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LOL thats an old outdated method that was used because ultrasonics just put out way to much moisture that you just flood your terrarium, because it gets to 100% the air cant hold any more moisture and the extra just rains on everyting. routing it through bottles is a crude method of reducing the output. Using a digital timer is better.

But, its going to take alot of teaking times to keep your RH consistant, and you risk either drying things out or flooding your terarium.

If thats an ultrasonic, it will flood an entire room never mind a fruitng chamber.


Best thing is just to keep simple, builld a shotgun fruiting chamber. That will easily maintain high humidity with natural FAE. just mist then fan a few times a day

You can use a straight verm casing layer, though its a poor choice of casing layer.

50/50+ is a much better casing layer, which is peat/verm/hydrated lime.

Another easier option is a rez effect, which is mixing your grain spawn with hydrated vermiculite and allowing to colinse. The problem with grains is that they ust dont hold the moisture required to fruit, mixing in verm solves this.

You'll get 1 great flush (providing its in the ginetics) then a 2nd with alot let but larger mushrooms, and if your lucky maybe a few on the 3rd.

Upto to you, verm does work ok for a casing layer. From the results ive seem, the rez effect seems better

Yes you hydrate your vermiculite with half strentgh drinking coffee and add some gypsum.

If you want a boost with your cakes, try spawning them to coir/coffee/gypsum. You can use straight coir, however adding coffee gypsum will give better performance on later flushes.

I always have the opinion that you should stick to methods that have been tried tested and proven to work consistantly until you have an understanding on the workings.

Its good its working for you, however h202 isnt nessesary if you jsut get rid of the standing water, and i doubt hydrating perlite with h202 will have much effect, sure its great at killing bacteria at 3% but dilute it with water it becomes less effective, plus it breaks down fairly quickly into water and oxygen.

Best line of defense, no standing water, and plenty of FAE.



I have also been a great fan of

KISS

Its working for you so theres no need to go radicaly changing things. Just my opinion

i wouldnt even go with a digital with an external sensor, the become inacurate above 80% due to the transducers geting wet, plus once your fruits sporolate they get covered in spores making it even more inacurate.

You can get a decent hygrometer that you can calibrate for less than your digi. and its nice quality too.


Look in a cigar shop, or a cigar website, they sell humidors, if you look in the humidor accesseries you can get a nice quality hygrometer for $20.

she is a he.

I plan on trying this soon myself.

I would do it on agar if i had the time to didicate myself to that kind of work, but for now i can only keep it simple due to circimstances.

I just made a post about acuratly measuring humidity the other day.

Im not familiar with that one, but it looks like a cheap reptile one, which usually cant be calibrated, so its going to be inacurate above 80%.

You need a meter that you can calibrate, wrap in a damp towel for 1 hour and adjust to read 99%.

What people dont know about hygrometers is there only acurate over a short range. and thats why they need to be calibrated.

it doesnt make sense why you changed to hydroton. Perlite is far superiour for maintaing humidity. It has such a high surface area due to all the little nooks and crannies that hold alot of water at the surface so it can be wicked into the air..

Your humidity is probably higher than you think, however that terrarium isnt ideal. Drill 1/4 inch holes 2-3 inches apart on every side, top and bottom included, put the perlite back in, ditch the air pump and raise it a few inches so air can get in the bottom.

You will get mid to upper 90's humidity that way.

and it will give you naturale FAE aswell. FAE is a very importnat pinning trigger, but that doesnt mean you can just leave it on its own. You still need to mist and fan, mist then fan afterwords.

FAe causes evaopration of moisture and you replace this moisture with misting. evaporating moisture from the substrate is a pinning trigger.

Ive seen awesome results in well build shotgun fruiting chambres that got plenty of fae and misting.

I said it may or may not work, because youd have to test it out first. great that its working for you, 

However, i still stand by my statement that perlite that swims in water does nothing for humidity. You need the moisture to be held ina ll the liitle nooks and crannies so its availible to be evaporated into the air as its drawn trhough the perlite. If your perlite is under water, its not going to get exposed to air.

Im talking from experience, and experince of many others. Build a shotgun properly and it works. Ive even seen edibles grow in a shotgun terrarium with the lid of for better FAE.

No i dont sell tape for a living. Im actually a sound technition. I make gigs happen. But thats of topic.

Again i say i did not say that it wont work, IMO opinion it didnt sound like a great fruiting chamber, but its working for you so thats fine.

The shotgun fruiting chamber is built upon sound science. Unlike alot of other fruiting chamber designes (which im not knocking as i have seen other designs work well). All the holes not only serve for FAE but actually aid on humidity. Air naturaly travels from areas of high pressure to low pressure. When you put cakes in a terrarium and with light from above, the slight pressure gradient created by the heat is enough to allow air to travel upward, it gets drawn trough the bottom holes and wicks moisture in the air as it filteres trhough  the perlite.

I dont understand how people could not get it to work. Ive seen many people complain about low humidity, when infact they were using a digtal guage, or an improperly calibrated hygrometer.


Or, the decided the bottom holes wernt important, drilled there holes too large.

Thanks for the warm welcome, i could always go back to the 2 other mushroom cultvation sites that appreciate my advice more than you do.

As with anyones advie, you can take it or leave it.

Everyone has there own experiences and opinions.

long thin stems with small caps is the result of lack of fresh air exchange. Mushrooms will grow this way when co2 builds up in your terrarium.

Also, lack of moisture within your substrate will cause small mushrooms.

Make sure you are fanning out your terrairum enough aswell as mistng before you fan out.

You could try, but your not really going to gain anything. Your only going to get so much out of such a small substrate. Plus small substrates only hold so much moisture.

So while you may get more pinning, your over all yeild is probably going to be the same as just 1 whole cake. Your mushrooms may be smaller too.

If you wnt to get the best out of your cakes. Hydrate your verm in half strength drinking coffee, that will boost colinisation speed. Also the addition of gypsum will help to. For bulk the ratio is 10% by volume. I cant remember how much to use for cakes, i guess a pinch for ever 2 cakes worth of mix would be plenty. I vagualy remember a teaspoon for 5 cakes i think.

Make sure your  terrarium is getting plenty of FAE, misting before you fan, high humidity and bright light in the daylight range.

I see lots of posts complaing of low humidity when infact readings have been inacurate.

Alot of peple dont seem to relise that hygrometers are only acurate over a small range. when you look for a hygrometer you need an anolgue gauge that you can calibrate. Wrap it in a damp towel for 1 hour then adjust to read 99% after 1 hour. Also make sure its not over any of the holes in your terrarium otherwise it could read the rh of the outside air.

Avoid cheap digital metres which are generaly crap. Ive seen lots of digital metere produce very different results in the same terrarium. Ive even seen 3 of the exact same digitals in the same terrarium produce complelty different readings, not just with RH but temp too.

that jar is definatly contaminatied, what with im not sure, it doesnt look like trich.

Hw much spore solution did you use? you only need to use 1/4cc per hole.

Also your sterile procedures, like working inside a glovebox, wipe your jar lid with alcohol, flame the needle red hot.

If thats the inoc site, either your inoculation was dirty, or a contaminated syringe. ive herad alot of bad reports about spores101.

nothing wrong with trying something new but unfortunately this has been tried before and will not work.  the reality is now you wont know which strain is growing lol.

Incorrect.

2 strains of the same species will infact mate more easily than you think. Ive seen cultures of 2 different strains on agair join and produce a third sector. While there may be more chance of it not happening than if it were the same strain, to say that it just wont happen is wrong.

Try it and see what happens. Theyw ont fight, one wont fight over the other. all that will happen, is if they are compatible, they will join and form a single organism, in the event of incompatible ginetics, they wills imple grow side by side and not have the full benifit of the substrate.

You could get 2 different shrooms growing on the same substrate (that an even happen with a single strain from multispore inoculation) you could get something different, or 1 or the other.

crossing 2 different species is a different matter.

let them cool natural. A large swing in temp can cause unwanted air exchange in your jar, which can overcome the filter particularly when dry verm is used as a filter.

Honestly whats the rush.  your not going to gain anything. patience is key in this hoby.


once your jars are cool to the touch, they are fine to inoculate.

If your impatient, prepare your jars at night and once you turn of your cooker, go to bed and inoculate in the morning.

As always, proper sterile procedures, use a glovebox

get rid of the heating mat, it will actually rob your of humidity. because of the huge temp difference between the inside and outise, it will cause alot of the moisture in the air to condense onto the colder walls in your terrarium.

What are your temps?? swings in temp are fine, its what happens in nature. Temps change between day and night. they will fruit anywhere between 69-80F.

Baph got it. Its condensation forming on the colder surface of the glass. As mycelium colinises and metobolises food, it will produce heat, making your jars slightly warmer than the ambient room temp. Its the same thing that happens when you heat your house and its cooler outside, you get condensation on your windows, or when you take a cold beer out of the fridge.

thats a terrible idea for a fruiting chamber, it may work ok it may not. But its not going to get the best out of your substrate. most air pumps wont deliver the required amount of fresh air exchange, which is exchanging inside your terrarium complelty once per hour.

Also, perlite swimming in water does nothing for humidity. You only wont your perlite moist, the moisture is held on the surface in all the nooks and cranies which is readily availible to be evaported into the air. 3-5 inches and rough the surface up to increase its surface area.

The best simple effective design IMO is the shotgun fruiting chamber, which was design by RogerRabbit and based on sound science.

Take your fruiting chamber, drill 1/4 inch holes on every side including the top and bottom, holes spaced 2-3 inches apart. then raise your terrarium with cups shotglasses etc so that the bottom holes get air. That will maintain high humidity and give natural fresh air exchange. Just mist then fan your terrarium a few times per day, recomended 4-5. And give your cakes indirect sunlight or bright flurescent light in the daylight range (6000K-7000k)

doesnt sound to good, howver the q-tip test isnt to great, bruising can transfer to a q-tip.

Mouild is usally very easy to spot. Mould looks like couloured sand ontop of your myceliu, where as bruising is the colour of the mycelium itself.

Not sure of the black though.

Heavy bruising is a sign of your cakes drying out. If your humidity is very low, they will dry out fast, also you need to mist your terrarium to replae moisture that evaporates from your cakes. The steady rate of evaporation caused by fae and rehydration is a pinning trigger.


what fruiting chamber are you using?

red wether its on agar or in substrate is most definatly contamination. Probably lipstick mold.

But thats the great thing about agar, is that contamination is a loss. As long as you have healthy mycelium you can transfer a piece furthest from the contamination to a new dish. Then keep going until you have a clean culture.

We need a picture too,

Your working from multispore, thats why. Performance will vary, fruits wont look the same, even potency will vary from flush to flush and even fruit to fruit. While some traits to carry from the parent, theres so many spores and different ginetics that things are going to be differen each grow.

The pictures you see are likely from an isolate, which should produce the same evertme. Where as you are grown from spores produced from there isolate. Its not the same.