I made these about 8 days ago. As you can see one of them got contaminated, I'm not really surprised because i had to struggle to get that piece cut and it took too long. The other seems to be contam free but its not growing very fast. I can see mycelium on the actual chunk but none of it seems to be extending down into the agar. The agar is pretty moist still and watery. That might have something to do with it, im not sure. Wondering if the consistancy of the agar has something to do with the growth.

And another note, the size of the tissue piece is pretty big and is about halfway submerged into the agar, with half above the surface (the slant on the left). The part that is above is the part that has mycelium all over it.

It is probably easier to start your culture on a plate instead of a slant. If there are contaminants on the plate there is still the chance that the mycellium will grow to a clean section of the plate where you can then transfer to a clean plate or slant. I'm not sure about the consistancy of the agar (MEA?) but it looks like you need to tilt your tubes more to get a larger surface area.
Cheers
C1

For now I just have room for these slants. It is PDA agar. I had to shake them a lot to get that large chunk or tissue covered.

Hi C...nice to see you are having fun with the slants!
Contaminants usually enter if you touch the lip of the tube when you're trying to get the tissue into the tube.
You can swab with alcohol before you open it to lessen this risk or flame the end of the test tube with a propane torch(not BOTH!)
after you seal it up again swab it with alcohol again and wrap it shut never letting your finger touch the rim of the tube or underside of the wrap.
if you have to tap or shake a piece of tissue down towards the agar just hold the tube in your hand with the closed end of the tube pointing down and swing your arm around in a big circle...the force of the spin will drag the tissue down.
sorry about the watery agar,I poured while it was too hot,I should have waited till it was below 50 degrees to keep the condensation to a minimum.give it some time to grow over then inject a few CC of sterile sugar water into it and incubate for a week.
You can then use it as a liquid innoculant.
See ya C
Peterthinks