mimzy Posted March 23, 2016 (1) For the love of all things good in this world, do not store more grain than you have to; or at least store it properly. For most of my commercial cultures I use organic wheat grain. Some time ago I bought 30kg sack, thinking I would cut down on costs by buying in bulk. The first sign of trouble was a few pantry moths flying around the lab. No problems I thought, I'll leave the sack out in the sun for the day to kill off the weevils and store it in another room. Well, it turns out the sack was infested, and with the humid warm conditions of late summer, I soon had 100's of moths in all my rooms, in all my medias, in all my grains, in all my supplements, in all my everything! (2) Put your agar plates in the fridge as soon as they have set. Leaving agar plates out on the bench for extended periods of time gives mites (YES MITES) a chance to crawl in, contaminate your plates with asper. sp and/ or lay eggs that will ruin your culture later. Don't try to save your plates; freeze them to kill the mites and throw away. Again, this time of year is particularly bad with high humidity. (3) If you can avoid it, don't have any timber in your clean space- given enough time and moisture you can have a mold city growing under benches, which you wont know about, absolutely loading the air with spores. Keep it stainless or plastic. Learn from my mistakes fellow mycologists. With love, Mimz 8 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
brooa Posted March 23, 2016 (edited) that sucks, fucking moths! have had issues with them before for what its worth, i now freeze everything new for minimum 8 days to kill and haven't had an issue since. keep everything in well sealed containers (20l+ food grade pails arn't that expensive) and bay leaves are supposed to help repel them aswell Edited March 23, 2016 by brooa 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
watertrade Posted March 23, 2016 yep. exactly the same thing happened to me. 20kg bag of grain for $20 bargain! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zen Peddler Posted March 31, 2016 Mites hatched out of a wild clone once and contaminated my entire collection in two days littke buggars are bad news Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mimzy Posted April 1, 2016 The only way I know of recovering a strain from mites is to slow freeze your culture in 15% glycerol /water. Freezing will kill the mites but your cultures should be ok. I was lucky most of my plates were sealed with parafin tape and avoided disaster. Any new clones from fruit bodies collected el-natural go straight in isolated eskie until I can confirm they are ok. It leaves in awe of how finely balanced our ecosystems are; in the lab its always one victor over another... whether thats mold, mites or moths. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
theuserformallyknownasd00d Posted April 1, 2016 I gave up at mould mimzy so don't be too disheartened tho bro you've battled the worst so far it seems! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Darklight Posted April 1, 2016 Nice Fred It leaves in awe of how finely balanced our ecosystems are; in the lab its always one victor over another... whether thats mold, mites or moths. This. Always this. Latest one here is to really isolate in time mushroom growing lab sessions from plant growing lab sessions. Even in FP bags actively growing mycelia attracts compost flies/ fungus gnat flies. Not many, but enough to get into the flow hood working area and the flow hood when it's on. Once one of them flies over your sterile work it's anyone's guess as to whether it's contaminated or not. So I clump all my myco work at the EOM and then spend the next week or so out of the lab til the ferment flies rack off. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jungle John Posted April 3, 2016 I can vouch for the effectiveness of bay leaves for repelling pantry moths and grubs . I had them in my pantry , in Sydney for at least a decade , then my mother said , oh bay leaves are good for that , and I said , come on , "bay leaves " ? So , I put some open in a bowl in the pantry, and some in the lids of the various containers and bags , they were gone in a week and never came back . Worth a try 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites