40 replies to this topic

[totallynew]

I tried to edit my old post with the new info, but I couldn't figure out how to edit the original post (i looked around for about 20min and searched like mad to find it, sorry)..

So here we go.. again..

Hardware:
1 sterilite container
2 aquarium thermometer (1 outside contain, 1 in)
Spray bottle
1 pair of Kitchenaid scissors
Rubbing alcohol
Nitrile gloves
1 small roll of Polyfil

Software:
4 grow bags from *Admin Removed Non Sponsor*
4 varieties from http://www.ralphstersspores.com/
1 8qt bag of Perlite (miracle grow infused, but flushed thoroughly)


total cost was < $50USD

We are having a problem:
We aren't getting a lot of heat inside the sterilite containter (maybe I have too many holes for air exchange?). Right now it gets to about 70*F at night and 74*F during the day, the only place warmer in the house is too hot (104* on a sunny day), so how can we get the heat up? I've heard of a heatbomb -- but I havent seen where to buy one or how to make one (and we're on a very tight budget) and if I've already drilled too many air exchange holes.. i dont want to drill another for an aquarium heater (if that even be possible?)

I apologize for having to start this thread over and for being such a newb.. but any advice/suggestions are appreciated!

Pictures so far:

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Edited by Freaky, 28 March 2011 - 12:14 PM.

[totallynew]

We're at about 70*F and have a little bit of condensation..

Pictures attatched:

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[chimp]

Those temps are fine for the fruiting stage and that tub looks like a Fruiting Chamber to me. You still have a couple weeks + to go for colonizing those myco bags(they aren't nocced up yet right?) It would be best to get a different incubation chamber up to the low 80's for incubation but not totally necessary(it does speed up colonization time alot though).

looks like your doin ok so far. Other than the fact that you look to be getting a little ahead of yourself.

(looking at your pics..I don't see any myc in the bags..so I am guessing that they weren't inoculated yet)

[totallynew]

The bags have been innoculated with spores.

Why is a monotub not okay all of the sudden?

I guess I'm confused about the different between fruiting and colonizing. We aren't going to doing a mass grow as this is our first time (whatever the term is for that?). We were just planning on using the bags to get what we could...

joey_megabucks helped me straighten out what we're trying to do:

We have a grow bag and you put it into the fruiting chamber (a monotub with Perlite for humidity). We are leaving the colonized substrate in the grow bag and just cutting the top off of it so that the mushrooms fruit directly out of the bag. We will want to "dunk" the substrate . We can simply fill the bag with water and let it sit overnight, draining the bag thoroughly the next morning and then putting it back into the fruiting chamber. We should get more mushrooms (called the 2nd flush) soon. And we'll repeat this until the bag contaminates or there is no more nutritive value left in the substrate.

We are not planning to "case" the grow bag.
For now my gf and I are just fruiting the bag for what it's worth until we get more comfy/familiar with other teks.

hope that helps explain what we're goin for..

What am I doing that is getting ahead of myself?
There's no myc in the bags as they were innoculated 2 days ago.

[totallynew]

Seems we might have messed up by putting the bags (which are innoculated, and in the monotub with the perlite) in direct sunlight.

We didn't put them there for light, but rather for heat..

what temps are okay for the mycelium? I've seen mid 70s to around 80*F.. suggestions on getting the temp up? Right now we're hovering around 70*F.. Still wondering if I have too many holes for air exchange and fretting about heat..

Thank you :)

[totallynew]

DOH.

So I dont mean the monotub for the colonizing, just a warm dark place where it wont be messed with? Would it help if where I was colonizing was humid?

thank you!

[GoVols]

DOH.

So I dont mean the monotub for the colonizing, just a warm dark place where it wont be messed with? Would it help if where I was colonizing was humid?

thank you!

Here is what to do, as you need it ASAP, and cant wait for a better deal on ebay.

You need to go to walmart or a pet store with lots of fish stuff. Get a fish tank heater with adjustable temp controll. The one I got was about a foot long and it cost 22 dollars at Walmart. I found three nicer ones for 24 on ebay, but you gotta get them quick.

Anyway that heater is the only expencive thing you need. You can get a 5dollar foam cooler and cut a little grove in the rim of it to fit the wire from the fish heater.

Get a half gallon milk just and clean it out, no milk left inside. fill to the top with water and a splash of H2O2. Put the heater inside and get some black electrical tape and tape the top of it pretty tight to prevent evaporation.

Start out with warm water.

Place your bags in the cooler, lay the wire in the groove and place the heatbomb (milkjug with the heater in it) in the cooler, place in a closet, close the lid and check on it every 2 days.

[Elf Salvation]

DOH.

So I dont mean the monotub for the colonizing, just a warm dark place where it wont be messed with? Would it help if where I was colonizing was humid?

thank you!

Yes a warm 80F, dark, and undisturbed place is best. No need for it to be humid for colonizing bags.

[joey_megabucks]

you might want to read through the original PF Tek to get an idea of the whole lifecycle of the mushroom and the methods employed.

http://archives.myco...html?1130154483

[golly]

A simple method for bumping the temps up in an incubator, is to use a night light which is placed inside a glass jar and set inside the tub ..On average every watt of incandescant light will raise the temp by 1F over the outside temperature, so a 7 watt bulb would raise from 70 to 77F .

If your room hits 80F at some point though, your tub will get too warm - 87F without a thermostat...

You never indicated what type of substrate is in those spawn bags..That can have a huge effect on the fruiting efficiency...
Pure grain bags do not fruit that well by themselves ..Some mixed substrates perform much better with out further mixing or casing..

[totallynew]

:headbang:WOW:headbang:

Thank you for the great info everyone.. more pics/info coming!

GoVols: Thank you for all the great advice and explaining some heating methods, especially the heatbomb! It always looked like a curling iron to me! so thank you!

Stroph: Yea, the bags are sealed :)

Elf Salvation: Thanks for letting us know about the need for temp and not humidity, yet :-)

Joey_Megabucks: Once again, you rock, thank you. We watched a lot of PF tutorials

golly: Thank you for the night light suggestion, but I'm not sure how it'd work, really. I never indicated what the substrate in the bag was because I'm not sure. We bought them from sporeworks.com, when we get a little more familiar with the process, we may try mixing a substrate that will yield better results (and all of that seems really confusing right now). Thank you! :-)

[totallynew]

Seems we got everything squared away, although I'm not sure if we're keeping the temperature high enough.

More tomorrow!

[totallynew]

Because we couldn't keep the temps up around 83*F, I did what many suggested and built a heatbomb using a drained water bottle, a 20gal aquarium heater, some water, and a splash of H2O2. It's working like a dream! The temp inside the cooler is somewhere between 83*F and 84*F and has been in total darkness :-)

What we are thinking of doing, once colonization is at about 80% is this:
Cut open the top of the bags and submerge the cakes and leaving for 24hrs -- I believe this is called the dunk or dunking.

After that, we are going to open the bags and drain thoroughly.

..Here's where my question is... The website from which the mycobags were bought says we can fruit directly from the bag, but would it be more productive to break up the cake and put the crumbles into a small tupperware-like container for fruiting? Or should we not break up the cake and just set it into the tubberware container?

:-)

[TheJackal]

Look at your sales e-mail and figure out what kind of mycobags you bought. The type, will determine what kind of fruiting scheme will work best.

[totallynew]

Look at your sales e-mail and figure out what kind of mycobags you bought. The type, will determine what kind of fruiting scheme will work best.

Ooook...

We bought the grain-based seen here: *Admin Removed Non Sponsor*


The site says, "The Bags included with this kit are specifically designed for primary spawn generation, and in some cases direct mushroom fruiting. "

It also says, "as also been found to support direct fruiting of some mushroom species." ..but doesn't list what species it's been successful with.

What's the difference then between "primary spawn generation" and a first direct fruiting?

If we wanted to put the the myclium infected cake into/onto another medium (which I believe is called casing), is there a a pre-made one we can buy somewhere?

And, do we need to dunk for the first fruiting?

The problem is, we have 4 strains and 1 sterilite fruiting chamber..

Confused, I am.

Edited by Freaky, 28 March 2011 - 12:18 PM.

[Sidestreet]

What we are thinking of doing, once colonization is at about 80% is this:
Cut open the top of the bags and submerge the cakes and leaving for 24hrs -- I believe this is called the dunk or dunking.


:-)

One thing that's important is NOT to open the bag until 100% colonization. Otherwise you're exposing uncolonized substrate to contaminants. Wait until everything is covered in mycelium, and then wait a couple more days. THEN open 'er up and dunk as you described.

It also says, "as also been found to support direct fruiting of some mushroom species." ..but doesn't list what species it's been successful with.

This means you can leave it mostly sealed or cut the top open, and fruit right in the bag. "Some mushroom species" means they're not coming right out to say you should grow Cubensis with their bags. ;)

do we need to Dunk for the first fruiting?

You don't need to, but you can if you like. It's a good idea if it takes longer than usual to colonize.

What's the difference then between "primary spawn generation" and a first direct fruiting?

"Primary spawn generation" means you can colonize what's in the bag, and then mix it with more sterilized or pasteurized substrate. This is called a "bulk substrate." Direct fruiting is just growing the mushies right off of what's in the bag.

The problem is, we have 4 strains and 1 sterilite fruiting chamber..

This is fine. Each strain should get it's own seperate substrate. As long as there's room in the fruiting chamber for all of the substrates to fruit, they can share.

Good luck! :)

[TheJackal]

OK, those are grain bags:

"Each bag contains just over 1 pound of precooked and pre-sterilized mixed whole grains, grain flours, and vermiculite that can be used for primary spawn generation and in some cases direct mushroom fruiting."

Depending on which mushrooms you used with these bags will help determine whether to cake or case. If they are cubs, you can cake or case. Not sure for other types what works best. If you use the whole cakes you can put some verm above and below them called DEC (double ended casing) or you can crumble the cakes into a plastic pan and cover with a layer of verm called casing. Look for fahtster's post for using DEC and cakes and look in archives for casing teks.

As far as direct fruiting, this means that the colonized bags can be used to fruit mushrooms directly with either DEC or casing method noted above. Primary spawn generation means you can use the colonized bags to spread myceliium onto a bulk substrate like horse poop for larger crop yields.

For simplicity, you might wanna go with the DEC and cake method ala fahtster, but I will let the pros provide their comments and as I am still learning.

[golly]

Yeah those bags can fruit without any mixing, so your good...:thumbup: