Hi folks,
I'll be birthing some brf cakes into a shotgun tub soon and and one little problem I'm up against is that I'm at work away from the house for 9-10 hrs. daily and am worried that they won't receive enough misting or especially, fresh air exchange. Compounding that problem, I live in an awfully dry environment. Is that a big problem, and if so, is there some kind of fairly low tek solution to introduce fae and humidity into my terrarium while I'm away?

Are you just leaving the cakes whole, and growing straight from the cakes?

If so, birth your cakes on a bed of moistened pearlite. You can do individual tubs of pearlite, or cover the whole terrarium floor with it.

Pearlite is a bit of a pain, but it will provide great humidity at a constant level. I recommend wetting it my running water through it with a strainer/sieve. You don't want the pearlite actually submerged in water, just wet. You may have to re-wet it. A good time to do this is after the first flush.

As for the FAE, I am assuming you are using a tub with wholes cut in the side, with polyfill to filter the air, or you have a ton of small holes. Either way, a fan blowing on your tub from a few feet away should be fine. If your chamber is sealed, a fish tank air pump should work well.

You can even run a fish tank air pump with an air stone (makes tons of bubbles in the water) in a container with pearlite.

The possibilities are endless. I hope some of these ideas are helpful. A good shroom grower is resourceful and creative, so get thinkin!

Yes , I'm planning on birthing the whole cakes (rolled in verm) on to 3" of wet perlite. same as I've done in the past, except in the past I was able to come home for lunch and take care of things. Not so anymore since I moved.

I wondered if just putting a fan blowing on the tub would work OK. I don't want it to work so well that it pushes the moisture out though. Maybe I could rig it up to a timer to come on for about an hour ? Also wondering if a humidifier in the room might help. My previous efforts have just been OK, hoping to someday get a ridiculous flush like I see in a lot of photos. I know there is a ton of info at the shroomery but wading through all the silly bs tries my patience.

The fish tank air pump sounds great. does it bump up humidity as well as fresh air?

Yeah, the bubbler should increase humidity and FAE. I never found out what volume of air mine puts out. It worked really well with a tub when I was growing Pan Cyans, which are a good bit more picky than Cubes when it comes to fresh air. It was a pump rated for like 40-60 gallon tank, with 2 hose outputs. You can buy valves to easily regulate how much air flows, and to where you want it.

If you had a container filled with pearlite, with an air stone in the bottom, and half filled with water, or even just an inch or so, it should work well. The bubbler would bubble air and water onto the pearlite thus humidifying it, while of course pumping in air.

It may increase risk of contams if you don't filter it. You could rig up an easy filter with the air pump in a tupperware with a hole cut in, and polyfill or some other filter. I'd say play with it first, before you subject your babies to it. If you get a cheap electric timer, you could turn it on and off in 30 minute increments, jsut to make sure if it wasn't humidifying enough, it shouldn't dry everything out too much.

If you've built the SGFC to spec... it's creator contends it can go for up to 14 hours unattended. Just mist and fan well when you ARE home.

IME a fan blowing on the tub will dry cakes out fast unless you're going to hook the fan up to a timer and only have it come on say for 5 minutes every couple of hours.

In a SGFC you just want that air swapped out every so often - keeping the perlite wet will cover your humidity needs.

Good Luck

Thanks Peabody and Pup, OK, I may not need the bubbler if all goes well but I really like the idea of being able to manipulate the conditions and of course now I'm curious, so I think I'm going to give it a try. I would love to be able to grow some Pans but guess I better get good at the easy stuff first. Many thanks!

Good luck and much love. The reward of just growing them is so beautiful, let alone munching them and enjoying.... sweet