Pangea Hatch Boil Warning

[Natural]

Ahhh two clutches dead. I would be super upset too.

If I thought hard enough about it I could give you schematics to build a Walter White style microbiology setup in your basement. Of course that is a bit of overkill, and by the time you were done you would have spent an epic level of effort. It would easier to send a sample of the mold that is causing you issues to a laboratory then they could ID it using their equipment. IDEXX charges my BioPharma $400/sample to do that-they would probably charge you more. Not sure if there is any smaller private options...I have never checked.

The way I see it: Three clutches and all three with mold narrows down your options considerably:
-The substrate is contaminated. (solution: use different substrate)
-The water is contaminated. (solution: use only distilled water)
-The incubation housing is contaminated. (solution: disinfect the housing prior to use with 1:9 Sodium Hypochlorite (Liquid Bleach):Regular Water
-The eggs are contaminated by the environment immediately when laid. (solution: ?)
-Your hands are contaminated. (solution: put on latex gloves and then coat hands in 70% Isopropyl alcohol and let them air dry prior to handling eggs)
-Incubation failed and the eggs died as a result. (solution: review incubation design)

The benefit of knowing the identification of the mold is that you can figure out exactly where it came from and how to prevent/destroy it.

I definitely agree with what you noted as my options. I think my major deciding factor is that I have had 5 clutches this year, 3 went poorly and 2 went great. The only difference in procedure between the successful clutches and the failed clutches was new vs. used Pangea Hatch. My first two clutches I had new stuff leftover so just used that since I had it, then I switched to the boiled substrate once my new ran out thinking it was a good way to reduce waste and save some money. That seems to have backfired majorly. I have one last clutch that just got laid a few days ago that I have on new substrate so curious to see how that one turns out, but I have hope that it will go well. If it doesn't I might very well spend the money to get the mold identified and commit myself to war against it for the rest of my life. It's just been a very very frustrating last few months dealing with the fallout from this.