I’m looking for ideas and thoughts on increasing subsequent flushes’ effectiveness in mono tubs or tek that you do that might be unique.
For example, when rehydrating, some may use water and soak for a few hrs or up to 24 hrs before draining, while others add ice and letting melt to cold shock and rehydrate.
One technique I’m going to try tomorrow is rehydrating with cold water mixed with Cocco wet wetting agent to help penetrate the substrate. Let us have a think tank. Thanks
Just water in a spray bottle. Your only rehydrating. Never understood why people soaked for long periods of time. When does something like that occur in nature unless it’s a flood?
I have some massive first flushes where it removes nearly all the water from the coco sub and needs to be rehydrated properly for a nice second flush weight wise
1 hour per 1” sub thickness so 3-4 hours max on a submerge imo
Maybe the guru @Thetetraguy will come and drop some wisdom
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Mushroom fruiting bodies are 90% water and that water comes from the substrate. You can weigh your substrate at field capacity then again and after flush. The missing moisture weight will correspond with the water weight of your flush. When resoaking you are trying to bring your substrate back to field capacity moisture levels that would be present after a rain storm a few inches down in the soil. And finally, floods do happen in nature all the time, no not Noah level, but on a micro level a small amount of rain can have a massive flood effect if you are an ant or mycelium
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Thanks for joining the conversation
Do you have a preference for water temp? Or, adding any supplements to the water for a little boost?
i grew bulk mush for years and used that money to start my first canabis business in 2016. i understand the premise, I would get 4 flushes per tub and never once soaked substrate in a tub, pool or anything. Poured some water back into the monotubs, adjust the polyfil if need be and mist if necessary. Excess water can cause fungal pigmentation, but I am sure you already know that.
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Ive weighed the mass of substrate before and after a flush. It does correlate but u need to take in account that your block is at field capacity when fresh. You are taking mass away from the block everytime u pick, so adding water to the same tare weight as b4 u picked, is too much water.
Adding too much water can actually have a negative impact on how well the next flush is going to do.
If u want to stay ontop of it, u can grab a 60ml syringe with a needle tip and push distilled or sterilized water into it. Another neat trick is using manure water thats been sterilized.
A good rule of thumb for hydrating based on mass is hydrating 60% of the mass u took off from the block.
Injecting water has always been better than a dunk, i get like a 25% success rate on dunking or soaking. Injecting is much cleaner
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I pour the water directly into my mono tubs as well. Haven’t had a overhydration problem leading to pigmentation yet. What works for one and their environment setup etc. is different for others. Glad your ways worked for you. The question was what you do between flushes and you have answered your style/tek. Thanks
Sorry, I should have been more clear of taking weight at field capacity before the first flush and comparing.
And good idea on using pasturized manure water.
Another neat trick is flipping ur block over after 3 or 4 flushes. They treat the underside as a new place to grow and end up pushing out 2 more flushes without hydration. The most ive gotten is 6 flushes without hydrating and the block shrunk down to about 70% of its initial volume.
Oh and after a hydration, to increase ur likelihood of getting another good flush, you want to raise ur co2, so if u have a co2 tank just pump two or three blasts of co2 into the bag or tub before closing it up again.
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Love it.
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The old way of the inner reservoir technique from the jar days im sure could be implemented into a mono tub
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I was just thinking that to reintroduce a little C02 during flushes you could stick a little Green Pad jr. C02 Generator used for clone domes inside the mono tub. It uses some humidity in a chemical reaction(didn’t look at the actual details) to produce small amounts of CO2. If you have tanks by all means but not all new fungi growers especially not from the weed growing variety might have them. 10 pads are like 12$ at a grow shop
I totally missed the context of this post when I first read it. Definitely not my department, carry on.
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Ive got a friend who sells argon in a bottle for terp preservation. Selling a small bottle of co2 might work for the mushy department 
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Get a good sprayer that puts out a large volume at high enough pressure to be a soft mist. spraying pins with high pressure can cause aborts.
and yeah, don’t soak. You are just asking for bacteria to set in if you do. Just clean as much of the stumps/leftover fruit off the top as possible and mist it until soaked, do it several times the first day or two. Then mist when the container looks dry. you want droplets on the walls.
I personally hate second flushes, and if given the choice would pick, dump, and reload with everything fresh. I just hate dealing with contam and leaving anything in my fruit room for that long is asking for problems imho. But a ton of people swear by it so to each their own.
As for CO2, I’m always trying to get rid of that, unless I want mycelium to grow. They breath like us, O2 in CO2 out. get a meter and check in your tote, or whatever you got em in sometime, you’ll be surprised how high it can get
I noticed that the flushes are about half of the next IE
First 8oz
Second 4oz
Third 2oz
Fourth 1oz
If I grew again I definitely wouldn’t bother with the 4th
One thing I did notice though was sometimes flushes are skipped like if I got a massive first flush lets say 11oz when it should be 8oz, the second flush would be way less then the third would be bigger
I think this has to do with the pinset (sub surface being obliterated be the massive first flush)and also water content. Another thing I noticed was that the rooms Rh does matter. If the room is 30rh it is sucking moisture out of your tubs. Even if there are 20 tubs in that room
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I like 60 rh for closed container rooms, and 80 rh for open container growing (like gourmets).
After the first flush they need to be sealed again or closed up or (if ur whole room is on the same batch cycle) lower ur fae for 3 or 4 days. I like injecting about 100cc of water into the block the first day after a big flush and then misting every other day for 3 or 4 days. Then i let it sit until i see primordia again, then open the bag a bit, cut a slit or (if ur whole room is on the same batch cycle) increase ur fae again.
I found there isnt just one good way to do things, its all dependent on whats in the room, what stage they are in and what ur equipment looks like.
For example if u dont have a humidity fogger increasing ur rh, i wouldnt cut slits or open ur bags, they probably have enough moisture in them already to get them to their first flush. If u dont open ur bags then just increase ur fae cycle. If u do open ur bags, then the fae is probably fine but u need to focus on ur rh.
Its a balancing act, and a fogger, a co2 monitor and a smart timer are ur best friends.
1200ppm co2 for mycelium growth and initiating primorida growth, 800ppm co2 when primoridia forms and u want pins to pop out.
Unless u get a co2 monitor into ur tub, always assume ur closed bags or monotubs are about 100-200ppm higher then ur room.
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What kind of setup do you have for co2 and smart timer? inkbird?