# Lab journal - tissue culture startup



## adkaqua

As requested by a friend.. yes if you're on Barr report it's identical post. Was requested to put on here. This is one of two diy projects I'm involved in right now. The other is a very involved rebuild of a 35g tank, with handmade background, diy co2 reactor, going rimless, the works. That's gotta be another thread tho.

This is not a brief post. Please don't read it and complain it's long. Youve been warned. Yes. Essay. If its not your thing, this isn't the thread for you. It's a journal thread about my tissue culture startup, Adirondack Aquascaping. Being launched from a 2bdrm apartment using half of my 401k.

So I've been asked by ppl on discord, Facebook, and other forums to do some kind of journal about what I've done/am doing. There are no promises I will update it super often. I will not, however abandon the thread. What's discussed here... Is currently effectively a second full time job. I work 3 to 4 12h days in semiconductor fab, am in a raid guild in Warcraft (say what you will, it's fun), and have a marriage to actually maintain a through those and this startup. So a blog being updated day by day... Eh. Not #1. But I will come with updates and pictures and converse in comments and such as frequently as I can. At least a few times a week, and on my days that I'm off work and only working in lab, I'll make time before I get on for raid in wow to respond to anything in comments that I can if people have engaged me. Maybe nobody will read it and nobody really cares. Who knows. But I'll check and add to it as often as I can.

**Background- BS in plant biotechnology from SUNY ESF. Worked in tissue culture and molecular biology labs in undergrad years. Ended up in semiconductors because my wife and I wanted to live where we grew up, and there's not exactly ag research going on in upstate New York. So this isn't some internet educated dive off the deep end into something I thought would be fun. In quite a bit of debt to learn how to do this stuff and study under the professors I did. So while I don't have a master's degree, I'm still quite familiar with the workings of a TC lab**

So the good stuff... The 'journal' for the journal thread.

About a month and a half ago I went to a workshop at my favorite LFS. Cost $25 to go, got a $25 gift card for store, so a free day to learn about plants from some company Id never heard of before, but that promises to talk about aquascaping and plants. (That company? Dennerle, hah). Prior to this day, I'd kept only one tank with many plants in it. Low tech 35g with a planted+24/7. Had some easy stuff in my 10g quarantine. Moss balls and feathery plants with my wife's betta. Nothing major, but I wanted to learn more so I went.

As he talked about their company, that had flown him here to USA to talk to us, in a small store in upstate NY.... I was blown away. First thing that came to mind was "hey I should ask him if they're going to be branching operations out to USA, I could apply to work in their labs....". Then I thought 'why?'. I went to school for plant biotechnology. I had some lab equipment at home that I'd slowly been accumulating to have a tissue culture and biohackerish style lab when we got a bigger apartment. Why.... Why not do it myself. So I came home a) with a ton of plants and stuff for my 35g that I decided to get wayyyy super involved in a massive project on, which is another thread entirely, and b) resolved to figure out how to make it happen. I looked into bank loans for the 8 to 10k I'd need to finish setting up. (*Note- I am not saying a TC lab only costs 8k to set up. I had some of the major capital equipment already that I had driven sometimes many hours to pick up from auctions I won over the last 2yrs, things like a ~$20k water distillation rig with auto collection jug, ~$3.5k sterile work cabinet, items I paid a fraction of retail price for but had pieced together over a bit of time). I was not about to pay that kinda interest, and make payments out OF my loan since I didn't have the extra out of my normal paycheck to cover what amounted to almost as much as my car payment for short term personal loan, unsecured.

Debated on crowd funding. Eh. Beggars. Nope.

Cache out Roth? Yep. Let's do it. Then I found out I can borrow half my 401k and pay interest to myself, rather than a bank. So I did that instead. And dumped almost all my penny stocks (that'd actually been doing pretty well, up almost 30% in last 6 months, so I was happy). Finished buying equipment and materials. Cases of growing containers, culture rack and lighting, pipette tips and Petri dishes, agar and plant growth regulators... You name it. I suddenly had a small, but surprisingly well equipped tissue culture lab. Then inventory... Hah. Inventory. I kinda went nuts. Now, starting out a tissue culture lab is easiest with sterile plants to start with. Sooo as is done in the industry (TC, not specifically aquatic plants), I bought them. Last count I think I was up to... 44 species already in tissue culture when. Purchased. Another 50 some odd in a 30g aquarium I bought on Facebook just for use as a holding tank for stock plants. Common things. Expensive and rare things. Everything in between. Even working with APHIS currently to get import permits to buy a bunch of plants I want from Ukraine... But that'll be a later entry.

Got species in. Got my 14qt pressure cooker ready. Media logbook out. Batch 0001.

Now my cooker, while large, holds a Max of 7 of the vessels I had on hand at the time. (This has as of last night been remedied, I have new containers and methods in place to be able to produce 2L, 24 of my new containers, every 40 minutes using the same equipment, so now I can really ramp things up). While the cubes were great in lab at ESF .. with an autoclave room that I could put dozens in at once to steralize... I had to find a solution for that soonish (hence the aforementioned new containers and methods I put in place), but at the time... I made it work. 1/3 of a liter at a time I steralized my culture cubes. That's 40m cycle time to heat, cook 30m, rapid vent to reload and repeat. x6L of media. 12 hours of media prep to make 6L.... But my wife helped me out once I showed her what I was doing stepwise. She was watching to learn and see what exactly I do, had never watched me in lab before, just knew of the work. So she made media when I was at my normal day job and such, when she got home from her job as a teacher.

Started transferring plants from the tissue culture cups I purchased into my own media formulation this past Sunday. 5/20. I've got about half of my tc-stock in culture at this point. Dealing with poor quality purchased plants. Cups that came sealed but had still been contaminated. Cups with no media left because it leaked out into the shipping boxes, or had turned brown and nasty. Bloated and deformed cups. Crushed cups. Cups that appeared to have barely had any media in them to begin with. So what *should* have, in theory, been an easy "open, divide, close, repeat" operation became much involved. I had to wait for some of my chems to come, PPM specifically (plant preservative mixture, an autoclavable antibiotic/antimycotic) to resolve it. So it drastically slowed me. That came in on Wednesday and I've started cleaning up contaminated cultures for use. I also purchased .22um filters and luer lock syringes to use on antibiotics in future to avoid being blindsided by contamination in the future... Those arrive today.

So out of the species I put in my media, 3 showed early signs of bacteria and/or fungal contamination and have been treated. This morning before I left for work at 5am, I moved one from the PPM soak into a low-agar 'liquid'ish media, supplemented with PPM and additional PGRs (plant growth regulators) that I don't use in my normal media. The other two I discovered yesterday were showing contamination so they're currently on my orbital shaker in sterile distilled water + ppm and full strength murishige salts. Tonight they go to their own liquid media with PPM to try to save em. I bought Glossostigma (vendor unnamed, because they were GREAT, but it was specifically all the cups they sold from Aquatic Farmer that were in horrible, horrible condition, and I had issues with same brand from other sites too) that was super bloated. So contaminated the PP cups had deformed from gas pressure inside. I decided to also try to save them, so I treated them last night as any other explant would be treated from a non sterile source. 70% IPA, bleach wash, sterile water rinses, and a 24h PPM bath on the shaker. We'll see if they make it... Those cups we're BAD, and it's a cheap enough plant I don't mind starting over, but it'll be good practice and show me if my experimental liquid media I formulated will be sufficient when paired with my steralizing protocol (slightly modified from the steps listed in any textbook or journal article for decontamination of explants). Also hoping that the liquid media I made will function as a rescue media... My riccardia came without any media at all basically ... And when put under ~20k lumens of t5.... It scorched. Almost everything else thrived as expected, but the riccia and a moss (Vesicularia 'creeping') got burned pretty badly because of being almost dry inside their retail containers. So the surviving green pieces of that are now on the shaker in that media too. Time will tell.

I'll have my tween 20 in today, so I can begin steralizing from my stock tank. Going to start this weekend with a single explant from my iguazu 2009, Anubias snowwhite, a few Echino, and my fissidens nobilis. Hopefully steralizing protocols work, because I have a 30g tank entirely filled with plants. So full I have some floating in a breeder box, and I had to hang a moss mat on the wall of the tank hahaha. That tank is running CO² (my first tank to do so, my 35g rebuild project incorporates it but that's still in progress being built), daily fertilizer rotation of Flourish trace and Excel, Flourish Synthesis every 4d since there's no animals in it except snails, and Flourish (original) every 4d. Has fugeray2 on it. 225gph circulation pump, air bubbler, and a HOB filter designed for a 75g. all the plants are in 2" and 3" mesh cups from hydroponics store, weighted with aquarium gravel in the bottom, organic potting mix, and capped with sand (except a few plants I was lazy on that don't *need* soil, like my rotalla, and plants that rot in soil like the few neat java ferns I have in there, those are just in cups with gravel and lead weight). I need to make room ... Since I have 5 more new Buce, a few Crypts, and another java fern coming. And I am actively hunting for a list of about 30 other species that will need homes if and when I find them. Some I'm trying to source from overseas even, finding suppliers who ship here that I can get my APHIS import permits for.

All in all, Adirondack Aquascaping is looking to launch with a catalog of over 100 species. Took about 10k from my retirement and brokerage account to make it happen, but as long as I can do it with acceptable contamination rates, and find wholesale and direct to consumer sales at a volume to move my inventory, I plan to hopefully be able to quit my job doing microscopy in a semiconductor fab by November and do this full time. It's the perfect combination of my lifelong goal of being a botanist, with my biotech degree, and my love of aquarium keeping. Itd allow me to have a small lab on my property, as my mother once did with a wedding bakery when I was a kid. Letting me always be home and be there for my wife and our kids when we have them. If I can make it work.... This one project could be the key to getting exactly what I wanted out of life. Seems like an overstatement.... But it will. Father who is home and a large part of family life. A home with lots of land. My own business. Working with plants. Its just perfect. And all because I decided to go to a 'free' seminar on aquascaping that gave me the inspiration to put all the pieces together in my head.

Yes, there's a website. Parked. Nothing on it. Facebook has one picture. No updates yet. See disclaimer at start about time for blogging, that's Facebook right now too. Linkedin? Yep. Exists. Has the logo I threw together one night with a graphic I got small business licence for a few weeks back and that's it. Made that page yesterday on break at work haha. I'm very active on discord in a few planted tank and aquascaping channels, namely bc I use discord regularly for warcraft (hence my username ON discord is the same as my main character in WoW, Ehlsuh#8622). I'll do my best to respond to questions and engage in conversation on here though. I promise.

Sorry for the essay. Was several posts worth of journaling but easier than reserving even more posts to make multiple entries. Which... As soon as I post I'm doing. Will also respond inline to comments and convos if anyone wants to chat or learn or ask questions.

Pictures are assorted. My lab as is. Stock tank with all my current inventory. Close-up of my iguazu '09. Shots of the cultures I bought (the small round ones). The cubes with my media in them. I'll add more pictures as time goes along too. 

































































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## adkaqua

Reserved

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## adkaqua

Reserved1

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## adkaqua

Reserved2

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## adkaqua

Reserved3

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## adkaqua

Reserved last. Bc I can't see myself needing more than 4 as first comment

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## DutchMuch

Adkaqua whats the reserved mean?

Also I'm glad I'm your friend  LOL 

Reading your journal now, looks super fantastic so far...! well written.


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## adkaqua

Means I can edit them later and have the new content as top comments at start of thread

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## adkaqua

So new big updates and such that I want to be right there at start of thread I can just edit those reserved comments, and then without scrolling through pages of comments (assuming anyone else comments in this hah) people can see the new stuff. 

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## DutchMuch

Oh ok, i get it, be careful though cause i think after... like 1 day or so your unable to edit it, i would ask @Michael for more info


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## adkaqua

Orly? Thatd be unfortunate haha. I know you can. Do it on YouTube. I assumed here too. 

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## DutchMuch

Yea, finished reading the intro, looks epic!


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## mistergreen

Interesting! I guess if you're going to make this venture a little profitable, culture the more expensive plants like buce..


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## adkaqua

I've got a few buce in stock and on the way. As well as an extensive list of Cryptocoryne and echino. And a lot others. Lemme find my list.... Sec. 

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## adkaqua

Alternantheria reinecke mini
"Ammannia (Nesaea) pedicellate ""Golden"""
Anubias nana 'Pangolino'
Anubias nana 'Pinto'
Anubias nana 'Snowwhite'
Anubias nana 'Stardust'
Anubias nana 'variegated/marbled'
Aponogeton Capuroni
Aponogeton Fenestralis “Madagascar lace”
Aponogeton longiplumulosus
Buce Moss
Bucephalandra 'Icarus Bell'
Bucephalandra 'Red Mini'
Bucephelandra 'green wavy'
Bucephelandra 'red nano'
Bucephelandra belindae
Bucephelandra brownie helena
Bucephelandra brownie jade
Bucephelandra brownie metallica
Bucephelandra brownie red
Callicostella Prabaktiana
Cryptocoryne Axelrodi
Cryptocoryne Balansae
Cryptocoryne bullosa 'Sarawak'
Cryptocoryne Metallic Red
Cryptocoryne Nurii
Cryptocoryne nurii 'pahang'
Cryptocoryne Nurii ‘rosen maiden’
Cryptocoryne retrospiralis
Cryptocoryne Spiralis
Cryptocoryne spiralis 'tiger'
Cryptocoryne spiralis ‘Red'
Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Bronze'
Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Flamingo'
Cryptocoryne wendtii ‘Florida Sunset’
Cryptocoryne wendtii ‘Green Gecko’
Cryptocoryne wendtii ‘Mi Oya’
Cryptocoryne x purpurea
Cryptocoryne x timahensis
Didiplis diandra
Echinodorus Aflame Purple Knight
Echinodorus Aflame
Echinodorus Amazon Sword
Echinodorus angustifolia Vesuvius
Echinodorus Frans Stoffels
Echinodorus Green Ozelot
Echinodorus Kleiner Prinz
Echinodorus martii
Echinodorus radican
Echinodorus radican ‘Marble Queen’
Echinodorus Red Flame
Echinodorus red melon sword
Echinodorus Red ozelot x ozelot
Echinodorus sp. ‘Iguazu 2009’
Echinodorus tenellus
Elatine Hydropiper
Eleocharis acicularis ‘mini’
Eleocharis parvula
Eleocharis vivipara
Eriocaulon Shiga
Hygrophilia balsamica
Eriocaulon Sieboldianum
Fissidens nobilis 'pheonix moss'
Glossostigma elatinoides
Helanthium tenellum "broad leaf"
Hemianthus callitrichoides 'Cuba'
Heteranthera zosterifolia
Hydrocotyle tripartita ‘Mini’
Hygrophilia pinnatifida ‘pheonix fern’
Isoetes lacustris (Octopus plant)
Lagenandra meeboldi (green)
Lagenandra meeboldi (red)
Limnophila aromatica 'hippuroides' (Pink Hippo Grass)
Limnophilia Aromatica
Ludwigia ‘White’
Ludwigia arcuata
Mayaca fluviatilis (Stream bog moss)
Micranthemum ‘Monte Carlo’
Micranthemum umbrosum ‘giant baby tears’
Microsorum pteropus 'Trident Java Fern'
Microsorum pteropus var. “Narrow”
Myriophyllum sp. 'Guyana mini'
Nymphaea zenkeri 'Tiger lotus jade'
Nymphaea zenkeri Tiger lotus red'
Piptospatha ridleyi
Pogostemon deccanensis
Potomogeton gayi
Proserpinaca palustris
Ranunculus inundatus (River Buttercup)
Riccardia Chamedryfolia
Riccia crystalwort
Rotala Bonsai
Rotala macrandra 'Bangladesh'
Rotala macrandra 'butterfly'
Rotala Vietnam
Rotala Walichii**
Vesicularia sp. ‘Creeping moss’
Staurogyne repens
Taxiphyllum Barbieri
Taxiphyllum sp. 'Peacock moss'
Taxiphyllum sp. ‘Flame Moss’
Taxiphyllum sp. ‘Spiky Moss’
Trithuria ‘Blood *****’
Utricularia graminifolia
Vesicularia ferriei ‘weeping moss’
Vesicularia montagnei (Christmas moss)
Vesicularia sp 'Thai Moss'
Vesicularia sp. Mini Xmas Moss

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## adkaqua

I've got about 3 dozen others I'm actively hunting for. Found a source for almost all of em. Just gotta bring myself to buy em. 

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## DutchMuch

*passes out*


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## adkaqua

Hah. Well. It's more at this point 'i need money' than convincing. I have a line on.... 

Barclaya Longifolia Red 
Bacopa sp. Colorata 
Cabomba Red Belem 
Cryptocoryne nurii "Green", Telang Selatan 
Cryptocoryne sp NILESHWAR-B 
Eriocaulon Pineapple from Kamihata 
Eriocaulon sp. King Crimson
Hygrophila polysperma 'Tiger'
Lagenandra sp. THENKASI 
Limnophila sp Belem 
Ludwigia Marilia 
Ludwigia inclinata var. verticillata 'Pantanal'
Ludwigia Senegalensis
Myriophyllum Tuberculatum
Persicaria Praetermissa / Ruby
Pogostemon helferi red 
Pogostemon sp. Australia
Rotala sp. Maka Red 
Staurogyne sp. Bihar
Vallisneria Spiralis " Leopard"


Those from Ukraine. Cost about $250 to get. 


These from India

Ammannia crassicaulis
Bacopa caroliniana
Bacopa salzmannii
Bacopa sp. Colorata
Cabomba furcata
Cabomba Red Belem
Cuphea anagalloidea
Hygrophila Lancea
Hygrophila polysperma 'Tiger'
Lagenandra sp. THENKASI
Lindernia sp. 'India'
Ludwigia glandulosa
Ludwigia repens x L. arcuata
Ludwigia Senegalensis
Microsorum pteropus 'Philippine'
Myriophyllum Tuberculatum
Persicaria Praetermissa / Ruby
Persicaria sp. 'Sao Paulo'
Pogostemon Kimberley
Pogostemon sp. Dassen
Rotala Macrandra Japan Red
Staurogyne sp. Bihar
Syngonanthus sp. Rio Uaupes
Vallisneria Spiralis " Leopard"

"rotala pearl type 1 , type 2 , rotala ceylon , rotala colorata , hygrophula white , hygrophila balsamica red, some erios , blood ***** , hair grass belem , and much more"



So that's another few hundred dollars to get the ones not from Ukraine. I've got a line on 3 other cryptos running $30/EA. Word on when crypto pink panther will be back in stock in this country and advance notice. And WORKING on getting hygrophilia 'chai'. Working on it. Want it so very badly. And if someone has it and happens to read this and wants to be my hero..... Pm me plz. 

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## adkaqua

Basically I need to start selling asap so I can buy more plants that nobody else has yet from sources I found from hours on the web. That's why this weekend, my big ticket Anubias and Iguazu go into decontamination and culture. Get them babies to market. Few of them and I'd be well on my way to 200 species with things barely available on US markets, if at all 

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## DutchMuch

uuuugh
i want Iguazu one day SO bad.


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## adkaqua

I sold the last of my penny stocks today. So in a few days when the cash is reconciled, and then once I GET the cash..... I'm likely buying all the above species I can afford. Got about $600 coming. So I should be able to buy every single thing from Ukraine and a ton from my Indian contact. I'll need a second stock tank before long haha

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## DutchMuch

Shiz where are you selling? XD i need in this!


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## adkaqua

Selling plants or stocks? Stocks was NYSE via Fidelity. Plants.... I don't have anything available for sale yet. About a third of current stuff in culture multiplying tho

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## DutchMuch

OOHHH i thought you meant plant stock
i remember you telling me about the stock thing nvm lmao sorry. 
When you get ready to sell remember to hit me up early.


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## mistergreen

I bought some cultured Java ferns a few months back from petsmart. I put it in my low tech tank. It doesn't grow new leaves except for baby plantlets under its old leaves. Is this normal?


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## adkaqua

Did you bury the roots? They don't appreciate that

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## adkaqua

I have some in my low tech ATM. Was a small chunk of windelov. I anchored it by putting between two small fake granite caves. There was 3 caves and some rocks grouped together. Only been in there about 8 or 9 months, and there's a 6 inch mat of windelov where it has just overgrown and overtaken everything. If you burried the rhizome, try anchoring it with fishing line, superglue, between deco, etc. It will grip on to whatever it is against and go crazy. They pull most of nutrients from water column not soil. Grow real slow (or die when rhizome rots) if you bury the bottom

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## adkaqua

5/26
Liquid media test I started 2d ago seems to be working well. Had some plants come in that were contaminated in their tissue culture packaging already so I had to try to save them. Lost one completely, nbd. The others made it into a quick isopropyl wash, bleach wash, rinsed, and into my experimental media before their new cubes got completely overtaken by bacteria and fungus. The 4 I was worried about all turned out nasty. Lost one from that batch though. Also decided to take two cups I was to throw away, Glossostigma, and try to save em. Original and replacement were both horribly bloated and slimy with bacteria. Same lab as the others.... No surprise. Different website but same supplier. Rather than toss em I hit em with a little more aggressive steralizing protocol, and before work this morning they also got put in my low agar liquid media on the orbital shaker. Time will tell. Glosso is cheap enough, but it'll be a good test. If I can save it, odds are good that protocol will work on the plants coming out of my aquarium next. Submerged (and terrestrial plant explants taken from under soil) plants can be hard to steralize without killing them. So this is as much a test of the media and protocol as it is saving 2 cups of glosso. In a week I'll move them back to a more solid media on the grow racks with the rest. Got all my tools and glassware cleaned last night so I'm ready to get back to multiplying tonight after work! Aiming for another dozen or so. 

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## mistergreen

adkaqua said:


> Did you bury the roots? They don't appreciate that
> 
> Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk


No, I stuck them on a driftwood. They're windelov and narrow leaf.
I wonder if it's a transitional thing where they were grown emersed and can't adapt to submerged except to grow plantlets.


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## adkaqua

Might be. Haven't had that problem myself. Might not like your water. Might be a lot of things. I'd have to research it myself 

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## adkaqua

5/28


Contamination is what the last 2 days have been all about here. More than expected have contamination. That's what I get for not disinfecting every plant. I foolishly treated them as if sterile. However.... They were not. Every one that had leaked at all. . Mold. It's not ubiquitous in all samples. Just the ones that had been open. Even the containers I hadn't made it to yet to get into culture are starting to grow it. There must be less sugar in the media they are shipped in... Slower growth rate from less food, or maybe different pH than I'm using that inhibits the growth. But the little white spots are there. And the cups that we're leaking but sealed-ish... Same stuff. So rather than new cultures today, I was playing catch-up. And I have more to save tomorrow. Made myself a nice new media with half the agar (closer to liquid), and with PPM in it at .2% as directed by manufacturer for endogenous contamination. Had to steralize with 1% bleach, 70% IPA, 10% bleach. Now out of sterile distilled water gotta make more tomorrow. (Note to self- get a darn reverse osmosis rig to keep up with the volume of purified water I'm gonna need... Can't wait till I'm in a place that I can use my Barnstead still, but in other countries they use RO water to great success). Hopefully I can recover some of them. I lost 2 more species. One hadn't even been opened by me, it was just overrun BAD and I am not dealing with that. Time will tell now. 


Also realized I was letting my excitement get the best of me. 100 species at launch? In 6months? Hahaha. That's a joke. By myself that's never gonna happen. So I'm going to aim for a more modest 30 to 40. Species I have in culture from other suppliers already and can hopefully easily steralize and establish in my media. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to add to my collection as I can. Working in getting about another 30 in stock currently actually. They won't, however, be available at launch. I'll have to split my website into a 'for sale/coming soon' page that has all current sale stock and which species are being multiplied or established next. And then also have a page that's just 'my plant collection' that lists everything I personally own. They'll all hopefully make it into culture over time, however having available at start of sales is not only unrealistic, trying to do so is going to negatively impact my ability to get anything done properly. If it takes off and I gain enough traffic and fans and customers, I'll have votes on which plants people would most like to see moved from 'collection' to 'coming soon'. The only things I'm going to move into culture from my tank up front, or try to, is the 4 expensive Anubias I have, maybe my crypto nurii variations, crypto. x timahensis, and pink panther (once in stock, that's one I'm working on procuring ATM). Once I'm in a real lab space as a business, working out of a 6 or 8 foot laminar cabinet and making media by the gallons. . . I'll step up the rest. Right now I just don't have the capacity to do 100+ species on my own. 


Hopefully I don't lose more to whatever fungus this is. Here's hoping an aggressive steralizing protocol saves em. I'm well past doa window, so I may have to move plants into aqurium to save them rather than have them die in culture. Then grow em out and try from scratch down the road. That's what I get for treating stuff I bought as being as sterile as something I'd make myself. Never again. 

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## mistergreen

What's in your agar medium?
Can you put in anti-fungal/mold chemical in the medium? I think they add Calcium propionate in commercial breads.

In nature I guess the plants have bio friends to help with mold and such.

*** Oh also, what's your light source? Would be nice and cheap to use sun light.


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## DutchMuch

i know that glossofactory makes an anti mold.


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## adkaqua

Base media was the standard .7% agar, 3% sucrose, 1mg/L BA. Made before I got PPM in. Now all my plants are going to be treated as they would be in the lab if I'd collected them from a pond. After steralizing.... They're going in a .4% agar with .2% PPM. ****s expensive. But works great. It puts a damper on my next major plant order I was gonna put in to build inventory.... About $640 per liter. I only bought 250mL and I'm gonna buy more. 

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## adkaqua

https://www.plantcelltechnology.com/about-ppm/

That's what we used when I was in the research lab in college. Works really well. Broad spec anti mycotic and antibiotic. Doesn't harm plant tissue.

Wish I'd been a little more careful and treated them as small portions of portions contaminated explants rather than expecting that cups I got via air mail had been sterile. Cups that had been shipped internationally to the vendors I bought at, and then across the country to get to me. So far, 16 contaminated. Various fungal contaminants, but at least it's all fungal. And all consistent (all from each brand have the same contaminants, and it's not just everything in every cup, which means it wasn't me who introduced it)

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## adkaqua

And sunlight is good but irregular. Need consistency. They're on racks under T5 [email protected] 6500K. 10k lumens to start, which is half of what these racks are capable of. TC plants get a 14h photoperiod, at least during establishing. So sun is out. 

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## DutchMuch

adkaqua said:


> And sunlight is good but irregular. Need consistency. They're on racks under T5 [email protected] 6500K. 10k lumens to start, which is half of what these racks are capable of. TC plants get a 14h photoperiod, at least during establishing. So sun is out.
> 
> Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk


true, and good lights. i have the same.


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## adkaqua

Wonderful lights. Ideally they'd be in a room without windows and only illuminated on my schedule. But, ya know, apartment. If I manage to make this a successful business with my own facility, rooms will be set up proper. Media prep in is own room. Transfer room sperated by passthrough from media room. And a room for cultures that's only lit by artificial lighting on a controlled schedule. And I'll be using LEDs once I can afford them, cuz man, I've got 3 racks with t5 and in an apartment they throw some heat. And they're not even running all 4 bulbs yet, was scorching plants. But that's considerations for down the road

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## mistergreen

Oh interesting, you're using just sucrose for nutrients. I'd expect some ferts we use in the tank like KNO3, etc...


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## adkaqua

Murashige basal salts take care of that. Sucrose is carbon source

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## adkaqua

Using a full strength MS media standard in TC. So it's got all the macros and micros. But part of why plants grow so fast in TC is they don't need to photosynthesize (you still have to keep them under light, BUT you give them all the sugar they need to metabolize so they don't have to make it themselves) and you give them an elevated dose of growth regulators. Not too high to kill them, but enough to make them do what you want when you want.

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## adkaqua

:: laughs in evil scientist::









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## DutchMuch

Sweet!!!!!!


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## adkaqua

Now to get cuvettes. And cellulase. And I can dabble in creating new interpecies hybrids. Cryptocoryne x Ludwigia anyone? Lol

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## adkaqua

My own little million dollar beach.

Well. 600. Ish. Added that little Cryptocoryne in the back today. So pretty.

(That's Ludwigia 'white', Anubias snowwhite/pinto/marbled/stardust, Iguazu 2009, and Cryptocoryne x timahensis, there's a Buce Icarus bell in there. Not rare. But up front bc my wife picked that one and I wanted it front and center for her to be able to see)

Still dealing with contamination. Transferred 5 tonight for a second time. Fell asleep doing it (score one for narcolepsy). But since I go autopilot when that happens, I continued to transfer cultures. Sooooooooooo all my green gecko is now mixed with all my pink flamingo. At least they'll be easy to tell apart once they are contaminant free hahaha.

Second pic is current nursery tank. I've gone through 3 fills of the diy co2 kit in last 2 weeks since I have it turned up to like 6 or 7 bubbles (and with ferts and high lighting and that many plants it's BARELY green indicator, more blue than green still, indicating low co2 even at that rate in a 30g hah). So now I've got it hooked up to my 15lb tank that's eventually getting used on my tank in living room.... But for now wasn't being used and I needed co2. Gonna have to buy a second regulator and tank and such and set this baby up too I guess...diy just isn't gonna cut it. I'd be using a box of baking soda a week. Cheaper long run just to buy the regulator kit
















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## DutchMuch

nice pics nice update


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## mistergreen

Oh, so you grow your culture in water. I was expecting you growing them emersed in a rack.


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## adkaqua

I grow pre culture stock in water. I grow cultures in culture

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## adkaqua

Not open emersed anything. Racks of sealed, sterile containers























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## mistergreen

Ah, that's what I was expecting!

I see, the guys in the water are the pre-cultured stock.


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## adkaqua

That's where everything I'm buying that's not in culture yet is growing up big and strong to get cut up. 


New active healthy growing sections to get good establishment. Meristems are great. But even fresh leaves and shoots. And I get all these by mail so they're sad looking. Then they go in there with full fert dosing regime and 7 to 8 bubbles per second co2 under a fugeray2. Perk up and grow 

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## adkaqua

It's like my greenhouse. But since I'm not doing, say, bananas or cannabis or roses , etc, I need an appropriate habitat to grow my mother plants for explants that's conducive to TC work. For aquatic plants that's aquatic env. 

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## adkaqua

And it's full. No real estate on tank floor. And... I have a dozen more species coming ....

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## adkaqua

This weekend's mini project- get little acrylic sheet @ home improvement store. Test out my diy acrylic glue on it and make a box with suction cups I can hang on side of tank that'll hold soil. 

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## mistergreen

Forget suction cups, they eventually lose suction and fall. Build some hooks for hanging.


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## adkaqua

Good idea

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## DutchMuch

oooh nice


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## adkaqua

Fast update, need to get up early. Going to meet a guy from Facebook for local aquarium club at a grocery store to buy more plants rofl. 


So second round steralizing seems to have cleaned up most of the plants. Only 3 still showing fungal. And that's gonna be remedied real fast before bed by moving all the other explants in the containers to fresh +ppm media. About half the plants are already showing fresh green growth after their (standard in TC) bleach/alcohol bath and rinses or their 8hr shake in 5% PPM. Even the mosses and delicate plants have little green areas popping up as they recover from the shock. I had one species, Cryptocoryne, that came in with endogenous bacteria. That's a little slower growing than fungus. So it'll need to be monitored over the next week carefully so I can rapidly extract healthy plants and possibly try to clean infected ones again. Or leave em behind. We'll see. 


Diy co2 is insufficient. Had to put my 15lb tank and regulator that was destined for my display tank in my living room in my tank in the lab instead. I was using a full mix of diy bottle per day. Ain't nobody got time fo' dat. 


Off to transfer a few to new media and get to bed so I can go get my new stuff in the morning!

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## mistergreen

I used to swap 20lbs CO2 tanks with a local supplier. It would last 6-7months and the price is very reasonable. The only downside is since you keep the tank for so long, you might sometime have to pay extra for a hydro test on the tank. At least you know your tank won't leak since they hydro test.


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## adkaqua

Planter box now a necessity. 6 new today. 11 more coming tomorrow. No room at all in bottom for even a single plant. Haha









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## hoppycalif

mistergreen said:


> Forget suction cups, they eventually lose suction and fall. Build some hooks for hanging.


But, it isn't very hard to make magnetic holders, and those never let the "object" fall. Instead, they give you problems with avoiding corrosion of the magnets.


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## mistergreen

hoppycalif said:


> But, it isn't very hard to make magnetic holders, and those never let the "object" fall. Instead, they give you problems with avoiding corrosion of the magnets.


You should do a DIY tutorial on that.. The part in the water could be a stainless metal instead of a magnet or you can seal a magnet in epoxy.


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## adkaqua

I have magnets holding moss wall up in one tank. Dissolving the magnets. Iron supplementation I guess haha. I'd be interested in seeing in tank use of magnets without them rusting tutorial too

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## adkaqua

This is what I made. Two of em. Ikik suction cups. I'm in a hurry

I actually am going to pick up another aquarium to house plants in rofl. But I made these too
















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## DutchMuch

oh that's nice!


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## hoppycalif

I haven't worked with magnets for a few years now. The way I made mine was to use acrylic plastic as the main material for the object I wanted to hold in place. I glued a short segment of plastic tube, having an inside diameter slightly bigger than the disc magnet, onto the back of the object. Then I put the magnet in and heavily coated it with acrylic glue, repeating a few times to thoroughly encase it in acrylic. I used another magnet to grab the object from the outside of the tank. It worked fine, but very tiny water leaks into the magnet holder caused the plating on the magnet to crack from corrosion. Before long the plating all came loose. By then I had given up on that particular project (an optimum drop checker). You can buy magnets that already have a waterproof coating, but I was using what I had on hand.


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## adkaqua

Soooo I kinda ran out of space. 


Got new plants. So I tried to get another tank. Tank I got free? 30g. No room, desk only rated for half that weight. So my quarantine tank that's only 10g has now become a plant tank. And my wife bought two nice betta.... Gonna have the best betta homes ever. Hah. But, Still no room. 


Wife suggested using the new 30 instead of my existing stocked tank for the diy project I'm doing. Check. Love that idea. It's shorter and taller, changes project a little bit, but that means existing 30g will stay stocked and running until project is done. What to do with plants still..... Hey fish you're getting new plants. So now I have about a dozen of my bigger plants (most of my Echino, limnophilia aromatica, two apono). Fish werent happy to have their home torn up but it worked well. Now I can finish setting up betta tank for wife and getting the last of my plants out of baggies and into water. Fml. This has been a lot of work. Buckets of water and plants all over our apartment RN. My bushynose pleco is very happy now that she has giant sword plants to lay on though. She wasted no time exploring them all. None of them did actually. This is one happy tank right now. About time to get back to work though. Still got a ton to do, and I work 12s the next 4 days. So back to it!

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## mistergreen

How about building your own tanks? Build them so they're not so tall like 9 inches so you can have a rack of them. You can probably have 5-6 rows of them. Go vertical when you're out of space, lol.


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## DutchMuch

or a mega pond like Jacobs aquarium.


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## adkaqua

mistergreen said:


> How about building your own tanks? Build them so they're not so tall like 9 inches so you can have a rack of them. You can probably have 5-6 rows of them. Go vertical when you're out of space, lol.


Live in an apartment lol

When this gets to a point I'm able to quit my normal job and do it full time, I have plans to expand.

I want to do shrimp breeding. I want big long tanks specifically for growing submerged plants. I want to get into doing custom tanks....that last one will require having other employees to do the TC work and take care of plants so I can do the massively complex XXL aquascapes I'm designing currently. Crazy ****. Designs that take existing concepts to entirely new levels and do designs and elements I've not been able to find anywhere online.

For now... I'm working out of half of a bedroom in a two bedroom apartment. Other half is my wife's desk and her stuff for her Pure Romance consulting stuff, and her grad school stuff. As I need more room I'm going to be able to use my mother's old commercial bakery that she doesn't bake in anymore. Put lights over tables and put my multiplication vessels there to grow.

FYI, first plant to market looks like it's going to be Alternanthera reineckii mini. It's taking off. 4x growth in last 2 weeks. Rest is in various stages of recovery from steralizing. So that will be the first species I package and put on Amazon (I'm starting with Amazon I think, intend to have my own website and also do wholesale to resellers, but starting out I think it's going to be D2C on Amazon, forums, etc)

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## adkaqua

Still dealing with that damn fungus. 



Dug through published papers. Fenbendazole is TC safe and doesn't seem to adversely affect cultures. One of the recommended fungicides across numerous papers. 


Fenbendazole. Aka Fishbendazole. Aka Dog dewormer. . . 


Dog dewormer it is, since no LFS has fishbendazole and I couldn't wait days to get it in mail. 222mg/g. Need about 1/7 grams. Ez. No DMSO to dissolve it in.... (Now en route... But ordered after the fact along with more dewormer). Tried 2M HCl. Seemed to work well enough. Made sol'n of full strength MS salts and fenbendazole. First round of plants soaked for 24h. Then had to disinfect for bacteria again since fungicide was not sterile. They got plated and second set of plants went in today. Here's hoping it worked. 

Most of my mosses don't seem to have recovered from steralizing. Need to rethink technique going forward when I replenish moss. Soo much work lately. Been in there 4 to 5h a day after work last week. Then 8 to 10h a day last 2 days. Making media, cleaning stuff, tending to these plants trying to establish sterile healthy cultures. 


So much work. Will be worth it if I make it work. But starting a lab is significantly more time consuming than just making media and cloning plants you on purchased that were in TC already. 


Still aiming for november. We'll see if I can hit that deadline. 

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## DutchMuch

I was eager for an update :3


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## adkaqua

I'm eager for a day off. Hah. Startup business truly are all consuming when it comes to time. Never enough hours in the day. 

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## adkaqua

It's late. Im tired and I gotta get up about 5hr for normal job. So no updates. Been at it all afternoon cleaning up the same offenders, and trying to move some new stuff into culture (Madagascar lace, Anubias coffeefolia). Almost time to open up the next light rack.










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## adkaqua

Oh and I'm now officially registered as a business. It's only a DBA, but I can now get a sales tax ID #. Open business bank account. Etc etc. 

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## hoppycalif

Is your problem a result of the upside down horseshoe? We need to figure out a fix for that.[smilie=b:


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## DutchMuch

adkaqua said:


> Oh and I'm now officially registered as a business. It's only a DBA, but I can now get a sales tax ID #. Open business bank account. Etc etc.
> 
> Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk


Oh nice, can you PM me on discord the steps you went through to do this? im 17 so I cant but you know im a planner lmao

Congrats on being a business though!!!!

Thanks for pics btw appreciate it .


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## adkaqua

1- go to county clerk. Look through record room, make sure name wasn't in use. 
2-pay ladies at desk $25+$5 extra for certified copy. 
Done

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## mistergreen

adkaqua said:


> Oh and I'm now officially registered as a business. It's only a DBA, but I can now get a sales tax ID #. Open business bank account. Etc etc.
> 
> Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk


Print up a business letterhead. Some banks might require it for a business account. That one took me by surprise.


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## DutchMuch

adkaqua said:


> 1- go to county clerk. Look through record room, make sure name wasn't in use.
> 2-pay ladies at desk $25+$5 extra for certified copy.
> Done
> 
> Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk


Thank you 

yea so whats ur company name


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## adkaqua

Adirondack Aquascaping. (I have plans to move into custom tanks, tools, substrate, the works, if this succeeds and gets me there, not just plants)

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## DutchMuch

adkaqua said:


> Adirondack Aquascaping. (I have plans to move into custom tanks, tools, substrate, the works, if this succeeds and gets me there, not just plants)
> 
> Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk


nice, well if you need me to do anything just contact me


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## adkaqua

30 species currently without contamination. 


This weekend. I move to put ludwigia white, and limnophilia aromatica into culture. Maybe others too. But those two first. 

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## adkaqua

(mini rant)

THIS is why I'm doing what I'm doing. This is highway robbery. And according to the listing, they've been selling. $7 PER STEM.

Right now you either gotta hope you can find an awesome hobbyist that cultivates to sell or sells/gives trim, go to Petco or another store and get a snail bomb, err potted plant, or get tissue culture plants that were grown overseas, shipped to wholesalers here, and then shipped to vendors or to you. So they arrive trashed, crushed, contaminated, and sad.

Sure, there's a few incredible sellers. People like Han Aquatics. Dude is awesome. Passion and pride in what he grows and sells. Everything I've bought from him arrived in incredible condition. And the local fish stores that buy from good local suppliers growing submerged plants, selling only true aquatic plants and with knowledgable staff to advise and help you pick the best plants for your tank and help you learn to grow any that you want

But it shouldn't be the exciting find; it should be standard. But the majority of plants are shipped in from overseas, grown emersed, loaded with snails, or some combination of the three plus any number of other issues. I bought tc plants among the $1800 worth of stock I got to start out my collection, and consistently across every website I used, 2 of the vendors carried by all of them arrived with fungus ans/or bacterial contamination IN SEALED TC CUPS. Contamination I've been battling to grow them myself. It's not my media or techniques, because everything would have been contaminated. Nope. Just consistently the same suppliers, regardless of the website purchased from. Stores selling pothos and other house plants as aquarium plants. It's insulting. Deceptive. And TBH, I'll never put my products in businesses that do that. Idc if Petco offered me a hundred grand a year contract in guaranteed orders. I don't want my brand associated with superstores more concerned with a quick sale to new or inexperienced hobbyists than providing the best quality products and teaching people so they can learn and be successful and have tanks they love and are proud of.

No more. I'm never going to do that. Only true aquatic plants. Only the healthiest quality plants shipped out the door. We deserve better that $7 per stem Alternantheria.

I should probably go back to work now tho. Since this place IS still paying the bills. Hah. 









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## DutchMuch

Couldn't have been said better.
so true.


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## adkaqua

Totally unrelated to the thread but I picked a good time to try to make this a reality. 


Would allow me a lot more freedom with being home for the baby we're, as of yesterday, now expecting. Can set a room up next to business office for the little one. 


Bloody terrified but excited right now hahaha. Life really knows how to test your confidence in your big endeavors

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## DutchMuch

congrats!!!!!!


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## adkaqua

Now I can't keep putting off steralizing that ludwigia white haha

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## DutchMuch

lmfao


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## mistergreen

congrats. Hope you're not growing the kid in agar.


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## adkaqua

ROFL

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## jfhrtn

Congrats on the upcoming new addition to the family. Have been following the build of your lab and your doing a great job on the start up. Looking forward to when your able to sell some of the plants. I'll definitely be making some purchases.

-James

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## adkaqua

Thanks James! I'm looking forward to getting it fully running in production and out of this establishing phase too. And a baby. Hah. This is gonna be an adventure. Terrifying and exciting. We found a new apartment that's bigger. $25 a month more. So hopefully we can get in there and I can get this ramping up before she's too far along. 

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## adkaqua

Up to over 300 alternantheria. Baby tears doing well too. Lost a few more species. ... But whatever. Expected. 


Cryptocoryne pink panther on the way too  been busy. Been good. Off to bed though. Lots to do tomorrow

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## adkaqua

Suuuuper quick update. 


Lost a few more species that I finally said screw it and gave up on. I'm not wasting more time and money trying to save them I'll just buy fresh stock later. Zero moss left in culture. Bummer but w/e. Que Sera Sera. 


I GOT MY CRYPTOCORYNE PINK PANTHER!!!

4 cups of it. Figure even with the contamination ik I'll have to deal with bc of the vendor it came from (and every single one of the plants I bought from that brand had issues that needed to be cleared up, even coming from purchased tissue culture cups that *should* be steralize, but I digress) I'll have plenty to really get going quick on it. Replaced my hydropiper too. Fingers crossed there I love that stuff. I wanna have it in my catalog early. 



A few things are taking off already, and look like I'll have for sale in a month or two. AR mini, and what I think is micranthemum umbrosum... I have over 600 individual plantlets. Ludwigia arcuata doing very well (100-150 individuals). Cryptocoryne axelrodi also doing excellent. H. Zosterifolia doing incredible too. They're looking to be my first 5 available for sale. The rest is crawling along at different rates. Lagenandra meeboldi 'red' will probably be along right behind those. Very very exciting times as some of these plants move rapidly into the exponential growth and multiplication phase that is what makes TC such an incredibly powerful technique. 


Off to bed though. Up for work in about 4 hours!

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## mistergreen

I've never kept L. Arculata. I'll get some when they're available.


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## adkaqua

Change "probably" to "will be" for Lagenandra. More than doubled them tonight. Doing surprisingly well. All the L. meeboldi green died from mold. The red is doing excellent. 

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## adkaqua

Great day. Called in sick to work bc I slept like garbage. Took my narcolepsy meds too late and didn't kick in with enough time to get me a solid night sleep, so I knew my daytime ones wouldn't keep me up while driving or at work. So I called in and made a day of doing work here. One plant left to move into new media and I'm caught up. Have a few in liquid media on my orbital shaker. Will deal with them Sunday. But I had to open up racks 3 and 4 on my shelves! Sunday I might actually finally be able to get ludwigia white and Madagascar lace out of my tank and attempt to get them in culture haha. Finally.

















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## adkaqua

Oh and my iguazu 2009 is more than double the size it was when I bought it a few months ago. . . It might be facing the scalpel sooner than later haha
















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## jfhrtn

Glad to hear most of all the species are doing well. Hate you lost a couple but I'm sure you'll have then back in the future. The iguazu 2009 is looking good and congrats on receiving the pink panther. Awesome to see things coming along. You take such care and precision in what you do and I know it will show in the end product.

-James

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## adkaqua

Being super lazy. Copy paste from twin thread on Barr.

Update for today is just pictures. Gotta go eat dinner and get ready for raid night (Argus to 36% last night.... Not that most on here will care haha).

Stuff with lids- growing steralized (afaik).

Stuff without, my day tomorrow. Gonna be trying to put them on those shelves












































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## DutchMuch

that looks so neat, how much in TOTAL have you invested in this entire business/setup/progress if u dont mind me asking? 
I wish I could do this one day for a full time good job


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## adkaqua

Total, about $8700 rn. If I hadn't gotten my capital equipment at auction it would have been several times that. I'm buying another full growing rack next week, thatll push me solidly into 9k. 

My water still costs from vendor, as is with accessories I have.... About $18k. I paid $11.00USD. My sterile work hood is about 5k.... I paid $100. 

I've got about 1800 into plants. (timahensis, snowwhite, ludwigia white, stardust, etc ... I mean my 5 most expensive plants were prob 500 between them alone). 

The shelf and lighting I'm using... About $450. X2 as of next week. 

About $1k-1.5k in growth regulators and media additives. 

Consumables such as petri dishes, scalpel blades, pipette tips, transfer pipettes, 99% IPA, hydrochloric acid, sodium hydroxide, potassium permanganate, fungicides, dichloromethane...

The pyrex bottles that I can autoclave and steralize their contents are 10-20 each. 

All my glassware (beakers, flasks, etc). Analytical balance ( .000 accuracy), pH meter (lab grade), hot plate/stir plate, in-hood heat steralizer for tools, orbital shaker. That all added up quick. And pipettors, fridge for growth regulators, measuring and scooping and stirring tools, test tube racks, reusable b growing cubes, disposable growing cups (my new preferred method)... All $$


The aquarium and stand my stock plants are in. The lights. Filter. 15lb pressurized co2 system. Circulation head. All the needed fertilizers. 



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## adkaqua

You can. You said you were still in HS right?

Plant biotechnology. I went to college for it. Tissue culture was a small part of it. I focused more on molecular genetics. But I worked in a TC lab for part of it, and during my research work as an undergrad in a molecular biology lab I had to maintain my own plant cultures that I was doing RNA extraction and analysis on.

If theres plant breeding programs... Plant propagation programs... Biotech.... All of them prob have the ability to work TC in and take classes in it.

I went to SUNY ESF in NY. Classes so hard I wanted to cry sometimes. DID cry, hah. But was the best choice I made. It's an entire college focused on environmental sciences. It is the college OF Environmental Science and Forestry. But you don't have to go there to go to school and learn to do it all. There's programs nationwide.


DutchMuch said:


> that looks so neat, how much in TOTAL have you invested in this entire business/setup/progress if u dont mind me asking?
> I wish I could do this one day for a full time good job


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## DutchMuch

yep 17
Out of state tuition I can see it now lol!
Thanks for all that information, etc. I copy pasted to a word doc. saved  going into senior year, any idea on any electives I can take that are familiar with this? (TC). im homeschooled so I can basically take any elective I want lol.


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## adkaqua

One last injection of cash coming in. Took a little more than another grand out of my 401k. Buying 2 more growing racks, the necessary components to upgrade the t8 fixtures I bought to t5ho, mailing labels and printer, and the containers I'll be using to sell them in once I get the check. This is it. No more funds in reserve. This last bit is all the funds I'll have to work with and it's getting mostly consumed buying shelving and shipping supplies.



I'm on track to have over 10k plantlets by August (looking like over 4k AR mini alone). And assuming contamination stays as low as I'm maintaining in my established cultures.... By the end of the year I could be at over 50k plantlets in culture. It's mind boggling. I don't know that I actually really thought I'd be able to do this. But I kept telling myself I could. I would. Been talking about having my own lab since 2009 when I decided to go back to college. And not only do I have one, but I've successfully gotten it on track and running well. 




"We're gonna need a bigger boat" 

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## hoppycalif

Congratulations on achieving your goal! I doubt that one in ten of us would have the confidence to go so far.


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## adkaqua

I've got an amazing wife who has supported my crazy plans from day 1. Couldn't do it alone. Every road block and failure she's been there still believing in me (or at least very convincingly pretending to be in order to be supportive, hah)

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## adkaqua

I even had her in there learning and working with me and excited to do so... She asked to learn to do it. Picked her own plants out she wants to establish and be in charge of. However that whole nose-overdrive thing and super sensitivity to smells with pregnancy has led to her having to plug her nose in that entire end of the house when I'm working because the isopropyl alcohol used to steralize everything from plants to tools, work hood, gloves, everything.... Is overpowering. So the Buce she picked out that I bought for her is still growing happily in a high tech tank waiting for after the baby to come and her nose to go back to normal so she can be around the IPA without getting a headache again hah. She'll be back in there. She's been bit by the plant bug too now.









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## mistergreen

I'm going to get plants from my sister's tank which I know to carry some fish disease, most likely bacterial. Since you're a master sterilizer, what do you recommend the method to sterilize without kill the plants.


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## adkaqua

Potassium permanganate dip will kill a lot and is relatively mild on the plants as long as you don't leave them bathing in it. Bleach dip works for some without issue. Others it'll work but melt tf out of soft tissue but leaves root/rhizome/bulb okay. H2O2 works, same as bleach. Some can handle it. Some.... Don't. 70% isopropyl for 30sec, same result. 

What kind of plants? 

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## adkaqua

If it is myco just destroy them

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## mistergreen

Anubias. I tried diluted bleach and H2O2 on anubias a few months ago and the leaves melted. I guess timing is as important as the dilution.

Yeah, it's possible myco bacteria. So I guess it's best not to introduce it to my tank.


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## adkaqua

We had myco in a tank a while back. 


I threw away the filter. I threw out a 14" sword plant I'd had for years. Every plant. The substrate. Anything that was porous or had places that sterilizing agents might not get in really well

Myco can survive bleach. In pharmaceutical research when their danio tanks get myco, it's scrapped, basically untreatable. When you bleach it, it goes into a spore stage. Where it survives bleach. Potassium permanganate can kill it. But you will have to use it at a concentration that will kill the plants too. 

My tank got enough PP in it to be so dark purple it was opaque. All the hardscape and tools I wanted to keep went in. Even the glass lid. Neutralized with peroxide. Bleached at 20% for an hour. Drained and left dry. I used so much PP my silicone is purple now and needs replacing (that's on list of future projects). 

Myco is hard enough to kill that if I had it in my tank with my iguazu and timahensis, they'd be scrapped. It's horrifying. Its basically always fatal to fish. All your fish. It's dreadful. And to make it worse, while you wouldn't develop it in your lungs like typical TB... Myco is TB. And the fish TB can infect your skin and if you have cuts on your hands you can get nasty ulcerated wounds from it. Called fish handlers disease 

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## adkaqua

Every single fish we had died. Rapidly. It was heartbreaking. We had several generations. Fish we really liked that had fun personalities. And we got to watch them die one after another in quick succession while trying in vain to medicate them when it was already too late. 

It's the reason I have a strict 90d quarantine on ALL new fish. Why now that I don't have a quarantine setup (because my new one had just established and now it's a betta tank) I won't be buying fish at all until I can ensure they're healthy before proceeding. We had fish from store bring home anchor worms. Had myco. I'll never risk that again. 

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## mistergreen

There was a news story yesterday where a lady got one of those fish pedicure for Gara rufus in Asia. Her toe nail fell off from it. I bet those fish were infected with myco.


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## DutchMuch

Oh my I missed a lot- sometimes APC doesn't alert me of replies to threads I sub to


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## adkaqua

Haven't seen that story. I do know that myco in tanks is a death sentence for basically any livestock. Our LFS who has been in business over 30yrs, they simply said they're sorry for our loss. We could try meds, but expect the worst, and gave condolence. It's absolutely devestating. 

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## adkaqua

DutchMuch said:


> Oh my I missed a lot- sometimes APC doesn't alert me of replies to threads I sub to


Use Tapatalk rather than browser, or in addition to it. Notifies you of all your forums and can access them all in one place

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## mistergreen

Tour of tropica


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## adkaqua

I want greenhouses like dennerle or tropica. But not for aquatic plants. I only plan to sell submerged and TC plants. Let the big boys do their thing with those incredible emersed green houses. I want to have greenhouses that size full of begonias and cannabis clones. Next to the warehouse of TC plants, shrimp breeding tanks, and submerged plant basins

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## adkaqua

In USA I'd never be able to compete with them unless I had green houses in countries like they do where it's cheaper labor, cheaper to maintain them bc of climate too. They have that market. My only edge RN is in TC plants. They ship from Europe. Asia. Then they sit in back rooms and warehouses and storea here until they get bought and shipped again. Arriving in sad condition. Potentially opened from handling in shipping twice. Exorbitant shipping to get orders here fast in winter. I live in NY. I can USPS priority mail door to door in ~2d to the lower 48. New England... Hec I could deliver a wholesale order myself next day possibly. In winter.... That'd mean stores could get plants that had never been jammed in a box with hot packs to try to make it through shipping in freezing temps. Hand delivered door to door by the case full. Delivery charge of a tank or two of gas is better than having plants get cold shocked or overheated in jammed tight boxes to maximize shipping capacity. 

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## adkaqua

Land is expensive here. Climate not great for emersed green houses for large production. But... Massive selection of TC plants with minimal shipping, fastest shipping... Plus the "made in America" sticker on my packages... No Import tarrifs or taxes or fees. No risk of it getting held in a warehouse at customs because someone forgot the phytosanitary certificate and it's now sitting in a non climate controlled warehouse until documents arrive.... Or your order is just refused and sent back to Asia because of a paperwork issue. Nope. None of that is anything I have to deal with. THAT is my edge. I could never hope to compete at their level for many many years in emersed plant production. I can Amazon prime a plant from production facility to buyer in 2d. They... Can't. Sellers can send em that fast, sure. But it's been definitely more than 2d since it was in the care of someone in the lab... 


So TC to start. Aquriums to follow. Cannabis and/or genetic research projects after that. And then who knows. Hopefully someone comes in, offers me 7 figures to sell out, and I hand them the business name and rights to it. And turn my whole operation into begonias and retire. 


Yes. Begonias. Deal with it. They're prob my fav plants, above all, including aquatic. 

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## adkaqua

Fast update. New pair of 55s. Exciting.

Also, new media recipe is much better. Both containers planted same time. And same size. A month ago. Coming along.
















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## DutchMuch

epic stuff!


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## adkaqua

That growth difference is blowing me away. That was sheer laziness. Had made the second media for a different plant. Needed to xfer those. So I used it. And omgwtfdairyqueenbbqsauce. Way better

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## adkaqua

My 2019 goal is to get from where I'm at , first pic.... To the second.
















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## DutchMuch

Wow
I hope eventually u get a lab like that
then pay me 20/hr to work 4 u kthnx


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## adkaqua

Hopefully I'll have lots of people doing all that work and then I can do more with custom tanks and maybe genetic work. 

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## mistergreen

You're going to rent warehouse space? Make sure it's zoned for a business.


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## adkaqua

I plan to build my own. Not warehouse. Proper lab and growing space.

Delivered today. 500x. Screw top. These are bigger than I thought they were.... Hah. Prob 2x the size of the ones I bought that had plants in them.... Might need to keep that in mind next time I order....









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## DutchMuch

Amazing


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## adkaqua

Sorta bought a new tank.... >.> Once that wood sinks it's gonna be a shrimp tank.

Started when I went to get MC from a guy today. Then realized it was a ton of mc. So I should use some in tank. And not just try to establish ALL of it. Which. ... Led to a shrimp tank.

And I've still got over a quart bag worth of MC.









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## adkaqua

Things going okay. Still moving along. Busy AF, have work, had a wedding on other side of country, this, as well as trying to get cutting edge and getting ready for new expansion in the one video game I play. . . This posting gap falls into the warning in op that I may not keep up with it. But I haven't forgotten. Nor failed and abandoned things. 

But. Going along well. Ish. Hah. 


New idea to maybe be more successful steralizing. Gonna try to grow things emersed. Rather than submerged. Might help success rates with tougher plants... Now to figure out how to switch over to emersed for my non-culture stock. And what even CAN be switched. Any tips welcome.... 

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## mistergreen

You can pretty much grow all the plants emersed. Just cover with plastic wrap to keep in the humidity of 90%-100%.
You can pump in CO2 also to about 1000ppm (not too much or plants will die, 5000ppm I think) or regular indoor air is fine which contains that much CO2 from people breathing.

Epiphytes will do better in a nutrient rich liquid than a substrate.


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## adkaqua

Came to realization this weekend there will be likely no wholesale. I can't compete with those labs in India and Asia for prices for wholesale. Selling them myself on website/Amazon/eBay/aquabid/Facebook....I don't need to match wholesale prices. Just the retail ones. And that, I can do. 

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## adkaqua

mistergreen said:


> You can pretty much grow all the plants emersed. Just cover with plastic wrap to keep in the humidity of 90%-100%.
> You can pump in CO2 also to about 1000ppm (not too much or plants will die, 5000ppm I think) or regular indoor air is fine which contains that much CO2 from people breathing.
> 
> Epiphytes will do better in a nutrient rich liquid than a substrate.


Excellent tips on co2. May have to look into that. Have an unused 15lb tank in my apartment right now. Could be useful for that. ... Thanks

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## mistergreen

Have you started selling?
You also have a pro, your shipments to individuals won't get confiscated unlike the international sellers.


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## vegan561

HI I'm new here, this forum came up when I was searching for variegated Anubias nana. Would love to buy some!!! Thanks


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## adkaqua

Tldr: this is going slow. I got laid off from work. So this is now back burner by a lot. On 90d paid non working time rn, then I'm out of income. This was nowhere near being profitable, let alone at a level to replace my full time job. Hopefully wherever we end up having to move to we can afford a 2br place that I can continue this work or it is done. Only place that's called me back so far it in Manhattan. And even out on Long island over an hour and a half commute from them, a 1br is almost 2x what our 2br costs. And is still unaffordable even matching what I made hourly in upstate. 

No idea where things will be in a month. If this is done, or if it'll survive. All depends on where and when I can get a job. 

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## hoppycalif

I'm very sorry that this has taken such a bad turn. Obviously, a good job is always more important than our hobbies, even one potentially profitable like yours. I wish you good luck finding a suitable job.


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## adkaqua

Thanks. We got blind side. Company had been telling us for months and months everything was great. Then cut years of R&D, ended it all. Let go between 30-90% of staff, depending on department. Some were actually fully liquidated. We went from ~60 techs between all 4 shifts, to 16. Rumors of layoffs began just a few days before they happened. 

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## DutchMuch

adkaqua said:


> Thanks. We got blind side. Company had been telling us for months and months everything was great. Then cut years of R&D, ended it all. Let go between 30-90% of staff, depending on department. Some were actually fully liquidated. We went from ~60 techs between all 4 shifts, to 16. Rumors of layoffs began just a few days before they happened.
> 
> Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk


im So sorry. Words really cannot describe that feeling, multiply that by your current situation of having to move etc. I know how that feels since, well you know my background. I wish the best of luck to you, make sure every once in a while you keep in touch. 
As hoppy said, hobbies are not as important as what keeps us afloat in the "real world" sometimes sacrifices must be made. 
Do please be safe, and successful.

-
Nate


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## adkaqua

This was supposed to be my exit strategy >.> I needed more time to make it into something first haha. This time next year I was planning on being gone. This is just many months too early. 

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## mistergreen

Sorry for the situation. 

Do you have a good online presence? You can try to crowdfund, indiegogo, kickstarter, etc... your business.


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## DutchMuch

mistergreen said:


> Sorry for the situation.
> 
> Do you have a good online presence? You can try to crowdsource, indiegogo, kickstarter, etc... your business.


id donate!


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## mistergreen

Crowdfunding is tricky. People are motivated by what they'd get in return. Obviously what they get back can't be more that what they donated. Maybe different packages of plants for different levels of donation.

You'd need to up your online presence too like start a youtube channel updating your progress. This is a good thing since this is free advertising and will bring in customers. And your donors will probably be repeat customers.


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## adkaqua

No online presence except for this. Should have done something months ago. Extra money earlier on would have helped move faster back then. Woulda been farther then I am now. But now I'm losing a job in the low 50k's a year. Donations for business won't help. 

I'd debated on doing a Kickstarter a while back. Then laughed the idea off the table. Begging for money. Not my style. And realistically wasn't gonna ever get enough from it to do anything substantial. The only things that get funded with those sites are big and flashy. Consumer goods. Could not fathom something like this getting funded. So I didn't. Hence the whole selling all my penny stocks (had been conservatively playing them for bit and actually doing well, not millionaire status, I missed that call by a few weeks on one of them, haha), and borrowing half my 401k. I was never going to get investments from a VC or crowd funding without those 3 precious words- proof of concept. 

I *have* investors interested. Not even from this sector of business. But it won't be in next 90d that I'm able to lock anything down. Maybe next spring. Who knows. But they're substantial, genuine VCs. Successful ones. I don't know if I want to work with them though, but that's a thread for a different day. I needed 6 more months .... 6 months I might have been at a spot where I wanted to leave, and not had to leave. Now I just need to find something that'll hold us over. Preferably in this area. I could take ... 3, 4 dollar cut. Max. And THAT would be like, PBJ for lunch every day level living with our loan payments (college, cars). We have more into paying for those college degrees than rent hahaha (I have AAS, BSc, and half a master's; wife has two AAS, BA, BS, and is finishing up her Masters). 

Regretfully at this point, when I actually have a lab and plants growing and things to show for proof and to substantiate my Kickstarter or w/e, I am now on a clock till I run out of living income. Lab doesn't need the money. Could help, sure. But doesn't NEED it. It'll crawl along slow and steady and eventually get where I want to be. As long as I can keep a roof over it. We're on a 90d paid non working period. Still employees but not allowed on site ($$$$$$ IP from major companies like Apple and Microsoft and AMD, and DoD contracts and IP that go with them, billions of dollars worth, so we had to turn our badges in but stay on payroll for 3 months in accordance with WARN act, then get our severence packages. This is basically a 3 month paid vacation). So at the end of 90d I either need a job or I end up on unemployment. Which is the equivalent of 10.50/hr here in NY. That's "move in with parents" level of income with our student loans. Anything shy of 22.50/hr is, tbh. 

So I'm still working on plants. Have a lot of spare time now TO work on them. But only so much I can do. Only so fast I can go in a sub optimal space. Family is helping look to try to keep us, if not local, close. But I don't know if I'm even going to be in this state in 3 months time. If I had more established and going, had better sterilization initially and had gotten everything clean up front easier without the mortality. .. I'd have had inventory looking to go out the door in October/November. Instead, I'm still dealing with contamination ive slowed but not eliminated. I'm sitting on maybe half the total species I started with, and most of that is not in TC anymore. It was too be expected. And spreading myself so thin initially didn't help. 

Things like buying 40 different species, rather than, say, 10 species but 3-5 cups of each ... That hurt me. More starting material would have meant higher chance of survival of *something*. And from a few survivors I could have made many plants. But I bought single specimens of many plants. And then was spread too thin to keep up with contamination amongst them by myself. When I was working in an actual research lab, we didn't establish more than maybe 3 or 4 plants at a time. Gave you the ability to focus on them. 


Just needed 6 more months.... Maybe I can find something local that'll hold us over until I can make this work. That's all I need. I can relocate lab to a family members house. Mother's former bakery. We can live in smaller apartment. Not a big deal. Just need to find something to afford bills. 

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## DutchMuch

Are you an IT?
which if ur living close to NY and have a 1 1/2 hour drive limit then that may be the problem cause the cost of living in NY is xtremely high

Honestly tho- if u need somewhere to keep ur plants I can make some big tank thing setup just for them- obviously this would be a last resort (due to liability and obvious risks) but just putting it out there- IM HERE IF U NEED ME [for anything]


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## adkaqua

Failure analysis technician. Formerly of Globalfoundries. I am/was a transmission electron microscopist. 

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## adkaqua

Issue is, it's a super specialized field. Lacking master's/md/PhD, I'm not going to get a job in biological imaging. I've been out of a profitable commercial bio resrarch lab space for 4 years now, so not going to get a decent paying job as a higher level tech in one of those. Not that there's any in NY that pay close to what GF payed. 15 bucks an hour at Regeneron. I could make that at Price chopper or McDonald's. And it's still not enough to make up for lost income/benefits. Closest I've had a call from so far (ik, ik, it's only been a few days....) Was a materials science lab. They found me. But they're in Manhattan. Same job I do currently. And with long island cost of living... About 10 an hour too low. 

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## DutchMuch

That sucks so bad :l 
I really cant say more than that- cause thats what it is. Sucky.

I really wish u luck :/ ill say a prayer for u tonight. <3 

I gtg, ill keep an eye on this thread!


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## adkaqua

Issue is I live in the wrong area of the country for this kinda work. But it's where family is and where we want to live. And my wife needs to get her permanent teaching license here in NY before we move or she will have to a) live in another state long enough to license there before moving back, locking us away from home for years, or b) finish here in NY, another 1.5yrs of teaching in this state before her certificate goes from temporary to permanent. If neither of those happens, she has to start back with student teaching, take thousands of dollars in exams, and start all over like she was a fresh college grad. 


Option b is most preferable

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## adkaqua

Hi everyone. Just an update. Little one. 

Still looking for work. Still getting paychecks through end Nov as part of severance package. Have used all this free time to not only apply for work (400+ applications), but have also kept working on this. 

AR mini is selling. Got about 45 containers in the first round that are ready to go. Staggering them so I don't have a massive stock that I can't sell and then die in containers on me so they're small batches. Laganendra meeboldi red is about 2mos out. As is Micranthemum umbrosum (giant baby tears) and possibly a limited run of crypto spiralis 'tiger'. I've just ordered some stuff to make steralizing new plants easier, effective, and less lethal to them that will hopefully help me get some new stuff in to culture.

If we have to move then I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Right now I have this and I'm still moving forward. Gotta head out to I can get an order in the mail to Chicago though before USPS closes. 

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## adkaqua

Still no job. One interview. Hundreds of applications. So. Ignoring that bit.

Have made my first sales. Facebook and discord channels that I'm in for a few. And an aquarium store bought 20 containers. Shipping tomorrow actually. Not enough to be sustainable, hah, but it's exciting none the less. Finally caved and bought a label printer. I'll need to eventually get upc codes registered, and get actual proper packaging, but for now my new Dymo will do the trick. Slowly slowly moving forward. Testing out my new peroxide to steralize plants. I think I ran a little strong for the flame moss, that might all be dead again, hah. But the laganendra seems to have cleaned up nicely. Jury is out on the Cryptocoryne I tested. I'm going to have to find the concentration and time that works best for each type of plant. I'm using the limited publicly available research journals, seeing what they did for whatever aquatic plant they were using in each given paper. It'll take some tweaking but I'll get it. It's all part of establishing plants; you need to figure how best to steralize them without killing them. That's why I'm testing flame moss, and not iguazu 2009, hah.

But it's still a thing. Still slowly moving in the right direction. I also finally bought a proper notebook to be making drawings of design and plans for all these tanks I keep coming up with in my mind and jotting down. Hoping to start work on the first one in the coming months. That all relies on me getting a job. We'll see. Not giving up yet 









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## mistergreen

looking good.


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## jasonmemo

are you currently selling these plants?


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## adkaqua

So far just the AR mini. 

When I was starting out I had a lot of issues that I expected to face, but I still had to overcome them. AR mini made it though the steralizing I used to clean them up the best. I have dwarf hair grass, Cryptocoryne spiralis 'tiger'. Micrantheum unbrosum (giant baby tears) coming along a little behind. I can't wait until they're good to go). Still working to get laganendra fully sterile. Also working to establish several mosses and other plants currently. They won't be ready for some time yet though. 

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## jasonmemo

adkaqua said:


> So far just the AR mini.
> 
> When I was starting out I had a lot of issues that I expected to face, but I still had to overcome them. AR mini made it though the steralizing I used to clean them up the best. I have dwarf hair grass, Cryptocoryne spiralis 'tiger'. Micrantheum unbrosum (giant baby tears) coming along a little behind. I can't wait until they're good to go). Still working to get laganendra fully sterile. Also working to establish several mosses and other plants currently. They won't be ready for some time yet though.
> 
> Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk


How can I purchase them?


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## adkaqua

jasonmemo said:


> How can I purchase them?


Pm me  or eBay. Have Amazon page, no inventory on It yet though

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## adkaqua

So cool news. Sort of. I have a job! Hah. I'm back with my former/current employer, the ones that let me go. I start back there the week after next in a new role. 2 days before my employment would have formally ended. I'm not very optimistic about long term stability there, BUT this gives me the financial security to continue moving forward as planned, to not have to move out of our apartment, to just keep on like nothing happened and I just got a 3mo vacation. Hopefully it'll last until I can grow this large enough to replace that job. 

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## adkaqua

M. umbrosum is moving into multiplication medium now that I'm finally satisfied that it is fully established and sterile. So it looks like giant baby tears will be #2 in my species list. Killed all the flame moss. Too much peroxide apparently. Hah. Will have to order more and try again. Christmas moss did not fare well either. Luckily I have that growing in my own tanks to try again for free. I regretfully had to just drop another chunk of change on a replacement heating element for my tool steralizer. I bought it used on eBay. When it came in, the ceramic was already old, breaking apart. Pieces falling out. It lasted me a few months of regular use, and considering I bought it for like 90% off face value, I can't complain. Luckily it still works on low. That just means it takes longer to heat up, and to actually steralize. It won't run on high at all. I don't know how much more life it has in it. Hopefully the new one comes soon and this element keeps running until it arrives. Kinda wish I'd splurged on a bead steralizer now, but oh well. 


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## adkaqua

So. First week almost done... It's a pretty cool gig. 

I'm working maintaining the largest RODI system I've ever seen. It'll handle about 1.5-2m gallons per day. There's half a dozen activated carbon filters in it... With 10k lbs of carbon in each one. The inlet and outlet lines for the RODI racks are 4". Our UV system? Is thousands of watts. Banks of Chambers with 40x 4' bulbs in them. Numerous Multimedia and polishing Chambers with 35k gal capacity, resin beds that are the same size. Its pretty crazy. Here is am used to working on a system for less than a hundred gallons of water total volume recirculating at home. Now I'm dealing with 6k gal per minute. And then treating the crazy waste streams that come out of the facility at the same volume. It's pretty wild (and giving me ideas for better filtration on my tank project I'm also drafting up currently haha). 


Could have found a far worse position, that's for sure. at least this is enjoyable while I continue to move forward with my own work. 


Oh and the ceramic steralizer still hasn't arrived. So much for 2d shipping. 

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## DutchMuch

adkaqua said:


> So cool news. Sort of. I have a job! Hah. I'm back with my former/current employer, the ones that let me go. I start back there the week after next in a new role. 2 days before my employment would have formally ended. I'm not very optimistic about long term stability there, BUT this gives me the financial security to continue moving forward as planned, to not have to move out of our apartment, to just keep on like nothing happened and I just got a 3mo vacation. Hopefully it'll last until I can grow this large enough to replace that job.
> 
> Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk


oh shoot i didnt see this

im late!

CONGRATS!!!


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## adkaqua

Thanks man. I started Tuesday. The *day* before I no longer would have still been considered an employee and my severance check issued. Came just in time. I was dreading trying to move all my plants and tanks in December. 

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## PaulB

Have you had any success with mosses?


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## adkaqua

PaulB said:


> Have you had any success with mosses?


Sorry for falling out of this. Last fall was pretty crap. And TBH I almost abandoned it all. But I didn't.

To answer your question... No. I am killing mosses. Lots of mosses. I'm gonna get in down eventually. I got some journal articles from a friend with university access on media for mosses ... Will try some new formulations next time I get more moss to work with.

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## adkaqua

These past few months have been up and down. But I've slowly moved forward day by day. 


In the last month I have gone from 2 species to 13 solidly established and multiplying. I have 2 others that are fighting to hang in while I clean them up (Iguazu 2009, and Elatine hydropiper). I've also killed 3x Cryptocoryne x timahensis... So that's not so great. But the fact that the rest of my plants are doing so well makes up for it. 

I'm going to be moving my lab in the spring into my mother's old commercial bakery that she retired from and closed. It has far more space that I need, a 50 amp breaker vs the 15 amp breaker I'm working off of right now. And it makes room for the nursery (assuming we're still living here in October when the baby is due). Very exciting to be looking forward to not only winter being over, but moving into a drastically more appropriate work space. I'll be able to set up my barnstead still to make water (grade 2 water distillation, that automatically runs and fills the ~20 gallon glass carboy... So no more hooking my little RO system up to the kitchen sink to make 2.5 gallons at a time). I'll have the electric to run both my 14qt pressure cookers at once to make 7 liters of media at a time. I'll be able to have room to set up a full rack for each species, rather than one shelf for each, which will allow me to maintain not only more of my large multiplication containers but also produce far more sale size cups to support wholesale operations. 

That is the direction I decided to go with this all. I don't have the time, experience, or desire to develop ads, place ads, drive sales, maintain a website + online store, do customer service, handle people who want refunds because they ordered something and then were gone for the weekend it arrived and it baked/froze on their porch and they want their money back. No... I don't ever want to go back to customer service. I'll keep the stuff up on ebag and Amazon for now. But my plan is to focus on wholesale operations. Find a few (my goal for 2019 is 4 or 5) customers buying a decent quantity of plants from me each month. Websites, brick and mortar stores... Work directly with business people rather than the general public. Sell to the people who already have the whole customer service end of it down, rather than trying to compete for market share with no experience. 


Things are finally clicking into place. 

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## hoppycalif

Congratulations on your progress! And, I hope 2019 proves to be a great year for you.


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## DutchMuch

adkaqua said:


> These past few months have been up and down. But I've slowly moved forward day by day.
> 
> In the last month I have gone from 2 species to 13 solidly established and multiplying. I have 2 others that are fighting to hang in while I clean them up (Iguazu 2009, and Elatine hydropiper). I've also killed 3x Cryptocoryne x timahensis... So that's not so great. But the fact that the rest of my plants are doing so well makes up for it.
> 
> I'm going to be moving my lab in the spring into my mother's old commercial bakery that she retired from and closed. It has far more space that I need, a 50 amp breaker vs the 15 amp breaker I'm working off of right now. And it makes room for the nursery (assuming we're still living here in October when the baby is due). Very exciting to be looking forward to not only winter being over, but moving into a drastically more appropriate work space. I'll be able to set up my barnstead still to make water (grade 2 water distillation, that automatically runs and fills the ~20 gallon glass carboy... So no more hooking my little RO system up to the kitchen sink to make 2.5 gallons at a time). I'll have the electric to run both my 14qt pressure cookers at once to make 7 liters of media at a time. I'll be able to have room to set up a full rack for each species, rather than one shelf for each, which will allow me to maintain not only more of my large multiplication containers but also produce far more sale size cups to support wholesale operations.
> 
> That is the direction I decided to go with this all. I don't have the time, experience, or desire to develop ads, place ads, drive sales, maintain a website + online store, do customer service, handle people who want refunds because they ordered something and then were gone for the weekend it arrived and it baked/froze on their porch and they want their money back. No... I don't ever want to go back to customer service. I'll keep the stuff up on ebag and Amazon for now. But my plan is to focus on wholesale operations. Find a few (my goal for 2019 is 4 or 5) customers buying a decent quantity of plants from me each month. Websites, brick and mortar stores... Work directly with business people rather than the general public. Sell to the people who already have the whole customer service end of it down, rather than trying to compete for market share with no experience.
> 
> Things are finally clicking into place.
> 
> Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk


This write up was beautiful just saying.... lol.

Wish the best of luck to you like always, seems even if things are growing slowly, they are indeed growing  !!!


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## adkaqua

Echinodorus 'Iguazu 2009' has, so far, made it through the worst. Steralizing (left) took much of the plant along with the bacteria and fungus, but the center remained healthy and alive (center) and is starting to come back around (right).

With continued care, it should be multiplied and ready to ship to retailers later this year.









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## bertha

That's interesting!


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## hoppycalif

I googled it, and I understand why you are growing these. One place wanted $100 for one!! They are very attractive plants.


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## mistergreen

I hear the FDA was playing with irradiating vegetable to kill off e-coli. It's successful but people are too freaked out to eat them. Right now they're using high power RF(radio frequency) to kill off contaminants but not sure how successful.


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## adkaqua

mistergreen said:


> I hear the FDA was playing with irradiating vegetable to kill off e-coli. It's successful but people are too freaked out to eat them. Right now they're using high power RF(radio frequency) to kill off contaminants but not sure how successful.


The level of radiation to steralize for tissue culture would cause mutations in, or kill the plants. Anything that comes from a non sterile environment needs to be cleaned up completely. It's why establishing is so hard. I've seen that ozone used on terrestrial plants, but lack the capability to generate ozone in my setup so I've stuck to the more traditional chemicals and meds used. Can't leave any bacteria, or any fungus. Even species that might have a nice symbiosis in nature can rapidly overtake the plants in culture because they are in a sugar media, at 75 degrees, in almost 100% humidity in those containers. Plants grow but the contaminants grow faster.

I *do* want to get into mutation breeding eventually, but will probably do chemical mutagens. Having radioactive sources on site requires permits and such to run the equipment. Extra OSHA training for future employees. Etc etc etc. Also hoping to get going with some of what I studied in my undergrad and do actual genetic modification. Protoplast fusion, CRISPR, agrobacterium mediated transformations.. putting new genes into plants and combining plants that could never otherwise hybridize. That's a 2020 goal, to start protoplast fusion.

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## adkaqua

hoppycalif said:


> I googled it, and I understand why you are growing these. One place wanted $100 for one!! They are very attractive plants.


I paid that for this one. And my big one I paid about 75 for (bought the little one first). They're very hard to find

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## mistergreen

How effective is good ol' UV sterilization? No need for a radioactive permit


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## adkaqua

mistergreen said:


> How effective is good ol' UV sterilization? No need for a radioactive permit


For hard surface sterilization, like the inside of the laminar cabinet, effective. For tissue, not. Fungus can be living with hyphae inside the plant. Bacteria living in pores on the leaves and in the little spaces like where roots and stems join together and light can't get in. That's why you need chemical soaks

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## adkaqua

Calling them sterile isn't an exaggeration. All external and internal (endogenous) contamination has to be killed so you only have plant tissue. So they're washed with things like bleach, isopropyl alcohol, potassium permanganate, and peroxide. Then grown in media containing chemicals that inhibit infections, both bacterial and fungal, sometimes even being made with antibiotics like your or I would take (rarely, they're a less desirable route, but it can be done). Goal is to kill em all. Light and radiation simply can't give that level of clean

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## mistergreen

Interesting. Basically you try to kill everything, even the plants, but barely so there's something left to grow.


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## hoppycalif

This way of growing plants sounds like an aquatic plant Russian roulette process! It clearly requires a lot of knowledge that we don't get from caring for our aquarium plants.


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## adkaqua

So I have to be up for my day job in about 5 hours. So not gonna be much typing

Things continue to do well. Very very well actually. Most of my plants are right on track. My Iguazu 2009 and Cryptocoryne x timahensis are both recovering well. Not gonna be ready super soon, but they are alive and contamination free too.


























































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## DutchMuch

simply, awesome!!


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## adkaqua

Another quick update and then bed.

Things are going along well. I'm waiting on samples of my new cups to come in. Found a new supplier. Going to be getting 2000 of them if they're as good as they look online.

23 species. Should be looking to fill wholesale orders in 4 to 6 weeks. B2B only. 4 stores in NY, a few websites, a a few stores in other states so far.

If I can hit 2k cups per month I'll be quitting my job and going full time with this.

Also going to be moving my lab in a month or so, since if we can't move I'll be needing the room it's all in right now for a nursery. Expecting our little girl in October.

So very close to making this into a reality I can feel it at my fingertips. Now I just need to get the customers to support that kinda volume.









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## adalah

Loving this thread, very interesting discussion


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## adkaqua

A year ago this week I was on an ordering spree with all the cash I borrowed from my 401k to make my dream of owning my own legitimate lab business become a reality.

This week I'm hoping to get the samples of the containers I'll use to start doing wholesale orders, very close to pulling this off. 36 species of plants thriving.









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## mistergreen

What's your brand? I'll keep an eye out for it if I see it in the lfs.


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## adkaqua

What's your LFS I'll shoot em some samples once I get my containers in  I can hit the production, finding customers to take that production is gonna be my next hurdle. 

Adirondack Aquascaping

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## hoppycalif

Something that might increase the market for these plants would be an article, or series of articles about how to best use them. Most of us have no problem using cuttings, or potted plants to get our planted aquarium started, but I'll bet that 80% of us are very wary about handling such tiny, seemingly fragile "baby" plants. I think I would make a big effort to get the word out about how easy it is to use these plants. (I'm just assuming it is easy.) There are several on line and printed publications that would probably welcome such articles.


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## mistergreen

This is the best store in my town
http://monfortaquarium.com
Even though we're in the Midwest, we're still in the same time zone as NY so shipping should be pretty good.

They have a decent plant selection also but mostly crypts and other easy to care for plants.


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## adkaqua

Busy busy. Moving my lab next week to a larger space. 

Just bought another piece of capital equipment at auction. Got a 260 liter autoclave. No more pressure cookers once I get that baby set up. 

No time lately to even think tho. Ugh. It's coming though! 

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## Reediculous_nanotank

I just read this whole thing in a couple of long reading session. It's very exciting to hear the story of your business's success! Any chance you'll distribute to Canada some day? 😄


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## adkaqua

Has been quite a while.

I haven't fallen off the earth.

So my plants will be debuting at AE. Swing by the Pleco Feeder table. He is bringing a 130-140 with him.

Lab is coming along. Working to try to get set up with a wholesale distributor. Figure out some packaging ideas and hiccups. Moving forward. Buying and introducing new plants. Designing and building a laminar flow hood.

Not a lot of free time; between lab, my normal job, and now this little girl... Not thinking about posting too much.

Things are going great. And now I've got this little Ray of sunshine to look out for  less than a day old rn. (Aeryn Lynn)








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## David_L

Congrats! I've been following this thread eagerly, wanting to make a tank that's snail-free and tissue culture plants virtually guarantee that venture! Keep up the forward progress!


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## mistergreen

Congrats on the baby.


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## adkaqua

Going to be starting to fill orders. The day has finally come. 


Everything will be done through Jermack Cultivated Plants. All order inquiries will be handled and fulfilled by them. I'm not going to be doing D2C sales ... But if you have a store or a website and are interested, contact them on the Jermack website. Tell them you want to know when Adirondack Aquascaping tissue culture plants are available and are interested in placing an order. If you don't own a business... Contact your favorite shops and sites and tell them to inquire about them!



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## VengeanceTFN

Wow.. What a read... I am where you were in there first post, just with a blended model between aquatics and ornamentals. How has everything been going since last post?


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