cocobliss coir via bucket tek. Yet things always go bad about 2 weeks post spawn. The spawn jars always look the same. Yellow spots are the wedges





Always looks like this. Always breaks up super easy just by shaking. No banging. Yet the same thing always happens. Contam ~2 weeks post spawn over and over and over. My success rate with agar is basically 100%. I keep all my plates they never contam and always happy enough to pin.






Ended up triching out

Control jars always stay good

Stipe-n Cap said:

Scrub your bucket with hot soapy water to clean. Then hydrate coir with boiled water, allow to cool. Spawn, and observe.

This will eliminate both cross contamination and potential bacteria/molds in the coir, leaving only the health of your spawn as a factor. If your problem persists, it's your spawn.

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LadysKnight said:

AspectOfTheCreator said:

Welp, all 8 shoeboxes of mine have contaminated 2 weeks post spawn.

Heres an example of the agar



Heres the spawn. 1 piece metal lids with sfd rtv glued on.





All tubs look like this. Discoloration and smells like shit. Spawned 1:2



Cant figure it out. Seriously frustrating. All goes perfectly every time up until time for fruit. There is nothing else to change or try at this point.

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Am I seeing like brownish bacteria in the open area from 2-3? Or trick if the light?

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AspectOfTheCreator said:

Where? I still have that plate. Its never been overtaken by anything.

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Stipe-n Cap said:

AspectOfTheCreator said:

Where? I still have that plate. Its never been overtaken by anything.

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It's self evident that this statement is incorrect. (Insert pics of tubs overtaken with mold)

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AspectOfTheCreator said:

Stipe-n Cap said:

AspectOfTheCreator said:

Where? I still have that plate. Its never been overtaken by anything.

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It's self evident that this statement is incorrect. (Insert pics of tubs overtaken with mold)

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I just did? Go up a few comments

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Stipe-n Cap said:

There's a finite number of vectors that can produce mold.

1. Infected culture;
2. Cross contamination;
3. Infected substrate;
4. Faulty jar filters. (See 1)

By scrubbing your coir buckets and using piping hot water you will eliminate both 2 and 3. All that remains is 1 and 4. If you've already eliminated 2/3, it's your spawn. Your spawn is either contaminated with an infected inoculant, or your spawn is becoming contaminated over time via faulty filters, or compromised sterility during spawn run.

With a very tiny likelihood of extreme environmental bioload/spore load.

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