NEW TEK IDEA... feedback?

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Hard to visualize.  9 01/09 01:58am ggg

By Mr. Tambourine Man (Tambourine_Man) on Tuesday, January 08, 2002 - 02:47 am:

OK, I've been rolling this one over in my head for a while now. Let me know what you guys think.

TEK STEPS->

1. Colonize brown rice flour substrate through jars, bulk tek, etc. in darkness to discourage pinning.

2. Prepare a normal terrarium, but add small brackets to its interior similar to this one:
1
They should be attached along opposite interior walls of the terrarium, and oriented in such a way to create "slots" where plywood could be held vertically. If you're worried about rust because of the humidity and the metal of the brackets, plastic brackets can be used or the terrarium can be lined with plastic sheeting which can go OVER the metal brackets, but UNDER any perlite system involved.

3. Sterilize work area.

4. Lay a piece of plexiglass or similar rigid sheeting material horizontally inside the terrarium. Add a thin layer of damp vermiculite on top of the plexiglass. Break the colonized substrate up into very small pieces and lay a 1" thick layer on top of the damp vermiculite. Add another thin layer of damp vermiculite on top of the colonized substrate layer. Lay another piece of plexiglass on top of that vermiculite, then another layer of vermiculite, substrate, vermiculite, and then another piece of plexiglass, and on and on, until a sufficient number of vermiculite-substrate-vermiculite "sandwiches" have been created between sheets of plexiglass.

5. Proceed with normal humidifying, air exchanging, and heating of the terrarium, but keep light out.

6. Allow sufficient time to pass for the broken-up substrate and damp vermiculite to "knit together" tightly; similar to a flatcake in a caserole dish.

7. Remove the top plexiglass layer, and cut the knitted together sandwich into an exact size suitable for vertical placement in one of the terrarium "bracket-slots". Do the same for each of the sandwiches.

8. Place each of the sized sandwiches inside each bracket-slot in the terrarium. The slots should have been created to leave a small number of inches of open space between each vertical sandwich. The number of bracket-slots should have been maximized while still leaving a few inches in between each of them to allow for fruit growth and harvesting access.

9. Proceed with normal humidifying, air exchanging, lighting, and heating systems.


It seems to me that this tek would have many benefits.

1. Uses space very efficiently.
2. Easy; no more difficult that the Flatcake Tek.
3. It's a One-Flush-Wonder. The thinness of each sandwich, coupled with the efficient double-sided fruiting area should assure that each sandwich's nutrients are used up during the first flush; meaning no need to bother with additional flushes, dunking, etc, and the hassle, mess, and time they involve.
4. An AWESOME yield. The HUGE fruiting area, the vermiculite casing itelf, and the access to water from the damp vermiculite should assure this. This tek should most likely be run with the PF race as that one should have a greater tendancy to fruit all over the two faces of the sandwich, instead of just along the edges.

So, what do you guys think?

By plinkerdink420 (Plinkerdink420) on Tuesday, January 08, 2002 - 04:04 am:

simply amazing a future project, i think.... thank you for sharing Mr. Tambourine Man

By ion ewe (Ion) on Tuesday, January 08, 2002 - 04:24 am:

Now THAT'S the kind of thinking I like to see!! Excellent!

-ion

By Chronic007 (Chronic007) on Tuesday, January 08, 2002 - 05:38 am:

Sounds really cool in theory. Love to see you give it a shot.

just to be the devils advocate

Dunking in my uopinion is the greatest tek ever to be invented. It's like a bran new cake just because you put it under water for a few hours, rather than colonizing for two weeks. Your idea is very good though. What about some kind of metal poles that could be coming out of the floor vertically that you could stab through the center of the cakes and create a cake pillar in essence. You could have many pillars throught your tererrium. Maybe you could even put a layer of damp verm. between each cake in your pillar serving as the casing and looking like the pillars mortar.

Good Idea though. Keep us informed.
Chronic007

By Mr. Tambourine Man (Tambourine_Man) on Tuesday, January 08, 2002 - 06:46 am:

Plinkerdink- Thanks!

Ion Ewe- Thanks!

Chronic- First of all, thanks for the kind words! OK, as I understand it, dunking provides a cake with water. I think water can be viewed as a kind of catalyst to help turn the nutrients in a cake into mushrooms. So, x amount of nutrients in your cake equals y amount of mushrooms in all instances. In a conventional tek, you flush and get y/3 amount of mushrooms and lose x/3 amount of nutrients, dunk and get another y/3 amount of shrooms and lose another x/3 amount of nutrients, until you've exhausted the nutrients in your cake and therefore the mushroom potential of the cake. So it takes that long to extract y amount of mushrooms. But the tek I outlined above is so efficient with its double-sided fruiting surface that all x amount of nutrients could be turned into y amount of mushrooms in the first flush. You could dunk it as easily as a flatcake, but you've already turned x amount of nutrients into y amount of mushrooms. No dunk is required to reach the same yield in a fraction of the time.

If I understand your pillar tek right (and I may not), you still won't be reaching the interior nutrients in the cakes very easily, and you'll definitely be dunking and spending the time involved in that to approach turning all x amount of nutrients into y amount of shrooms.

Devil's advocate is great though! Keep it coming, and don't worry about stepping on my toes!

P.S. You're totally right about the "in theory" thing for sure. That's really all it is at this point, and I'd love to know if anyone can poke any holes in it, point out shortcomings, improve upon it, etc.

By Hatcher (Hatcher) on Tuesday, January 08, 2002 - 07:08 am:

Well, plexiglass ain't cheap..

By Mr. Tambourine Man (Tambourine_Man) on Tuesday, January 08, 2002 - 08:33 am:

Hatcher-
Totally, that's why I said "a piece of plexiglass or similar rigid sheeting material". Any ideas on anything else that would work there?

By Chronic007 (Chronic007) on Tuesday, January 08, 2002 - 10:45 am:

Mr. Tambourine Man: Yes I understand that you can only have as many mushies as there is food but exhausting the entire food supply in one swoop is quite a task. The sandwiches have to be thick enough to hold up while standing on end...well 1" as you stated...so it all depends if you can exhaust the sandwich in one flush. Only time will tell and I can't wait to see your results. I love when people don't just settle with what's available but do there best to contribute....what ever happens knowledge is gained and we all await your info. As for the inner nutrients of your cake, the fungi creates a network to pull the nutrients to the fruiting surface so all areas of nurients are available; it just may take a few fruitings and dunkings to exhaust it. Either way both cakes and sandwiches can be dunked, only sandwiches have a bigger surface area so that should mean less fruitings till exhaustion. Keep us informed and keep up the good work.

Chronic007

By ggg (Ggg) on Tuesday, January 08, 2002 - 02:01 pm:

I want to try to colonize some sterilized wire mesh. I was not sure about the rust, there would be a ton!.
The idea is to fold over a 12"x6" piece of siff wire mesh into a 6"x6" square.
I would poke some holes in a zip lock bag and load some crumbled cake into it. I would then shove the creased side of the mesh down into the material leaving about an inch of mesh clean.
Zip the bag and allow the cake to regroup around the wire mesh.
After its grown around the mesh you might birth and fold out the mire mesh you left clean to create legs for the cake to stand on.

The contams and rust issues seem hard to deal with.

Somebody will try it someday!

By Mr. Tambourine Man (Tambourine_Man) on Tuesday, January 08, 2002 - 06:09 pm:

Chronic-

Yeah, 1" sounds like it might have some trouble holding together, but I asked a question a little while back about how well flat cakes hold together while handled with a grown-through vermiculite layer, and it sounded like the sandwiches I described should have no trouble at all.

Someone else has posted that he regularly slices up half pints vertically into four pieces and that they yield all 7 grams on the first flush, and dunking does not trigger a second flush ever. That's why I think the super-thin 1" and double-sided fruiting area will definitely exhaust the cake on the first flush.

Thanks a lot for the feedback! To be honest, I'm not sure if I'm going to run this tek or any other for that matter. I run my own business (legitimate) and it is taking up more and more of my time. Growing these guys is time-consuming! I don't think I'll be able to resist checking in with the Nook about as regularly as I do now though; I still think this is a great hobby.

GGG- Can't say I can totally visualize what you mean, but sounds cool!

By Dr. Cubesis III (Newbieshroomer) on Tuesday, January 08, 2002 - 06:33 pm:

Hmmmm,

Gotta a brain fart tuesday going on and having a hard time visualizing these things, though I desperately want to be in on the conversation!!!
* grin *

Hey GGG, My friend buys cheap 12x12
pans that rust, but he sprays them with two coats of rustoleum rust protect enamel.. Stuff works great. That solves one problem

CHronic, my cased birdseed ( dung/verm ) that I cut into two inch pieces and placed on spacers in pint jars... Look like something might happen.
they are fuzzing up like cakes getting ready to pin... Pretty cool. All they consist of is each one: about a square inch of colonized seed, a square inch of colonized dung, a square total inch of verm. Some were dunked, some were not, no contams yet and looks promising~!

Nobody I talked to has done that yet ( well prolly quote, but he hasn't said anything :) so that will be interesting in itself :)

Ok, re-read the tek meestor tam man... Bitchin!
My buddy happens to have a terrarium ( 20 gallon )
he is converting into... something else because he is switching over to growing in quart jars....

I think he will like this idea a lot. He loves to try new things.... though...

As far as plexi being expensive, yea... But my friend could cover the entire cost of this project with less than a single quarter of mushies.. No biggie... :)

Good Work Tam!! just read your last post... By the 15th my buddy will have the terrarium clear,
and SEVERAL quarts of rye grain to work with.
Thinks he will try the grain since he doesn't have enough cakes... ya think it is feasable with rye berries, maybe cased in a lil dung and verm to hold it together?

By Mr. Tambourine Man (Tambourine_Man) on Tuesday, January 08, 2002 - 06:44 pm:

Dr. Cubensis-

Awesome! Keep us posted for sure, and let us know if you can think of a material to substitute in for plexiglass.

By Dr. Cubesis III (Newbieshroomer) on Tuesday, January 08, 2002 - 08:02 pm:

Will do tam....

Probably though, plexi is best for my friend, it's easy to ( work with ) cut, strong, clear, and is really not that expensive when you get to buying larger sheets. Still have most of a 4X4 leftover. Guess it helps that my friend has a truck :)

But YES!! Chronic set my buddy straight on his fridge chamber, so he still has three terrariums left, the 20 gallon glass. Am excited about this, looks like a good idea, looks like it will work great!!! And look EXCELLENT to boot.!
Already printed this thread so my friend and his girl can do some measuring, a couple of sketches
and a trip to home depot.

Peace tam man, and thanks...

Oh shoot, one more thing. My friend can do this, but all he has is rye grains to work with for about another two weeks... He can set it up in the meantime, but would love to get an early start with
the grains, if this is possible. Anyone checking out Tams tek, that has more experience with grains than i do ( which isn't a whole hell of a lot! )
please let me know how you think rye might do using this tek...

Peace all!

Damn, one more thing people, added some fun stuff over there on Chronics BIG thread. If you are thinking of going invitro, check it out :)


By Mr. Tambourine Man (Tambourine_Man) on Tuesday, January 08, 2002 - 08:30 pm:

Dr. Cubensis-
Oh man, I can't wait to hear (see?) how it goes. Do you have a digital camera? I really think this'll turn out great. Which race will you use? Make sure it's something like the PF race that won't just fruit along the edges. Wow, I can't wait....

By Dr. Cubesis III (Newbieshroomer) on Tuesday, January 08, 2002 - 09:24 pm:

Right now I believe the rye is EQ colonized.

Never used the pf race myself :)

LOL! Tam!! No digital camera, and scared get pix developed... But I am working on that....
My friend is a paranoid bastard.

Like I said though, all i have at this time, ( colonized and ready to go ) is rye grain. I need to know if this will work. I can case it with some dung/verm to make it stick together..

But will it work? If not gonna hafta wait awhile unless the colonized cake fairy comes to town!!

But My friend is DEFINITELY using your tek. The worst it could do is fail and my friend will be scraping adhesive ( for the brackets ) off his tank for an hour! :)

By quote: (Quote) on Tuesday, January 08, 2002 - 11:26 pm:


Quote:

Someone else has posted that he regularly slices up half pints vertically into four pieces and that they yield all 7 grams on the first flush, and dunking does not trigger a second flush ever.




do you mean 7 grams total,
or from each section ?
because if you mean 7 grams per section,
it's flat out impossible, there are only ~40 grams of food [brf] in a pf cake.
that would require over 70% biological effeciency at converting food into biomass.
no lifeform on this planet is that efficient, most only get about 10%, shrooms are unusually effecient and might get as much as 35%,
but nothing gets 70%.
and that's just to get the fruitbodies, even more food would be required to be converted to fuel the colonization of the cake and to support it's lifeforce while it grew.

By Mr. Tambourine Man (Tambourine_Man) on Tuesday, January 08, 2002 - 11:52 pm:

Quote-

No, they supposedly yielded "all 7 grams", on the first flush. No additional flushes were possible. It was 7 grams total.

By Maliki (Maliki) on Wednesday, January 09, 2002 - 06:44 am:

I would use pvc pipe to make the frame that will suround and suport the myco mass. Second i would work in layers like so. WORKING FROM TABLE UP
Plastic wrap layed on table with plenty pulled from package to completly wrap around frame , gardeners mesh zip tied to the pvc frame then lay pvc frame onto plastic wrap on table , fill the dish you just made with brf or straw . with your inoculium in it already. Wrap the rest of it up well and Let it go 100% colonized unwrap plastic wrap and stand on end in chamber and fruit . The gardeners mesh is the solution to the mass falling out of the frame . PVC can be 1inch thick or 2 inch thick if done right this makes for an easy to maintain setup ....

By Imok Urok2 (Imok) on Wednesday, January 09, 2002 - 07:18 am:

How about some drip tubeing in the middle for moisture?

By Maliki (Maliki) on Wednesday, January 09, 2002 - 03:17 pm:

I was thinking more along the lines of aluminum arrows with 1/16 holes drilled in it up the sides .Myco mass would grow into the holes and it would pick up the moisture that way. So if someone wanted to use 2 inch pvc and make multiple fruit vertical flat cakes using the inner resioviour tek sounds like a plan to me ... or go to the fish store and pick up some of the air buble tubing its usaly spongy stuff that is covered in micro holes probably disperse moisture better... so many thoughts...........

By ggg (Ggg) on Wednesday, January 09, 2002 - 03:52 pm:

A cool mist pushing humid air through the pipes that have been surrounded by the Myc. The small tubes provide structure and moisture.
As close to Hydroponic as this hobby is likely to get. Or at least until the next post/thread!!!

By ggg (Ggg) on Wednesday, January 09, 2002 - 03:53 pm:

A cool mist pushing humid air through the pipes that have been surrounded by the Myc. The small tubes provide structure and moisture.
This might be as close to Hydroponic as this hobby is likely to get. Or at least as close as it might get until the next post/thread!!!

By Maliki (Maliki) on Wednesday, January 09, 2002 - 04:26 pm:

Pst if i could get my pics to post i drew it all up. And i was thinking abought that this system could also employ the entrainment methods as well by running the cool mist thru the pipse like you said but not directly into the cake that would be no good i think. What i was thinking was drill small holes along the leghts of the pvc pipes. The holes would be drilled so that when the whole setup is put into it box with around 6 inches between each frame , the air flow would be dircted up and down both sides of the cake , resulting in constant air flow not to mention with the cakes vertical there exposed to much less gas at the top of the chamber than at the bottom so the myco mass has amny gas levels to chose from. As well as the air entrainment going on inside the tank........So many more thoughts in my head ive got a notebook at work full of this stuff......NEXT

By Maliki (Maliki) on Wednesday, January 09, 2002 - 06:15 pm:

basic drawings :) trayframe.giftanklayout.gif The first pic is the frame that would be the center layer that would get the gardners mesh and plastic wrap. The second picture is how the tank would be laid out the litle lines coming from the frames are where the small holes would be . They would be drilled so they pointed down and up , down being the top of the frame and the up holes the bottom of the frame.

By Maliki (Maliki) on Wednesday, January 09, 2002 - 06:29 pm:

sorry wrong first image its supose to be this heretrayframe