does this growth look right to you?

[gib65]

Hello,

I've got six jars with mycelium growing in them. The substrate is vermiculite and brown rice flour. It's been about 18 days and they look like this:

A couple of them don't seem to be growing. The rest seem to have colonized half the jar. They've been like this for the past couple weeks or so. The growth seems to be little to none.

The temperature around the house has been around 20/21 degrees Celsius, on the low end for mycelium growth. They've been kept in the dark. I don't have any heating device so I'm depending on the overall heat in the house. I turn on the air conditioning at night.

Based on the picture above, does this seem normal or should I be worried?

 

[Solipsis]

If you provide a picture so we can see what's going on (smart move), please make it one that actually allows us to see properly, filled up screen be damned.

Am I seeing SFD's in those lids? I take it you have accounted for GE... in any case that wouldn't cause stalling right away but rather after they're around halfway.. and clearly the other ones are colonizing.
I don't really get how far the aluminum foil is in there under the lids.. with tyvek or something it seems more reasonable to put it between the threads of the jar lid but with aluminum I'm not sure what is going on.

Proble might be: too wet (possibly they were the last ones to be filled with substrate and the substrate on the bottom of your bowl might have been really soggy or something like that), maybe you didn't really shake the spore syringe with those but that seems way less likely an explanation.

How did you test the wetness of the substrate? This outcome seems about right if your substrate is on the wet side anyway but those 2 jars particularly so.

Another possibility is bacterial infection... Can make it look really sweaty but you don't really see it as clearly as fungal infection.

Finding an explanation is smart so you can avoid it next time, but I think you should expect to toss them anyway since these jars are so off schedule. Perhaps you could use the jars then for another experiment in the meanwhile, like more with substrate or LC or something..

 

[Hodor]

Thread: does this growth look right to you?

I'm almost disappointed that this post isn't about OP trying to get people to diagnose whether the mole on his back has turned cancerous.

 

[gib65]

If you provide a picture so we can see what's going on (smart move), please make it one that actually allows us to see properly, filled up screen be damned.

Am I seeing SFD's in those lids? I take it you have accounted for GE... in any case that wouldn't cause stalling right away but rather after they're around halfway.. and clearly the other ones are colonizing.
I don't really get how far the aluminum foil is in there under the lids.. with tyvek or something it seems more reasonable to put it between the threads of the jar lid but with aluminum I'm not sure what is going on.

Proble might be: too wet (possibly they were the last ones to be filled with substrate and the substrate on the bottom of your bowl might have been really soggy or something like that), maybe you didn't really shake the spore syringe with those but that seems way less likely an explanation.

How did you test the wetness of the substrate? This outcome seems about right if your substrate is on the wet side anyway but those 2 jars particularly so.

Another possibility is bacterial infection... Can make it look really sweaty but you don't really see it as clearly as fungal infection.

Finding an explanation is smart so you can avoid it next time, but I think you should expect to toss them anyway since these jars are so off schedule. Perhaps you could use the jars then for another experiment in the meanwhile, like more with substrate or LC or something..

Here's three much larger images of one jar at different angles:

I'm more concerned with the ones that are growing slowly than the one's that aren't growing at all. I'm sure I'll toss the latter out, but I still have hope for the former. In fact, I think they've grown a bit since last time.

The tin foil is sealed between the cap and the rim. It's covering the holes poked in the cap by a nail, the ones that I used to insert the syringe and inject the spores.

Moisture is a possibility as I tried to saturate the substrate to its max capacity without over doing it. There's also the possibility that I may have killed the first few spores after heating the syringe needle. I may not have given it enough time to cool and when injecting the first two jars, it may have still been too hot for the spores to survive the trip through the needle. Is that a possibility?

I'm almost disappointed that this post isn't about OP trying to get people to diagnose whether the mole on his back has turned cancerous.

I could make a separate thread for that. I'll post pics of my favorite moles and we can discuss 'til the cows come home.

 

[SynSerp]

when in D O U B T throw it O U T

 

[Tranced]

Shroomery is your best shout.

 

[Solipsis]

Here's three much larger images of one jar at different angles:

I'm more concerned with the ones that are growing slowly than the one's that aren't growing at all. I'm sure I'll toss the latter out, but I still have hope for the former. In fact, I think they've grown a bit since last time.

The tin foil is sealed between the cap and the rim. It's covering the holes poked in the cap by a nail, the ones that I used to insert the syringe and inject the spores.

Moisture is a possibility as I tried to saturate the substrate to its max capacity without over doing it. There's also the possibility that I may have killed the first few spores after heating the syringe needle. I may not have given it enough time to cool and when injecting the first two jars, it may have still been too hot for the spores to survive the trip through the needle. Is that a possibility?



I could make a separate thread for that. I'll post pics of my favorite moles and we can discuss 'til the cows come home.

Thanks for the larger pictures but unfortunately blowing up bad resolution doesn't help, though it is a bit better than the others resolution is really quite essential to spotting telltale signs of problems like bacteria but I can't really spot anything terribly wrong... and the myc is not shying away or anything.. nicely radial imo..

If you consider birthing this one anyway you might wanna quarantine it to avoid infecting your other cakes, if you do go there take off every bit of substrate that is not colonized properly and with conviction, no loose shit, round it off.. then you could dunk and roll and iirc possibly use some hydrogen peroxide in your dunk bath in the fridge to deal with any superficial problem.

Before that though, when you birth it (far away enough from your healthy cakes), check it thoroughly by SMELLING well among other things. Should be a nice mushroomy smell, dank but 'fresh'.... pay close attention to e.g. sour apple smell for example..
Realize that you would be risking your entire batch if you put everything together but there isn't really a problem with fruiting it on its own in a filterbag.
I think i put one of those together with the others when I was younger, but i was a bit inexperienced and reckless and had contams sometimes and mediocre results but not too bad.

It's fine to wait on it if it keeps growing, but if it is stalling and you wait very long on it then, it might just sort of go inactive even if you fruit it, and could have a rough time waking up.

I take it you tried to make a sort of self-healing lid there, although one that isn't actually sealed? i.e. i don't know how you are allowing for gas exchange that is filtered?

Next time, modify your lids with tyvek and silicone... tyvek can be found on the outer layer of bubble envelopes of the right kind, so save those up... and silicone putty is available at hardware stores. I also have poked holes in my jar lids for inserting needles, but those holes have blobs of silicone which self-heal when you inject through it. You have to make sure though that the silicone adheres well to both sides, doesn't matter if it is a little messy but it needs to be spread like a sort of volcano / pustule shape, not just a little wad, or else it can come undone.

The tyvek you can also just attach with that silicone - make a similar sort of filter patch as filterbags have, in the jar lids. As i rediscovered yesterday though: during sterilization use enough foil to prevent any water/steam from reaching that filter cause you don't really want it to be wet.

You might have added too much water initially, who knows... but without proper a proper filter you may actually gradually be letting your jars dry out, unless you keep them really humid... i admit I don't know if tyvek does a fair job of keeping the humidity steady inside...
It might mean though that your jars can manage to colonize for a while but it gets harder for the fungus... so jars that have missed injection spots possibly can't make that in time.

It's very possible that only 3 out of 4 injection spots were actually effective, and that would give you the depicted result, but that is not necessarily the same complaint as stalling growth.

Another option you have with partially colonized jars if you really want to be frugal is to use the mycelium and crumble it as spawn to some semi-bulk substrate. Not too bulk, you got to give it a fair chance to colonize... something like a very small monotub basically.

edit: you can see the injection ports I am talking about here: http://www.zwonko.com/lab/myco-lab though at this time the fungi i am growing are not psychoactive. Well... albino A+ is and I have just germinated some old spores of that on agar, apparently. but I don't have big plans of fruiting those asap like I do with other species.