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Would a basic cotton-wool/stuffing plug around the airhose be sufficient?

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Finally, when you are at the pinning stage, is it ok to open your terrarium to adjust water levels and check progress etc or is infection still somewhat of a concern?

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bandario said:
Greetings and Salutations fine people of the Shroomery!
This is my first post here, and alas, like many first posts, it is begging for information

I found plans for the 'coolerpod' round the traps some time ago accompanied by a fairly detailed guide. Having gradually amassed all the parts required I returned to the UK mushie forum from which all instructions were linked only to find that they are no more! (seemingly dissapeared without a trace); foolishly I had only saved a couple of pictures, not the actual instructions themselves.

I've done many hours of reading from the teks on the shroomery and i'm just about ready to go with my first attempt, just waiting on spores.

The couple of questions I have remaining I think are pretty basic; the whole sterilisation and incubation procedure seems pretty straight forward.

Looking at those couple of pictures and drawing on (someone?)'s past experiences; Does it matter what I form the plug out of at the top of the terrarium? This thing doesn't look like it is a totally sealed environment as the top is basically just sitting over the bottom (albeit quite tightly) Would a basic cotton-wool/stuffing plug around the airhose be sufficient?

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bandario said:

secondly; When you place your cakes onto the medium, what level under the substrate should the water be maintained? I'm guessing the idea here is that water is not actually touching the bottom of the cake as it's just supposed to wick it through the hydroton, but for an air-stone to be bubbling, there has to be some level of water present!

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bandario said:
Finally, when you are at the pinning stage, is it ok to open your terrarium to adjust water levels and check progress etc or is infection still somewhat of a concern?

Many thanks in advance! This is something i've been wanting to do for a while; finally put some of my scientific education to good use

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Sillypcybin said:
Those look like lava rocks at the bottom. Expanded clay? If so, then you can pretty much have the water up to the halfway point of the top layer of rocks without a problem, I think.

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