1st Grow and production halted already!!, Any help greatly apreciated :D

Started by lsdreamz, January 19, 2007, 10:34:41 PM

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lsdreamz

Hey all!!

I have been away on holidays for a few weeks, and in that the one jar i have inoculated has ceased to grow any further. At first it was growing nice and fast! Everymorning id wake up check it out and it was always getting bigger and bigger. But for the last few weeks it hasnt grown at all. I was just wondering if

A) i should take a piece of myc from this jar and drop it in a freshly made batch of jars?
B ) break it up and make a casing out of what has grown?
C ) If there is anyway i can save this jar at all??

I am pretty sure i know what the problem is.. but i dont want to admit it lol I had nowhere to put the jars that had warmth,so i placed a jar of water and a fish tank heater into a cooler bag. I think by doing this the humidity has gone through the roof and stalled production? Its always wet in there and water accumulates at the bottom of the bag. Temp was always 25-30 deg at all times.

I have tried turning them upside down but to no avail..

Here are some pictures :






Cheers!

anno

The substrate looks too wet and compacted. Did you follow the PF Tek for Simple Minds to achieve the correct moisture content of the substrate?

TommyTutone

A couple of things:

>...i placed a jar of water and a fish tank heater into a cooler bag. ... the humidity has gone through the roof and stalled production

With 100% humidity it is possible that the humidity got into the jar and caused problems. Here's how and why:

1.   In the top pic you have rubber band around the top of jar – but not all the way around the foil. If the holes in the lid are not covered with tape (PF-Tek for simple minds), humidity could have entered the jar under the foil and contaminated the jar. If the holes are covered (PF-Tek) and the lid is not tight as to allow air exchange, then the humidity could have entered the jar through the not so tight lid and contaminated the jar.
2.   When you sterilize a jar – as in a pressure cooker – the jar, water, and everything else in the cooker gets to about 15 psi. The pressure is what is important because it allows the water to get past the normal 212 f (100 c). This is what does the killing of things that will contaminate your jar. (On a side note it is also why when you go and get a surgery you shouldn't have millions of infections because of the sterility of the instruments and procedures used – They use the same process) This matters because you've spent all kinds of time making sure that everything is sterile and then you did some things that might have sabotaged yourself. You put sterile things inside a non-sterile environment and possibly allowed them into your sterile environment.
3.   If the bag, tank heater, container of water and water were all sterilized properly you would have had less chance of contamination. But I'm assuming that wasn't done. When dealing with sterile things, operating room personnel have two very strong words that are very important that they use. They have "Sterile" and "Contaminated". To show the point I'll use those terms in the next few very long run-on sentences. "You put a sterile jar inside a contaminated bag with contaminated water in a contaminated jar and used a contaminated heater. Then the contaminated heater heated up the contaminated water to the point of contaminated humidity. Then the contaminated humidity got to 100% and all the walls of the contaminated bag had contaminated water running down the sides only to get heated up again and redo the cycle." Bacteria love warm and damp places, as do fungi and mold. The bag, jar, and water could have contained any of these things in them if they were not sterilized. "Sterility" is a very important word. The contents inside the jar could be at war with new and unwanted intruders hence the stalling.
4.   I am rambling about this because it looks like there's something green on the top pic in the middle. The pic isn't very clear so I could be wrong. I was super paranoid before my first innoculation so I made a jar up and didn't put it in the pressure cooker and let it sit for about a week just so I could see what a moldy contaminated jar would look like. Then just to be safe - after I cooked all my jars I waited a week before innoculating them to see if any would turn into the moldy monster that I created before. Luckily I haven't run into that problem.
5.   100% humidity + holes in jar or loose lid  = soaked innoculant
6.   When you turned the jar upside down did you get a stream of water coming out because the jar was soaked?
7.   Give it the sniff test. Does it smell like mold?
8.   If the jar is contaminated casing, or myc collection would be of no use, because you'd be contaminating anything you put them in.

I hope this was read as it was intended – as information. I don't know everything about fungi and that is why I am here too. I did want to share my knowledge of sterility as I did go to school for 2 years to become a surgical tech, and have used that knowledge in many operating rooms over the years. I hope my very long rant was useful. No charge for this info either – just send shrooms 