Magic Mushroom Grow Kit?

[Guest]

I think that like many things, it's 3 parts science, 2 parts art, and sometimes 1 part luck.

Nice part about it in the old days; shorter days for the 'shrooms, far less draw for the lights (4 ft. fluorescent shop lights worked just fine), & no overwhelming odor to run through filters.

The down-side was that in some places, possession of so much as a stem of psilocybin could be a felony, let alone 'production'.

And yeah, the duration of the crop's completion (compared to cannabis) is substantially shorter... benefitting those of us who struggle with immediate gratification.

And your less mature ('baby' or 'tiny') fruits are more potent per gram than your mature 'shrooms.

Gee, makes me want to get out my spore syringes. I better stop here...

 

[Hold Your Fire]

always heated mine with a lighter at the tip of the needle, and even then, know for a fact that at least once I got a contaminated syringe that went bad in growing mycelium.

Fortunately my source honored the experience with another free syringe coupon they are fairly notorious for handing out.

I mean the contents of the syringe.

I never assume the spore solution is contam free.

We have no idea if proper sterile procedure was used in the production of the spore syringe. Not to mention, shit happens.

Eliminate that as a source of contam by cleaning it up on agar before you inoculate your jars.

 

[Guest]

I mean the contents of the syringe.

I never assume the spore solution is contam free.

We have no idea if proper sterile procedure was used in the production of the spore syringe. Not to mention, shit happens.

Eliminate that as a source of contam by cleaning it up on agar before you inoculate your jars.

Yep.

I thought I mentioned both. The needle getting heated to sterilize it, but that I had also had at least one syringe that had been heated at the needle, and still, 100% of the jars were infected.

That was one of the several times that my spore source provided me with a free spore syringe coupon, mentioned earlier. That coupon's still here, and hasn't been cashed in yet, as I still have a couple spore syringes on-hand.

 

[yesum]

Interesting stuff. I grew a kit in 1979. Got mycelium and jars of rice already cooked and ready. Transfer into jars and wait a few weeks. Worked great. Two flushes as I remember.

I will say when I tried to make my own medium, brown rice in jars, it did not work, contamination. If doing it again I would buy the rice already cooked and if possible mycelium over spores.

 

[Guest]

Interesting stuff. I grew a kit in 1979. Got mycelium and jars of rice already cooked and ready. Transfer into jars and wait a few weeks. Worked great. Two flushes as I remember.

I will say when I tried to make my own medium, brown rice in jars, it did not work, contamination. If doing it again I would buy the rice already cooked and if possible mycelium over spores.

I've noted persons using wheat berries, or (???), but I always used the ground organic brown rice or organic brown rice flour, vermiculite, RO H2O, and a touch of garden lime or even -tiny- amount of Super Sweet in the mix. Moisture levels are key to having a good throw, as well as keeping contamination out when they are first inoculated (once they are covered, they are much more resilient to contaminants), and if you can keep your cakes at the right moisture level for a longer time, they will go for a while.

Pressure cooking your jars of medium, accommodating for any increases in volume of your jars/medium, in terms of heat and time for cooking and sterilizing increased or decreased volume, is part of the key, in my opinion.

Bigger jars with more medium in them will logically take longer time to sterilize and/or cook.

 

[Hold Your Fire]

Yep.

I thought I mentioned both. The needle getting heated to sterilize it, but that I had also had at least one syringe that had been heated at the needle, and still, 100% of the jars were infected.

That was one of the several times that my spore source provided me with a free spore syringe coupon, mentioned earlier. That coupon's still here, and hasn't been cashed in yet, as I still have a couple spore syringes on-hand.

You did and now I see I missed that...

When I first started I went straight from syringe to grains, I got 8-10 mushrooms from 2 monotubs

All the mushrooms were in one tub.

I did bite the bullet cloned the biggest one and learned to work with agar.

 

[Hold Your Fire]

Rye berries.

Popcorn is cheaper.

Whole oats and bird seed are too.

I use rye berries and add gypsum and/or coffee.

My substrate is coco.

 

[Chi13]

I accidentally stuck myself with the spore syringe before and freaked out that I would become fungusman or something

I do that nearly every time. Freaked me out the first time too.

Lucky I'm not a doctor as I cannot handle a syringe.

 

[BudToaster]

so, having an extra humidifier for the second monotub, which doesn't need additional humidity, yet, i have that air pump blowing just room air into the over saturated first tub (tiny water droplets on the exposed mycellium), through a HEPA fiber plug. i'll see what effect that has overnight ... instrumentation and redundant equipment - i love it.

i have looked at a lot of YT shroom grow videos, but i'm still making wild-ass guesses. the initial problem was i read the fucking manual (such as it is) which says 1 hour of humidity 3 times per day - which turns out to be just way too much.

but all in all, a very entertaining project, so far (like i need yet another project) ...

 

[Guest]

so, having an extra humidifier for the second monotub, which doesn't need additional humidity, yet, i have that air pump blowing just room air into the over saturated first tub (tiny water droplets on the exposed mycellium), through a HEPA fiber plug. i'll see what effect that has overnight ... instrumentation and redundant equipment - i love it.

i have looked at a lot of YT shroom grow videos, but i'm still making wild-ass guesses. the initial problem was i read the fucking manual (such as it is) which says 1 hour of humidity 3 times per day - which turns out to be just way too much.

but all in all, a very entertaining project, so far (like i need yet another project) ...

I rigged up a decent sonic cool air mist humidifier, used a series of rubber bands, glued into place on duct fittings, so they would bind with friction to the mist outlet on the humidifier, then, when I reached an area between my two aquariums (set up with internal baffles of Lexan with handles on them), I used a T fitting, so I could run 2 flexible duct hoses (like you'd use for a defroster hose under the dash of a car) coming off the T fitting, with (again) rubber bands sealed in layers to duct fittings to friction fit into the holes on the corners of the top of my aquariums.

Over the holes in the opposite corners of the inlet moist air, I have identical holes cut with a hole saw, but just cut off the softer plastic portion of a sandwich bag (x 2) and taped it over the passive exhaust holes in the lids of the 2 aquariums. That way, when the mist and air are forced through the system by the humidifier (sonic mist unit), the pressure in the aquariums forces the plastic bag up and open enough to expel pressure and air.

I figure that it only needs to run for a few minutes at a time, maybe 4-6 times a day, and our indoor humidity here is pretty darned low in the winter, as it is coming in from outdoors, through an HRV system, where the initial heat-exchange has some of the on-board moisture condensing in the core of the HRV, and running off down the drain, and the temps outdoors are substantially colder than indoors now, so the outdoor air is way more limited in the actual volume of moisture it can hold before reaching 80% to 100% saturation.

When that air from outside comes into a 72 degree f room, the capacity to hold water at that temp, compared to outdoors, is MUCH greater, so it registers as not being nearly as saturated in RH %.... If that make sense.. .Hope it does.

 

[BudToaster]

thank-you, me, i see what you are saying. i am trying to make this project as simple as possible (as spouse snickers in the background) by just buying components. pretty cheap, as my projects go, so far. the humidifiers i got are on sale for $20 each - no thinking required - just a 1/4" hole in the dome lid for the tubing from the water jar.

not like the cnc router ($600) and cnc cutter ($400) i got in March to see if it is feasible to scale up production of my vaporizer.

so, overnight, the humidity came down to 85% RH - but the mycelium still looks too damp. and the temperature is hovering at 71°F. so ordered two seedling heat mats to fit under the two trays - should have them Sunday. we keep our house on the cool side - turn heat down to 60°F at night. maybe with dumb luck i can get the temp to a consistent 75°-80°F without getting a thermostatic controller.

ever hopeful.

 

[BudToaster]

got the heat mats in place on Sunday, and after a little fiddling, it appears one hour on/three hours off is maintaining 75F for the trays, with room ambient temp ranging from 60F to 70F.

trays are sitting on the heat mats which are on an insulated pad, inside a box that provides some thermal insulation for the dome.

... like watching grass grow ...

 

[Chevy cHaze]

I found my little tubs to get too hot at the bottom if they were placed directly on the floor of the dome or even on the mats directly, so I've put a folded towel underneath to keep the heat more in the "atmosphere" than at the bottom of the tub. Mine were already conolised, after that it took a week to see pinheads and another week to harvest.
Best of luck
CC

 

[BudToaster]

mushrooms started appearing like magic two days ago in both tubs. one is 50% colonized, the other is only about 20% - put this one in the dark and no air exchange - hope to encourage more CO2 for the mycelium.

inoculation of grain jar: 9/17,
spawn into bulk substrate: 10/18,
baby shrooms: 11/8

i'm not sure what started the fruiting: temp was up above 75F but one night dropped just below 70F. and been airing the tub to check for moisture in the substrate; contamination; to see what is happening; etc.

so i have finally got the setup running properly (i think) - it requires a LED, a heater mat, and a humidifier/mister ... and each one has its own time schedule. last night on a whim, i searched for bluetooth controlled outlets - didn't find that, but i did find a three outlet wifi adapter - uses a cellphone app for control. should be getting two of them (6 outlets total) on Thursday. the two current analog timers only have a 15 minute resolution and are shared between both tubs, and that just ain't right - plus they are physically too big.

re: grow kit cost - each monotub represents about $100 in parts - add the spore syringe and Qt spawn jar, another $30 or so (without looking it up). using pre-sterilized grain jar and syringe ready-to-squirt.

 

[Chevy cHaze]

My shrooms growing experience was really simple, straight forward and fun!
I only wonder about the size of the shrooms... tried to read up on it but too many different opinions. I grew the B+ strain, which is not supposed to be very potent and the pics on the web show huuuge shrooms. Mine only grew to about 2"/5cm before the veil broke and I harvested them and I find the insanely strong, even when microdosing at below 1/10th of a gram dry weight I'm buzzing all day! That would not even be one gram of fresh mushroom!
CC

Any insights anyone?

 

[D. B. Doober]

B+ is actually pretty strong chevyhaze

Glad to see you got some mushrooms Budtoaster

 

[EsterEssence]

BudToaster, isn’t it awesome to see the fruit coming, great job...

 

[BudToaster]

Indeed. i am unworthy, but i'll take it ... this whole project started from this thread! (my life is filled with projects, it seems)

Got the WiFi outlets today! ... a bit tedious to program the schedules - definitely a first world problem. As i hoped, there is one minute resolution ... i can blast 1 minute of fresh air whenever i want - currently set for twice per day.

when i looked at the B+ tray this morning, there is fuzz on the stems of the baby shrooms - i thought probably contaminated and was getting mentally prepared to dump the tray - but search showed not enough fresh air exchange, which is true ... but got that covered now!

 

[shithawk420]

If it's allowed can someone tell me where they bought their B+ and why is it called B+?

 

[Guest]

If it's allowed can someone tell me where they bought their B+ and why is it called B+?

B+ is the name of 1 of hundreds of strains of psilocybin mushrooms.

Personally I have been a fan of the Cambodian and the John Allen strain.

There are spore syringe vendors, as well as spore 'print' vendors, in several places on the internet.

Possession of a spore syringe, or even a spore print is legal in -most- places in the US. Conspiracy to cultivate magic 'shrooms, or possession of them, can become a sticky-wicket, however.

There's a number of potential sources, as I mentioned. I can send you my favorite source via PM, if you'd like, 'hawk.