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The Corroboree
Burleyman

LC THOUGHTS

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Hey mob,

Has anyone got experience with using RTV silicone as an injection port in the jar lids for LC?

I have been playing around with different methods and like the idea of the whole 'self healing' part of RTV..

Any information on experience would be greatly appreciated

Big love

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Hey Mate,

i just use a lid with a very small hole then put a double layer of alfoil over the top. I have never worried about using anything else and have never had any issues - touch wood.

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The silicone injection port is handy to minimise contamination when inoculating the jar and it works fine. I've also done it without making any injection ports by scraping spores into the jar. Never had any contamination issues.

Be careful if you stick a syringe into the silicone injection port after sterilising because the pressure difference can automatically suck up your whole spore syringe as it attempts to equalise. If this is going to be a problem then use a spore syringe that's almost empty. You can get around this by lifting to lid to let some air into the jar so it equalises but if you're going to do this then you can just stick a syringe under the lid and squirt your spores in without making a silicone injection port.

I've also made another LC from an existing LC. When I ordered a blue oyster mushroom syringe online it came as a liquid culture. When the syringe was almost empty I made more LC by using a jar with the aforementioned silicone injection port.

Don't forget to leave a decent pocket of air in the jar for the mycelium otherwise you risk losing your culture as it runs out of oxygen. Having too much liquid and too few spores also means that your culture will take forever to colonise too. Keep in the fridge to preserve it. I've noticed LCs are fine in the fridge for about a year but if you keep trying to use them after this you'll notice that you get poorer yields and eventually you'll get nothing.

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Just wondering if you need to worry about pressure when sterilizing silicon injection port jars in the pc?..like do you need an airport syringe?

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Could drops be caught in the silicone when you withdraw the needle? That would render the injection port one use only in between PC runs if it could...

When I use rtv ports I also use a micropore tape breather hole (one layer inside one layer outside). Most folks I myco with do this, we only use the injection port because you can't jab through our preferred method of micropore tape filters and keep it sterile.

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To answer the posts above, I didn't have any pressure issues when sterilising and the lids could be used again. It was simple and easy.

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I managed to get a good LC method going which is great :)

I thought perhaps using a little bleach solution with my grains as I have heard minute amounts of bleach does not harm myc and lessens the chances of contams.. What are your thoughts?

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you could do that if you like but if your grain is sterilised and you get contaminants it most likely from another vector.

maybe the transfer tech but most likely from the liquid culture itself.

you can do a streak test on some agar to check if your liquid is clean, or test it out on 1 or 2 jars first before you going crazy and inoculating bulk.

also use h2o2 in the liquid to give you an anti-contaminant edge.

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