# New and Improved 42 Gal Hex



## Frog723 (Apr 1, 2005)

Well I've completed my 42 hex and have had it up for a little over a month now. It houses 3 leucs.

Front View:









Right View:









Left View:









Top Level of Viv:










There are a couple really odd looking mushrooms growing in the viv right now as well:

Beginning of shroom:









After about a week:









From Underneath:










Hope everyone enjoys the pictures.


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## Frank H (Nov 3, 2005)

Awesome shrooms.. . Did you plant those? 

I like the viv too.. NIce job.


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## grech (Sep 15, 2005)

those mushrooms are :shock: real cool!

hows the calathea in the back doing? is it planted in a pot?


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## JoshKaptur (Feb 17, 2004)

Beautiful tank... I too love the shrooms.


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2005)

Wow, I'm impressed with the variety you've got going in there. 

And man, those mushrooms are awesome!


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## StevenBonheim (Feb 22, 2004)

Those are really cool. You should try and find out its name....that one looks easy to ID...Cool viv!


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## Frog723 (Apr 1, 2005)

Thanks for all the compliments.

No, I didn't plant those. They just sprang up all over the place. I think there are about 10 growing right now.

The calathea is doing really well, its planted right in the substrate no pot. I've noticed new growth on it.

I would really like to try and ID it but I have no idea where to start, any suggestions?

When I woke up this morning the mushroom had completely opened, its looks really cool. I didn't have enough time to take a picture before work. I'll try and get one tonight.


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2005)

send us the spores!! Haha, lol, I wish. 

There should be someplace that sells mushroom spores just for vivs.


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## Jay Why (Aug 27, 2005)

Khamul1of9 said:


> send us the spores!! Haha, lol, I wish.
> 
> There should be someplace that sells mushroom spores just for vivs.


Thats what I was thinking, but I don't think we need a store, just some
kind folks who have shrooms in their vivs willing to send out a sporeprint. 

Maybe this should go with Coreys plant-exchange, but once one person has got their shrooms growing from a print, it would be very easy for them to pass on spores. Chain-mail-like, actually. 

To make a sporeprint is easy - just cut a shroom cap off, place it on a 
notecard, put a bowl over it to keep humidity up and in an hour or so you
have hundreds of thousands (or more) spores sitting on the card. Put it in a ziplock and stick it in the mail.

Who's up for spore chain-mail?


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## karag (May 12, 2005)

That looks great...


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## Guest (Nov 22, 2005)

I would be totally into it! I say we post this under the heading spore exchange. 

I had a few times seeded my tank with mushrooms collecting wild unopened shrooms and put the caps directly on the soil so that the spores would grow there. To bad it didnt last long though. But I would be very willing to try again.


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## Frog723 (Apr 1, 2005)

Well here is an updated pic this is with one days growth, notice how much the shrooms around it grew! I'll try to get a spore print, using Jay Why's method. Do I need to do it as soon as the shroom opens? If I get some I will let you all know.


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## Jay Why (Aug 27, 2005)

Wow - now that's cool. I like just waking up in the morning to see how much my FF culture's or pothos in the viv have grown - but shroom growth... fun.

This is what I found regarding time to make a print:

"A `print` is a collection of spores a mushroom drops once it has reached full maturity. A spore print is a piece of paper (or wax paper, card stock, index card, tinfoil, or photo paper, glass slide....) that has this collection of spores on it. When a mushroom is almost fully mature, the cap is removed from the stem, placed on the printing `paper`, and the cap will drop a pattern of spores onto the `paper` over a period of 12 hours to 2 days (depending on how long it is left to print)."

I'm just making an educated guess, but it seems like a `mature` shroom is the one that is spread out to its max, because that means the adult shroom is dropping its spores as far as it can from itself. Seems like shrooms live a hard and fast life, so once it starts shrinking and going brown to black, the spores will be less to be had.

I'm starting to get real interested in this little explored area of viv design.... might be a dead-end, might be a gold-mine - I'm checking it out either way.


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## hkspowers (Aug 23, 2005)

I have that exact same tank, and it is currently set up very simmilar, but I was also wondering do you have yours set up with false bottom? I do but I find it troublesome in this particular tank. Just a few questions. 

James


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## Guest (Nov 23, 2005)

Can you tell if your mushrooms are gilled? Under the cap do they look like they have gills? I wanna see if I can sort of id it using the mushrooms hand books the mycology class uses.


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## Guest (Nov 23, 2005)

I think I found it!!!!! I believe it might be Lepiota lutea. 
I used the how to know the gilled mushrooms, and then I used yahoo images to find the species. I got soooo lucky.

http://www.painetworks.com/pages/09/090088.html


http://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/feb2002.html


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## Frog723 (Apr 1, 2005)

Thanks Khamul that is it! I looked online yesterday with no luck.

I've started a spore print. I took the cap from the original mushroom this morning and placed it under a bowl (crossing fingers).

This morning all the mushrooms around the original had opened up there caps. It looks pretty cool, I'll get a picture later. I'm going to try to get spores from some of these new ones, too.

James - I had a false bottom at first in this tank which turned out to be a bit of a hassle. That was part of the reason why I changed it. Now it is leca covered with screen covered with substrate. If there are any other questions don't hesitate to ask.


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## hkspowers (Aug 23, 2005)

thanks man, yeah the false bottom is a hassle with this tank, the shape is just not good for it. lol I will ask you if I have any more questions.

James


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## Moe (Feb 15, 2004)

That is awesome. Shrooms only grow in clean and perfect environments, good job on the vivarium.

M.N


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## Jay Why (Aug 27, 2005)

Moe said:


> That is awesome. Shrooms only grow in clean and perfect environments, good job on the vivarium.
> 
> M.N


Wait a minute Moe - what is clean and perfect about a viv? Some 
shrooms grow from cow poo - how clean is that?

Fungi and molds are very competitive with each other so to grow a 
specific kind of shroom requires alot of sterilization and care to be
sure the mycelium you want can take hold first. Shrooms grow in
all kinds of environments though.


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## kyle1745 (Feb 15, 2004)

Looks good!


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## Frog723 (Apr 1, 2005)

Thanks for all the replies.

Well the spore print I tried failed. I did it for several shrooms with no luck. I think the problem is that they usually would open in the morning right as I was rushing to leave for work and I wasn't able to start the spore print till I got home that evening, leaving very few spores left. I've got a couple more starting to grow again so maybe I'll try again.


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## Guest (Dec 1, 2005)

Well all those spores are prob. seeded in your viv now. I bet one of these days your going to wake up to quite a surprize, and then you should have plenty more chances to try to get a print. Good Luck, and great job on the viv, It really looks good.


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## Ryan (Feb 18, 2004)

Jay Why said:


> Moe said:
> 
> 
> > That is awesome. Shrooms only grow in clean and perfect environments, good job on the vivarium.
> ...


Straight forward cow poo is much cleaner then youd think. 

Ryan


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## Guest (Feb 23, 2006)

Hey, anymore shrooms pop up in you viv?????


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## Frog723 (Apr 1, 2005)

No new types of shrooms. The yellow ones keep popping up a little less frequently but still there. Here is a pic of bunch of them growing all at once.


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## Guest (Mar 5, 2006)

Is that a Mag-Float on the glass? What do you use it for and is it effective?


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## Frogtofall (Feb 16, 2006)

Squidbillie said:


> Is that a Mag-Float on the glass? What do you use it for and is it effective?


People use them to wipe the condensation off the glass. It works alright.


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## Guest (Mar 6, 2006)

Cause I have one on my fish tank. Never though of that....


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## Guest (Mar 6, 2006)

Very nice, very nice. I hope you enjoy the show.


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## jschroeder (Mar 19, 2005)

Those shrooms must be a Washington thing, I get them occasionally when I add collected moss to a tank but they have never seemed to come back after they fruit. Nice pics though, I wish I would have taken a few when I had them before.


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