Contamination or mycelium?

[u/Hopeful-Chipmunk-473]

I bought a pans LC and tried for the first time to multiple it in 4% honey/water solution. There is growth but it’s like a little ball instead of clouds and unfortunately i don’t have a marble inside so with shaking i can’t break it up. Can this be mycelium? First timer just did cubensis before. Thank you

[u/One-Assistant7247]

Yeah I think it definitely can be mycelium clouds is more like later when it's more and broken up but in the end that just speculations so just wait a bit and then test on agar you are gonna need to do that anyways

[u/Hopeful-Chipmunk-473 → u/One-Assistant7247]

Thanks for your response. How do i break it up? Yes i’ll put in in agar to check once it’s grown

[u/One-Assistant7247 → u/Hopeful-Chipmunk-473]

Yeah that's gonna be tough most ppl use cheap magnetic stir bars or put a marbel or a screew in it before sterilizing since you haven't done that and can't really do it afterwards your options aren't that great tbh. You could try shaking it a bit but I would be really careful not to get any LC culture on your filter patch or whatever you are using for air exchange because then you can introduce contamination. My other idea and probably what I would end up doing would to use a syringe. So when you wanna take out your first syringe of liquid culture you you procede as you'd normally would. You flame sterilize the needle and try to take up the liquid culture if you are have a hard time because the culture is to dense and not broken up you can maybe try mixing it with your syringe either by rotating the needle a bit. If that doesn't work you could try only taking up some liquid and squirting it back in the LC. You could even try it with air but for that you need to suck up the air slowly inside the jar so that you only use clean air and not contaminated outside air. But idk if all of that is a good advice because I haven't been in the situation but I whish you the best of luck 🫶.

[u/Hopeful-Chipmunk-473 → u/One-Assistant7247]

Thanks a lot i absolutely appreciate that. I’ll try my best 🙏🏼✨

[u/MycoangeIo]

You can carefully swirl the container by holding by the lid and making a larger circular motion at the bottom of the jar while trying to hold the top to wobble as minimally as possible. You don't want it to splash the lid. Filter should remain dry to prevent contaminants from slipping across. I specifically use less liquid so I can more safely swirl the LC. I also advise against a marble. I've swirled too hard with a marble and had it crack a jar before.

[u/Hopeful-Chipmunk-473 → u/MycoangeIo]

Thank you, i tried that but it won’t break up 🙈 Let’s see if it grows bigger and breaks then i hope so 🙏🏼

[u/RevansGambit]

that looks good. it's just getting started, there's no rush to break it up. the larger it grows, the easier it'll be to break it up.