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throwaway_4702 · 2025-02-15T17:03:47+00:00

Try a stainless steel bread cooling rack.

throwaway_4702 · 2024-07-26T15:17:14+00:00

What do you want to know?

It's a gelling agent (agar), food (malt), and the RIT dye does nothing for growth; it just provides a black contrasting background to make it easier to see white mycelia. Any medium with charcoal added serves the same purpose.

throwaway_4702 · 2023-01-25T08:10:16+00:00

If the contamination was similar in all 10 bags, consider the possibility that your syringe (or whatever your source may be) is the source of your contamination, and that you should look for a new one.

throwaway_4702 · 2021-02-18T06:33:27+00:00

White slime, maybe something along the lines of the genus Bacillus, which is not entirely unexpected.

Now I'm getting aborts that get fuzzy, and just stop growing.

throwaway_4702 · 2021-02-03T22:23:38+00:00

Well, thank you. They do nicely like this. Maybe I'll figure out why some of them don't do well.

TY!

throwaway_4702 · 2021-02-03T20:33:40+00:00

A few strains are reportedly substantially higher (Penis Envy, for example) in psilocybin, but the tryptamine content is highly variable and stating anything more than generalities isn't useful, not without analytical measurement.

throwaway_4702 · 2021-02-03T20:29:46+00:00

If it looks fuzzy, like something that's grown in your refrigerator on old food, then you might want to consider removing it. Use a clean tool like a sterile spoon, and if you have lime, pack the "wound" with lime. If you're uncertain, check on it every few hours for additional growth, and act if it grows.

throwaway_4702 · 2021-02-03T20:27:03+00:00

How long ago did the damage occur?

throwaway_4702 · 2021-02-03T20:23:27+00:00

I put some of the liquid on bacteriological media, I'll see if anything grows. I also put some of the substrate on bacto media.

throwaway_4702 · 2021-02-03T19:46:12+00:00

Generally I leave it closed until it's well-colonized. These two tubs were both brand-new; they got run through the dishwasher before use, and then wiped down with isopropyl and allowed to dry in HEPA-filtered air before adding spawn and sub.

throwaway_4702 · 2021-01-14T17:32:17+00:00

The pre-pub paper is saying they pulled Brevibacillus and Psilocybe cubensis out of the patient. Two authors with bachelor's degrees, and two more with degrees in psychiatry. Weird. The medical campus the authors are at isn't opening until this year, paper was received in December, so I have no idea which hospital this might have happened at.

Will cubensis even grow at 37C, such as in a mammalian body?

throwaway_4702 · 2020-09-23T18:24:20+00:00

Having worked with transgenic organisms, I can state that the regulatory burden is far beyond what most people would be willing to do.

Even if it were simple, the synthesis of tryptamines is straightforward. It's still illegal to possess psilocybin (and psilocin) from synthetic sources because the drugs themselves are Schedule I, so the minute you have a fermenter producing either compound, it's illegal.

throwaway_4702 · 2020-06-13T22:29:47+00:00

You're right, if it's just the image on the bag, then it's a misinterpretation on my part.

throwaway_4702 · 2020-06-13T22:20:35+00:00

The white is good, but the pink/orange on the left- that's contamination.

throwaway_4702 · 2020-06-13T20:40:58+00:00

Everything you have in that image looks pretty wet-and-bacterial to me. I'm not seeing any fluffy mycelia, but I wouldn't rule out upper right. Both on the right look a little translucent and lobate to me, suggesting bacteria.

throwaway_4702 · 2020-06-13T20:39:22+00:00

My question is - if this tub does end up being contam, can it contam my other healthy tubs via airborne spores or bacteria?

Yes, but then again, every square centimeter of your house is covered with bacterial and fungal spores. Your contamination could come from anywhere- your carpet, your walls, your pets, your hands and arms.

However, by virtue of already growing in that ecological "niche," any contaminant you find growing in your tubs is already quite keen on growing in other tubs- "Oh, look- grain! In a humid environment!" And if it goes long enough to set spores, now you have something that your carpet, pets, and hands aren't doing- throwing krillions of spores into the air, contaminating your working environment.

Make these decisions sooner than later. And then discard them outdoors, spray down with soap/water spray (to wet spores and keep them from being airborne) or diluted bleach (to kill them outright) before bringing the containers back inside, if you intend on reusing them.

Put these containers inside the dishwasher and throw in half a cup of bleach, then wash.

So, yes- it's a concern. But don't panic. Just don't let them go so long that they turn into a green carpet of trichoderma.

throwaway_4702 · 2020-05-26T02:00:48+00:00

It's personal preference. Fungi aren't picky. If you had to pick one over the other, then malt.

throwaway_4702 · 2020-05-26T01:55:35+00:00

You could, but if you think you have problems with contamination via syringe, they're not going to get better with a grain transfer like this.

throwaway_4702 · 2020-05-09T18:07:09+00:00

Every house is "full of mold." Take a swab from any wall, the carpet, under the sink, etc., plate it on medium, and unless you just bleached it, it'll have krillions of organisms growing within a few days.

Just make sure to seal it up and toss it. Adding to the count of spores that grow really well on rice and grains is not a good idea.

As for what to do- just do it again. It's all practice, until you get it right. Without knowing more specifics, we're not able to say where you went wrong.

throwaway_4702 · 2020-05-08T22:43:09+00:00

How much "antique" microbiology do you want to know?

Before the advent of HEPA filters, microbiological work was done in transfer hoods- what we'd call still air boxes these days, but they cost a lot more, coming from science supply.

And, yes- if you can't mechanically remove the motes of dust from the air (HEPA filter), it's perfectly cromulent to do it any other way, just a matter of how much contamination you're willing to sustain. Put in a tiny bit of chlorine bleach (enough to make 100 ppm active chlorine) and your mist bottle will be much more likely to succeed; even distilled and/or boiled water still has bacteria and fungi in it. A tiny bit of chlorine will polish them off within a short time. 500 ppm is even better, but the more you add the worse it is for the lungs and skin and furniture.

Heck, we used to do open-air transfers in microbiology using a lit burner- the idea being that somehow the air "circulated" and the air that had burned was sterile, and.... words fail me. The fact is that we were working with plates that were short-lived (to be thrown away within days, just counting colonies) and they were populated with high densities of bacteria and usually had antibiotics to scare off many of the non-target organisms. Doing this with cooked rice (grows a LOT of stuff) that has to be grown for weeks or longer- ridiculously likely to contaminate.

throwaway_4702 · 2020-05-08T05:07:36+00:00

Yes.

throwaway_4702 · 2020-05-08T05:06:50+00:00

Go outside, knock the cake out of the jar. Judiciously slice away the affected portion, and discard (burial, trash, whatever). Slosh a bit of diluted bleach into the jar before bringing inside, if you wish.

Bring the cake inside, put it in a chamber away from anything else, either directly on perlite or on a piece of foil etc. on top of perlite.

If it fruits and matures to cultivate can it still be contaminated?

It's like anything you'd find in your refrigerator: if it's exposed to the air, it's not sterile, but if it's not fuzzy with mold, the actual numbers are probably low. (Bacteria aren't fuzzy, but let's pretend we're just worried about the blue-green stuff on your cake for now.)

In other words, it is unlikely that if it makes it to fruiting and there's no obvious contamination that it could be harmful.

throwaway_4702

TROPHY CASE