SHROOM WIZARD'S GROW GUIDE VERSION 4.0

BUBBLE OR NOTHING TECHNIQUE

“BUBBLE OR NOTHING”

This cultivation technique requires a little more equipment and a little more time (and a small amount of money more) to put together than the “ALL IN ONE” technique, but the end results are well worth it. Using this technique you will be able to fruit six colonized mycelium cakes at the same time without using any soil or manure.
What you will need to do before you begin setting everything up for growing mushrooms with this method is to have on hand six fully (100%) colonized mycelium cakes. Since it takes four to five weeks for substrate jars to fully colonize after the spores have been inoculated, you should have plenty of time to get the items together and be ready for the fruiting stage.

“SETTING EVERYTHING UP”

“OVERVIEW OF SETUP”

The first thing you must do is to make sure that you have everything ready and on hand that you will need. Below is a list of the seven things you will need to get.

1.) A 10-gallon glass fish aquarium (no lid necessary)
2.) Enough fish aquarium gravel to make a 3” deep layer of it in the tank.
3.) A fish tank air pump (get an inexpensive one).
4.) About six-feet of air pump tubing.
5.) A fish tank bubbler stone (small or large doesn’t matter).
6.) Six flat green pot and pan scouring pads (about 4” by 6” each).
7.) One small roll of plastic wrap (Saran Wrap).

Once you have gathered everything you will need, the next step is to set the entire fruiting system up. To begin with, you should use a little rubbing alcohol and a paper towel to clean the inside surface of the glass aquarium. Then you should set this cleaned aquarium in the place where you will want to grow your mushrooms. I sit mine on a table in front of a window so light will be able to shine on it. You don’t want direct sunlight though, because it can possibly overheat the aquarium. If the sun shines directly in through the window you will be using you will probably need to keep the blinds closed. A lot of light still gets through closed blinds – just not direct light (plus you don’t want people outside admiring your crop from outside anyway).

Now you should place your air pump beside your aquarium, attach one end of the air tubing to it and attach your bubbler to the other end of the tubing. There is one thing I want to add pertaining to the bubbler you will be using. There are a large variety of bubblers available. Some are nothing more than little porous stones and some are long flexible bubblers. If you can afford one of the longer flexible bubblers (12 to 18 inches) I would suggest getting one of these, but if you can’t, the smaller bubble stones will work fine. With the air hose now attached you should lay the bubbler on the center bottom of your aquarium. If you are using a longer flexible bubbler you should bend it into a circle or oval and lay it on the bottom center of the tank.

The next addition will be the adding of the fish tank gravel. I prefer using the white gravel because it doesn’t contain any dyes or colorings. If it is easier, or a little less costly, you can substitute the aquarium gravel for just about any gravel as long as the pieces of stone are no larger than the size of a marble. Whatever type of gravel you will be using should first be washed and rinsed to rid it of any sand, dust or dirt particles on it. All you need to do for this is put your gravel in a bucket, fill it with water and then strain out the water. After doing this two or three times should be sufficient enough to clean it. Once the gravel has been washed you can now add it to your aquarium on top of the bubbler. The bottoms of most aquariums are glass - so add the gravel slowly being careful not to break it. Now spread the gravel out with your hand to form an even flat layer across the bottom of your setup.
The next step in this process is to add some water to your tank. Begin by pouring water over the gravel until it is about ¼” to ½” below the top of the gravel (plain tap water is fine for doing this). You can now plug your air pump in to make sure everything is working correctly up to this point. You should be able to see and hear air bubbles rising to the surface of the water and breaking. You can now unplug your air pump until everything is completed. If progress is going as expected, you are almost ready to start growing mushrooms.

The next thing you will need to do is get your six green scouring pads ready. These scouring pads are sold in almost all grocery stores and can be found in the same area where dish liquid is being kept on the shelf. They are a dark green color and measure about 4” by 6” and about ¼” thick. You will normally find them in packs of 2 or 4 each. Just sit these six pads on top of the gravel in your tank and make sure they are level and flat (see pictures).
Well, your BUBBLE OR NOTHING setup is almost complete at this stage and all that is missing are your six 100% colonized half-pint substrate cakes. Assuming you have the colonized cakes ready to place in the aquarium you should take the first substrate jar, turn it upside down and thump it against the hard heal of your hand one or two times. This should break the cake free where it will slide back and forth inside the jar. Now remove the screw off metal ring part of the lid and sit it aside. Remove the flat disc part of the lid and lay it upside down (gasket facing up) in the center of the first green scrubbing pad in your aquarium. Slowly turn your substrate jar over so that the mycelium cake will slide out and sit in the center of the lid you just placed on the scrubbing pad. Your mycelium cake should now be sitting upside down and will need to be turned over so it will be sitting upright again like it was when it was colonizing in the jar. The reason it needs flipped over is because the bottom of your mycelium cake is flat and the top usually isn’t. By flipping the cake over it will be able to stand straight up on the lid instead of sitting at an angle. Making sure your hands are clean, just take your thumb and index finger, pick the cake up, flip it over and sit it back down in the center of the inverted lid. Continue doing these same steps with each colonized jar until you have all six mycelium cakes sitting on the six lids that are centered on the six green scrubbing pads.

The last and final stage to setting this system up is placing the cover over your aquarium. This is where the plastic wrap, or Saran Wrap, is used. Starting at one end of your aquarium you should unroll enough plastic wrap to cover the entire top and still have at least six inches of extra wrap left over on each end. Stretch the plastic wrap tight over the top of your aquarium and stick the left over inches of wrap to the glass on the two ends of the tank. I’ve found it easier to accomplish this if I stick six inches or so of wrap to the glass on one end of the tank and then unroll the plastic wrap to cover the top. I then unroll the extra six inches of wrap and stick it to the glass on the other end of the tank before I cut it from the roll.

Well, if you have followed my instructions correctly, all that is left is for you to do is plug your air pump in and wait. The only reasons you will need to remove the plastic wrap from the top of your aquarium will be to add water (about once a week) and to harvest your mushrooms. When you do need to remove the plastic wrap to do anything, you can just peel the plastic wrap from one of the ends of the terrarium and hold it up so you can reach in with your other hand. Then, when you’re finished you just pull the plastic tight and re-stick it to the glass.

“VISUAL PICTURE GUIDE”

The following picture is just another view of what everything should look like.



“HARVESTING MUSHROOMS”

The next picture shows what you should expect to see 10 to 14 days after setting everything up using the BUBBLE OR NOTHING technique. If everything goes as planned, you should begin seeing your first mushrooms pinning somewhere around the tenth day after setting everything up. It could take more or less time, but I’ve found the tenth day after the initial setup to be most common one. Looking at the following picture, I like to harvest my mushrooms when they look like the ones on day twelve if I want to make spore prints from them (aren’t their purple skirts pretty?). Notice how the caps of the mushrooms are opened, but not fully flat (rounded tops). If you don’t need to make, or don’t need any more spore prints, you can wait until the edges of the caps are beginning to turn upward as in the picture taken on day thirteen.
To harvest any mushrooms that are ready, all you need to do is grab the stem close to the mycelium cake they are sprouting from and give them a gentle wiggle or twist (they will break right off). Once you have some harvested some fresh mushrooms you can collect their spores, dry them or eat them fresh. Even if you decide to collect their spores, when you’re done you can still dry them or eat them fresh.

 

ADVANCE to Chapter 7: LEAPING LIZARD TECHNIQUE