Need Help With Slow Mycelium Growth!

[kamdo]

Whats up guys, I'm a new member and long time reader of RIU. I'm hoping I can get some help with my first shroom grow .

I have some half pint jars incubated with Psilocybe cubensis and these babies have been growing for 19 days. Only thing is it seems like the growth for most jars is slooooow. I have them in a warm water bath at 82 Fahrenheit. Everything I've read claims the veg stage shouldn't last more than 3 weeks but it's pretty obvious these jars have a long time left. Any ideas as to why the mycelium growth is slow and what I can do to fix it??


Water bath setup



^This is what most of the jars look like after 19 days at 82 degrees... not even close to full colonization





A few jars look like this... very weak mycelium growth




A couple jars look like this. Pretty solid growth I think



Any help from the RIU community would be awesome !

 

[Taviddude]

Take them out of the water. Stick another bin in there and let it float on the water in the first tub and put them in there.
As far as slow PF cakes, all you can do is wait. They could have been too dry from the start, or packed too tightly.

Peace.
Tav

 

[kamdo]

I've thought about doing that and now that you mentioned it i will.
Just need to get another bin

 

[polyarcturus]

Take them out of the water. Stick another bin in there and let it float on the water in the first tub and put them in there.
As far as slow PF cakes, all you can do is wait. They could have been too dry from the start, or packed too tightly.

Peace.
Tav

exacty my thoughts, not enough fae.

 

[kamdo]

exacty my thoughts, not enough fae.

This might be a dumb question but I thought FAE at this stage doesn't matter? After all, they are in airtight jars with only a couple small holes in the lids...

 

[polyarcturus]

This might be a dumb question but I thought FAE at this stage doesn't matter? After all, they are in airtight jars with only a couple small holes in the lids...

well it would depend but FAE always matters. even more so with a PF tek, if you packed your cakes to tight or they settled in such a fashion, there may be little to no air in the cake so the mycelium could have a hard time berating, or might have exhausted the air that was present.

working with grain is so much easier, sealed jar with grain, is much easier done since there is a lot of air space between grains.

 

[kamdo]

well it would depend but FAE always matters. even more so with a PF tek, if you packed your cakes to tight or they settled in such a fashion, there may be little to no air in the cake so the mycelium could have a hard time berating, or might have exhausted the air that was present.

working with grain is so much easier, sealed jar with grain, is much easier done since there is a lot of air space between grains.

I made sure not to pack the BRF mixture when preparing the jars so the lack of fae must be from settling.
Is there anything I can do to improve the fae? maybe shake the jar like you would with grain?

 

[canndo]

Looks to me like a lack of oxygen - do you see the way your mycelium is running parallel? in all likelihood your mycelium started to slow right around the time those hyphae began to arrange itself like that. Also, putting your jars in water, warm water at that, is a bad idea, breeding ground for all sorts of bad things. If you HAVE to do it that way, be sure that water has a lot of bleach in it, but better yet, don't do it that way.


Give those things a bit of air, as carefully as you can, perhaps by holding the jar up side down in a draft free area and taking the lid off for a few moments, then replace the lid - but don't let the inside of the lid be exposed to possibly down flowing particles, just hold it up under the jar. If oxygen is your problem then you will begin to see your mycelium speed up about a day after you performed this proceedure.


I TOLD you all about PF tek - 19 days? really? The grain growers would have been long past casing by now.

 

[kamdo]

Looks to me like a lack of oxygen - do you see the way your mycelium is running parallel? in all likelihood your mycelium started to slow right around the time those hyphae began to arrange itself like that. Also, putting your jars in water, warm water at that, is a bad idea, breeding ground for all sorts of bad things. If you HAVE to do it that way, be sure that water has a lot of bleach in it, but better yet, don't do it that way.


Give those things a bit of air, as carefully as you can, perhaps by holding the jar up side down in a draft free area and taking the lid off for a few moments, then replace the lid - but don't let the inside of the lid be exposed to possibly down flowing particles, just hold it up under the jar. If oxygen is your problem then you will begin to see your mycelium speed up about a day after you performed this proceedure.


I TOLD you all about PF tek - 19 days? really? The grain growers would have been long past casing by now.

Thanks for the good info canndo. I just let the jars air out....crossing fingers for no contamination

 

[Mookjong]

Looks to me like a lack of oxygen - do you see the way your mycelium is running parallel? in all likelihood your mycelium started to slow right around the time those hyphae began to arrange itself like that. Also, putting your jars in water, warm water at that, is a bad idea, breeding ground for all sorts of bad things. If you HAVE to do it that way, be sure that water has a lot of bleach in it, but better yet, don't do it that way.


Give those things a bit of air, as carefully as you can, perhaps by holding the jar up side down in a draft free area and taking the lid off for a few moments, then replace the lid - but don't let the inside of the lid be exposed to possibly down flowing particles, just hold it up under the jar. If oxygen is your problem then you will begin to see your mycelium speed up about a day after you performed this proceedure.


I TOLD you all about PF tek - 19 days? really? The grain growers would have been long past casing by now.

I bet if you saw Fanaticus in real life you'd punch him in the mouth! Every time is see a new pf tek question I think to myself "Oh shit, canndo's bout to open a can!" LOL
I do completely agree with ya tho, just having fun. It's a well justified hatred. kamdo canndo? Maybe it's really Fanaticus just bustin' your chops!!!

 

[polyarcturus]

I bet if you saw Fanaticus in real life you'd punch him in the mouth! Every time is see a new pf tek question I think to myself "Oh shit, canndo's bout to open a can!" LOL
I do completely agree with ya tho, just having fun. It's a well justified hatred. kamdo canndo? Maybe it's really Fanaticus just bustin' your chops!!!

you mean javadog? lol. he came in the first class with GT thread and straight up said PF tek was better. lmao

 

[VTMi'kmaq]

I cant even explain to you how much i miss the fungus amungus! I am intrigued that folks are being successful in this. When i first saw this section here i thought oh yes college kids making sure there blotter experiment wont take them permanantly to xanadu lmao! Im being as honest as i EVER AM HERE...........i would donate a kidney to have this availability again for my family of friends that have as life has progressed slowly wandered away from the things we used to hold so sacred(i blamed mine on marrage, worked for awhile lol), i used to use my tea's to reset myself spiritually and mentally doucheing my mind of the rubbish society had stuffed there. I took a mycology course at middlebury college many moons ago and would love to have a fungus guru show me what im missing, maybe enlighten me to a path i could take to self-preservation via home culture of my own medicine? If i could grow peyote buttons here i woulda many moons ago! That sweat lodge experiance was what got me to stop drinking at 28 years old, im 39 now! true story!

 

[canndo]

I bet if you saw Fanaticus in real life you'd punch him in the mouth! Every time is see a new pf tek question I think to myself "Oh shit, canndo's bout to open a can!" LOL
I do completely agree with ya tho, just having fun. It's a well justified hatred. kamdo canndo? Maybe it's really Fanaticus just bustin' your chops!!!

No no, they guy was a geneous, I've forgotten his name. He came up with a way to make millions of dollars from growing illegal mushrooms - hubris brought him down and his liver killed him, no one I knew or know could ever have come up with a way to do what he did.


It's just that his time is past.

 

[kamdo]

I cant even explain to you how much i miss the fungus amungus! I am intrigued that folks are being successful in this. When i first saw this section here i thought oh yes college kids making sure there blotter experiment wont take them permanantly to xanadu lmao! Im being as honest as i EVER AM HERE...........i would donate a kidney to have this availability again for my family of friends that have as life has progressed slowly wandered away from the things we used to hold so sacred(i blamed mine on marrage, worked for awhile lol), i used to use my tea's to reset myself spiritually and mentally doucheing my mind of the rubbish society had stuffed there. I took a mycology course at middlebury college many moons ago and would love to have a fungus guru show me what im missing, maybe enlighten me to a path i could take to self-preservation via home culture of my own medicine? If i could grow peyote buttons here i woulda many moons ago! That sweat lodge experiance was what got me to stop drinking at 28 years old, im 39 now! true story!

It must be because i'm relatively new here but I have absolutely no idea what you guys are talking about haha...

 

[kamdo]

bump...

 

[polyarcturus]

what else do you need to know?

 

[kamdo]

what else do you need to know?

Ok guys I seem to have another problem: I took them out of the water bath a couple days ago and put them in another bin that sits in its own water bath. The air temp is right at 80F which means the temp in the jars should be around 82-83F. The problem is now i'm noticing moisture build up inside the jars. Water droplets have accumulated on the sides of the jars and i'm afraid this is going to kill the mycelium.
WHAT SHOULD I DO??

 

[polyarcturus]

npthing really its called condensation..

well you can remove the heat source from underneath them(this is what is causing it) or you can lower the temp lower than the air,or your can raise the air temps. me i dont worry about the condensation too much, but this is a sign your substrate is supersaturated which makes sense cause there is not air in them. but if you do what canndo said and open the jars this should relieve some of that moisture.

 

[kamdo]

npthing really its called condensation..

well you can remove the heat source from underneath them(this is what is causing it) or you can lower the temp lower than the air,or your can raise the air temps. me i dont worry about the condensation too much, but this is a sign your substrate is supersaturated which makes sense cause there is not air in them. but if you do what canndo said and open the jars this should relieve some of that moisture.

Ok I opened the jars to let them air out. Will report back if it doesn't clear up.
Added rep for all your help polyarcturus!

 

[Ganjapussy]

82 is waaaay too high of temp. Keep it in the 73-78 range.

Take them out of the sub. You DO NOT need a incubator. And myce will grow faster in light. Put the jars on a shelf in regular light. And take that damn tin foil off the jars!!