Slight mold with copiapoa seedlings

[EliWhitney3140]

Hello everybody, so I have been buying a lot of different Copiapoa Cinerea seeds and just started sewing them. I have a few questions to ask.

So my process was getting 6 oz sundae cups with lids and filling them with 5 parts sieved pumice to 1 part worm castings. I microwave the worm castings for about 40 seconds to get rid of any nasty bugs or surprises and mix it in with the pumice. I added a light top dressing of baked red clay substrate. I bought glass jars specifically for sewing seeds and wiped them down with alcohol. I filled them with distilled water and a couple drops of 3% hydrogen peroxide and added the seeds. I let them soak for an hour and then put them into the cups. I have them under grow lights and on a heat bed. I unplug the heat bed after the lights go off to mimic the nights of Chile. It has been a couple days and I am already seeing the Cinerea germinating! My only concern is I am seeing a little bit of mold around a few of the seeds. Should I hit them with a fungicide or leave them covered, I really don't want to take the lids off unless I have to. Any thoughts?

[The_Nikon_Guy]

Personally, I have faced the exact same problem you ar facing - I normally spray the seedlings with a very dilute (1/4 strength) of fungicide and also expose the soil mix to the atmosphere to get rid of some of the excess moisture.
One thing I have noticed is this - microwaving the soil gets rid of all the bad stuff - but it also gets rid of all the good stuff.
What that means is after microwaving, you have soil which has not microboal life in it at all - its equally possible for the bad guys to inhabit your soild instead of the good guys - something you need to be carefull about.

[Steve Johnson]

Hi Eli,

Your thread is now in the right forum, so I deleted the duplication you had in the Cultivation forum.

[Jangaudi]

hmm, I think microwaving for 40 seconds is not enough, spores are known to be rather tough. I personally do it for up to 10 minutes, but it's an old microwave so it might be less powerfull. Also I think it's better to soak in a bleach bath for 5 to 10 minutes, like 1/4th, 1/5th diluted, to sterilise the seeds, and that right after the 24 hours soak, otherwise the seeds just float and it has little effect. And also, I'd just include the glass jars in the microwaving process, that's what I do, fill up the bottom of the jars with soil, add about half volume of water (if it's dry) add a top layer of coarse sand, and put that in the microwave.