I'm excited to see those babies fruit!!

So. I come home and my humidity is 50% even though I followed instructions with perlite to a T for the shotgun method. Suggestions for humidity when I can't be home all day misting the cakes ??

All suggestions are welcome.

For safety you could have put it in a different terrarium... Blue could mean bruising, aka improper handling!


Your terrarium looks good... Do you also have holes on the bottom for water excess? Maybe put a bit more water saturated perlite and mist as hell! You should see water droplets on all the surfaces! What are you using for measuring the humidity? Most hygrometer are very inaccurate!

Never thought of that. Great idea.




I have holes drilled in the bottom. Should I fill the bottom with water and let the excess drip out?

In terms of humidity, I'm using a "lockdown" brand hygrometer.

As per rr videos...I soaked the hygrometer in a drenched towel for several hours and then placed it in the terrarium.

I'm thinking about using a pint glass and one of those misting coils you see in micro fountains the sell at Spencer's to automate misting.

Hi there

Blueing does not always mean bruising, mycelium can blue if is starts to dry out, they can also go blue with big changes in temperature.

To increase your humidity without constant spraying, you could do some or all of the following

Take out all of the cakes and put them on something clean, the upturned lid will do. Put the whole FC in the bath and soak it with water ideally with a shower head, you have many holes, so most of the water will drain off, lift it slightly and pour through the holes until you have most of it out, its ok if there is a bit pooling at the bottom.

I also strongly advise you to add double the amount of perlite, 6 inches in total should be enough, ensure it is thoroughly soaked before you put it in there.

You have a LOT of holes, this is great for FAE but maybe to much dry air is getting in, drying your perlite out thus lowering your humidity, so you could put clear sticky tape, sellotape, over alternate rows of holes, you will still have good FAE but it will be reduced helping the FC to retain more water and keeping the humidity up.

If you did all of the above, you would fix your problems and if the humidity is still going to low, cover up more holes, you may have to fan a bit more, but your humidity will stay high.

Hope this helps

Peace

Hi There,

Thank you! I will try all of this. I'm pretty sure I'm at 5-6" of perlite already, but I will check on all the other things...

I do live in the desert.

Thank you very much!

Alrighty... I was incorrect...somehow I only had approximately 2" or perlite. Don't know how, but that was the case. Right now perlite has been added so that it's 5.5-6".

I stuck my hand into the depths of the perlite and determined it felt mostly dry. Crazy.

I have misted the hell out of the cakes after properly draining the FC and just for note, I let the perlite soak in cool water for 15 minutes before draining the tub so that I am pretty sure this time it's wet.

As soon as the outsides of the FC are dry again, I'll tape up every other row of holes as per your recommendations.

I'm housing this chamber in a broom closet.... General humidity in my house is approximately 25-30%. Do you think I should put a small humidifier in the room in general? Or should it not be necessary in the micro-environment?

Infinity and everyone else, thanks much for your input and encouragement.

I personally would put a humidifier somewhere near. The lower the general humidity the faster the perlite will dry out.

Since you live in the desert this all makes sense. IMO you want the hunidity of the surrounding area to be 60% or higher even.

Does this broom closet have vents or are you leaving the door ajar or anything?

No vents and haven't been leaving door open. I might have a tiny humidifier somewhere.

Fact is, it's 1 week later and no change in how the cakes look, and I'm sure you've checked out all the pics so you know where I'm at.

Well that would make sense since the humidity is so low. Personally I would atleast crack the door. You want free air exchange. That will be more efficient with access to fresh air. Although im sure people still have success in that kind of condition.

You really need to increase the ambient humidity. Water evaporates slower in high humidity and faster in low humidity. If you want to slow the rate at which you need to mist you have to get a humidifier.

This wouldnt be the case if your humidity in your house was higher. If you get a humidifier you could probably put it directly in the closet but I would also crack the door and not use the kind that puts off a visible mist.

The problem with putting the humidifer in the closet with the door closed is your inviting mold to grow which wouldnt be fun.

Another thing that you could try. An air pump for an aquarium, run an outlet hose into a container of water/h2o2 that is placed inside the terarrium.

You could also run the inlet out of the closet which would allow you to keep the door closed. Might just raise humidity up and increase fae.

Everything you're saying of course makes perfect sense.

Here are some environmental challenges.

First is, the houses climate in General is between 65 and 70f pretty much everyday. Being recently transplanted from the east coast, we like the colder temp. I picked the closet because every other space in the house has way too vast a volume in terms of being able to control the room's climate - particularly pertaining to heat.

I've managed to put a 10$ heater in that room and after a few days of playing around my room temp stays at 78ish pretty much 24/7. (Pretty sure that temp is okay for fruiting.)

The walls are painted at the very least with what looks like a semi-gloss. Which to me, in General is more resistant to mold.

I suppose a fair compromise would be just raising the humidity anything at all. Even 20-40% the slow down moisture dissipation.

I have been thinking about a metal coil mister seen in a lot of those feng shui pond/house type pieces of decor.

Any amount you increase humidity will work better. I was more saying 60%+ as a guage.

I am not sure but I think if you added a mister without increasing humidity you would run into a bottle neck. Basically the mister itself would increase humidity but then you would have an excess amount of standing water, possibly on the cakes and something tells me that wouldnt be good. Not sure, but there are quite a bit of different methods I have read about on the shroomery from people with the same issues as you.

Well, I will say this.

After following infinity's advice and increasing perlite to around 6 ". The terrarium has been at 99% humidity all day.

I think this week we will start to see some fruiting progress.

Thanks again all for all your help ..... I will keep everyone informed.

Alrighty!!!!! 2 Days later and pinheads are forming all over the place.

Day 38!!!! PINHEADS!!!!!

AHH I'm so jealous!!! Keep up the good work there, Archmage!

hey, just came back, read up...

Firstly you are more than welcome brother, so good too see your humidity is higher and you are back on course to a beautiful bounty!

6 inch of perlite and reducing FAE usually fixes most humidity issues in a FC similar to yours, if you still get issues, then as anarchy suggested, increasing the ambient humidity will really help, a small cool mist humidifier works great in a small area. But only if necessary, as it is likely to make the room contam with mold which in time will probably contam your cakes, at least on later flushes that is...

You can for future ventures, if you have the same issues as a few spare dollars, simply make a platform in your FC, say 6 - 8 inches from the bottom of the FC, out of wire mesh, so you have a grid to put your cakes on, fill the bottom with water but leave an inch or two gap between the water surface and the wire mesh, add a bit of peroxide (to take care of any nasty fungal and bacteria spores / growth), a fish tank heater to maintain correct temp and an air stone + pump... Your humidity will be very high all of the time! if RH does not stay as high as you would like just add another air stone.

The bubbling action of lots of tiny bubbles passing through the water from the air stone, allows the bubbles / air to have a very high RH by the time they reach the surface increasing the RH. The bursting of the bubbles as they reach the waters surface also spits tiny amounts of water through the air increasing the RH further.

Great progress so far, you identified an issue which shows your are actively involved in the areas that matter, you sought a solution, you applied it and now you have fixed your issues and are on your way to a good flush! ... a sign of a great grower!

Your cakes look ready to explode!

Ill be following this thread with a keen eye

Peace

Hi Infinity!!!!

Yes things are working well.... I'm still trying to figure out what "FAE" means... because some of the acronyms here escape me lol....

I'm about to post more progress pictures so standby...

Note: Some of the cakes have been turning blueish - which I assume as suggested above that they might be "de-hydrated" - I've tried spooning water onto the...

I also noticed that my babies are trying to sprout from the bottom of the cake first... as you know, I paid the donation fee and purchased the "RR" set of mycology growing videos.... I saw him placing what looked like small square sheets of aluminum foil under all the cakes so I did the same. It appears water is collecting more in that area and as such the cakes are fruiting from the bottoms lol.... I'm wondering what would be a better solution next time.... and I'm trying to understand your grid solution above, but I'm at the office and will have to read it in more depth later when I actually get home.

In the meantime.... please enjoy the next few posts of pics.

Thanks again!

DAY 39

DAY 40!!! EXTREMELY EXCITED! PINHEADS AND SHROOMS EVERYWHERE!!!

DAY 40!!! EXTREMELY EXCITED! PINHEADS AND SHROOMS EVERYWHERE!!!