Mushrooms

[Sam]

Woohoo Mushroom season is well and truly here! just had a cep and parasol cob.. yum! wonder if I could grow mushrooms on the moss islands or if any live in symbiosis with anything I can plant just out of the water like maybe a tropical bonsai
wonder if plecs will eat ceps? proteineous but maybe not good for their digestion system as mushrooms seem to take a while to digest .
If anyone is going mushrooming take a damn good book with you or mobile internet and check and make sure then again and then again as some can make you very poorly and a few will kill with no known antidote , they are well described in the books and on the web... unless your a mycologist then I guess you're ok

[geminiluna]

Sweet! Enjoy!

I had to do a double-take to check your location. Being here in the US, I equate "mushroom season" with the much coveted morel mushroom. In my part of Indiana, that typically is toward the last week of April. And boy is it a treat to find a good mess of them!

[apistomaster]

I have never tried feeding mushrooms to plecos but I don't see why they would not like them.

Mushroom culture is very complicated. I have raised a few batches of
Psilocybe cubensis in quart jars. You have to make a blend of rye and sterilize the jars and media in a pressure cooker. Then introduce some mycelium and hope you do not contaminate the media. Once the mycelium has completely infiltrated in and on the rye you remove the lids and top with about an inch of potting soil. This is called "casing". You place the cased jars in a covered aquarium and maintain 100% relative humidity and soon the fruiting bodies(Mushrooms) emerge. This technique works on most Mushrooms but temperate species are very difficult to culture and you need a spare refrigerator to culture them.

In my younger days while I was still living in Seattle we always looked forward to fall and winter.
That is when Chantrelles fruit as do about half dozen native species of Psilocybe. One definitely must be certain of the identity of the psychedelic and deadly Little Brown Mushrooms(LBM's) Just one or two Galerina autumnalis specimens will put you on the liver transplant list and your chances aren't good.
Here in Eastern WAshington spring is when our Morels pop up. It is too dry in the summer and fall for them but if you know where to go you can collect several full five gallon buckets with Morels.

[characinfan]

Whoa, mushroom season here (Toronto) is generally late September-mid-October (except for morels).

For the record, my fish showed zero interest in button mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus).