4 way mushroom grow off in home made monotubs

[Teetee]

Greetings and thanks for joining me in this project, the next phase of my magic mycological journey.

I am fairly new to this, so the first stage was to actually grow some mushies. After a couple of failed starts, I managed to grow some Koh Samui Super Squats, and then became very succesful and grew well over 150g (dry) of each of Jedi Mind Fuck, TAT Wombat and Albino Trinity.

They are still producing, the JMF has done 5 flushes and the TAT and Albino Trinity are just starting their third flush.

Here’s some TAT Wombats that I harvested today…

If you haven’t already, come and see how I learned to grow magic mushrooms on this thread… https://autoflower.org/t/cubensis-mushrooms-for-medical-use/570

Now I find myself with four old syringes of live mycelium rolling around in the back of my fridge each with just 5ml left in them. Summer is coming and it will be too hot to grow mushrooms, so I may as well get a grow on and use up those last dregs of live culture before they go off and it gets too hot.

So this time, I’m going to grow 4 different cultivars of magic mushroom at the same time, under the same conditions, mainly to sharpen my new growing skills, but also to compare them all as they progress.

Before you say “what a waster”, I grow magic mushrooms to use as medicine to treat my Cluster headaches.

I bought four ready packed and sterilised 500g bags of Red Sorghum grain, and inoculated each one with 5ml live culture of one of the following:

• Apetar - I have failed twice to grow this one.
• Jedi Mind Fuck
• Albino Trinity
• TAT Wombat

I used a still air box (SAB) and made sure that everything I needed to use was cleaned and disinfected with 70% Isopropyl Alcohol before I put it all on a (disinfected) wire shelf inside the (disinfected) SAB.

1. Wait 20mins for the Iso to work and to let the air settle inside the SAB.
2. Gloves on, disinfect gloved hands and arms with Iso, hands go in the SAB, redisinfect hands with Iso and wipe dry.
3. Working one grainbag at a time, slowly and methodically without disturbing the air too much, re-disinfect the whole grainbag with Iso and wipe dry.
4. Open a fresh needle and get it on the syringe. Wipe the injection port on the bag with an alcohol wipe uncap needle and inject 5ml of live culture, fanning it out to spread the liquid.
5. Immediately after removing the needle, cover the injection port with Micropore tape, label the bag and that’s done.
6. Move onto the next bag and syringe and repeat.

I put the four inoculated grainbags into two large paper shopping bags and left them in a cupboard at room temp (around 21-24°C).

I rotated the bags every hour, first onto one side, then upside down, then on the other side and finally the right way up to spread the live culture around. Then left them for a few weeks to do their thing.

Here are the bags 25 days later. I’ll show them in order of colonisation, most to least,

TAT Wombat with a nice solid amount of colonisation on the top and front edge…

…and a little bit showing underneath….

Jedi Mind Fuck also was well colonised but it wasn’t all in one big lump, instead it was spread all over the top part of the bag in little clumps…

…and some underneath too…

Apetar was a solid, tennis ball sized lump…

…and so was the Albino Trinity, but just a bit smaller…

Once the bags are 10-30% colonised, the process slows down. To speed things up, it’s time to break and shake… mix it all up and spread the colonised grain around the bag.

Here they are, all broken and shaken…

I put them back in the shopping bags, and into the cupboard.

5 days later, I had a quick check and they all have continued to progress.

Here’s TAT Wombat…

Next the JMF…

Then the Apetar…

and finally the Albino Trinity…

That was two weeks ago.

This weekend I plan to make some monotubs and set them up for fruiting so I hope you’ll pop back to see how that all goes.

See you then!

[Jean-O]

Love watching fungi grow.

[Teetee]

My grain bags are just about fully colonised now, so it’s time to get the monotubs ready.

Most mushroom growing companies sell monotubs, usually made in the back office themselves, from standard clear plastic DIY shop tubs. Some companies have designed their own versions like North Spore’s ‘BoomR Bin’ with its black substrate tub (to prevent side and underside pins), smooth internal surfaces for easy cleaning and clear domed lid with either sloped top surfaces to allow condensation to run to the sides rather than drip onto the substrate, or flat tops for easy stacking.

This huge monotub needs four 500g bags of colonised grain and another 6kg of substrate, so it’s no wonder that they call it a Max Yield Bin! They even sell a fan and humidifier kit to bolt on the side.

When I first started learning to grow mushrooms back in April, I used single 500g bags of Red Sorghum grain and tried fruiting them in small 18 litre monotubs that required 1.5kg of substrate.

I got one tub from a mushroom growing company as part of a ‘beginner kit’ and made the other tub myself.

After a few failures I was getting desperate, so I decided to start using 2 grainbags in larger home made 36L monotubs, and they all produced!

Now I’m back to single 500g grainbags again, I’m going to need a couple more small 18L monotubs.

As @Donturd said in another thread, it’s way cheaper to make your own than to buy them ready made.

There’s no set way to do this but this is how I make mine….

First you need a clear plastic tub with a lockable lid.

You can use any brand of plastic tub, a lot of people recommend using simple tubs with very little in the way of ridges etc in them, to make sanitation easier.

I personally think the very cheapest ones are a little flimsy, and I prefer to use the more robust waterproof tubs, which I believe are less likely to get contaminated in the early stages….

You also need a drill and some brass step drill bits or hole saws…

The step bits are great, just don’t push too hard or else you’ll crack the plastic.

You want to go at full speed but with medium pressure to melt the plastic to soften it then rock the drill around a bit to make the cutting edge catch and pop pop pop… these bits cut nice clean holes, but just go SLOW. One hole size at a time.

If I want bigger holes like the ones in my 36L tubs, I have those Bosch hole saws.

I recommend making a pilot hole using the step bit then use the hole saw IN REVERSE.

That will greatly reduce the chance of cracking the plastic because if you go in normal rotation the hole saw’s teeth are too aggressive and chop into the plastic causing cracks.

Going in reverse will melt the plastic and a slight rocking motion will give you a more controlled cut.

The general opinion is to have a few large holes at a higher level to let Oxygen rich air in, and to have smaller holes just above substrate level to allow Carbon dioxide to disperse…

During the grow, the holes will be covered either with Micropore tape or self adhesive filters. The edges of the holes need to be smooth to ensure a good seal, so once the holes are made, just peel off any excess or use a blade or a bit of sandpaper and then vacuum up all the mess you will have made by now.

I just need to give the tubs a good clean and disinfection, stick on the filters and they’re ready to go!

[Donturd]

@Teetee nice touch adding all the pics!

[Teetee]

Cheers @Donturd, here’s some more in today’s update…

I have given the monotubs a good clean. 2 were used for grows that possibly failed due to contamination, and 2 were brand new, so first I gave them a good scrub in the bathtub, with good hot water and washing up liquid (dish soap) to dissolve any oil or fat.

Then I sprayed mould killer (basically bleach or sodium hypochlorite spray) on them, wiped it all over and let it sit for 20 mins before washing it all off with more washing up liquid and water.

Then I taped up the holes with Micropore tape and poured a little 70%Isopropyl alcohol into the tubs and sealed them up.

I gave the tubs a good shake around every few hours for 24 hours.

The next day, I got to work, I set up and Iso’d the still air box (SAB) and sprayed and wiped dry everything I needed with ISO before putting it all in the SAB….

On the left is a small wire shelving rack to keep everything from being on the floor of the SAB.

On the shelf is a bag of 500g CVG casing layer, a 1.5kg bag of manure based CVG substrate and a 500g bag of Red Sorghum grain that’s completely colonised by Albino Trinity mycelium. On the right I have the monotub and a pair of disinfected scissors. I will also need an ISO spray and paper towel to clean the scissors after every cut I make.

First I lay down about a half of the bag of substrate and pat it down…

then I pour in half a bag of grain spawn…

… spread it out and pat it down…

…followed by half of what’s left of the substrate, the rest of the grain spawn and finally the rest of the substrate.

This is ‘lasagne’ tek and should produce layers of substrate and grain spawn resulting in a potentially nice even canopy of mushrooms.

If you squint and blur your eyes, you’ll see the layers…

I was going to use all of the remaining substrate for the middle layer and then use the casing layer bag for the top layer but I was running out of space as that would have resulted in the small air vents being below the surface of the substrate.

I did each box one by one, and then took a couple of ibuprofen and had a hot shower for my aching fucking back. I need to remember to have a chair to sit on when I’m working in a SAB.
Anyway here’s all the monotubs all set up. I’ve used Micropore tape for most of the holes, but I’ve also used some of the 3M self adhesive filters as well.

The blue masking tape is just to reduce the chance of contamination during this final colonisation period and I’ll peel that off when we initiate fruiting.

I’ll leave them somewhere warm and dark for a couple of weeks and see how they look. I hope you can pop back then and we’ll see how they have progressed.

Thanks for looking in!

[DetroitDarren]

That’s a nice setup @Teetee. I am jealous. I did my thing with an AIO bag and got decent results, but you are pulling more than a ounce and a half ( what I ended up with).

I love watching you do your thing!

[Teetee]

Cheers @DetroitDarren I’m really enjoying growing mushrooms

Here’s the monotubs 5 days after setting them up…

You can see the lasagne layers of colonisation more clearly now…

I think they will be another couple of weeks before they are ready to go into the fruiting tent, so join me soon for another exciting update!

[DetroitDarren]

I am not growing any more shroomiez. After a close call this weekend, no more for me…my old heart just can’t take it.

But, it was a fun experiment and my friends get to reap the rewards of my hard work.

[Donturd]

@Teetee I notice you dont use any black plastic along the bottom to shade. Do you have issues with side pinning, or growth from the sides under the surface causing contamination if not removed, or mycillium disturbance when you go for 2nd flush?