Cigar Oasis XL and mold

[mash]

I did a search on this topic and found some posts that talked about adding grain alcohol to inhibit mold.
I got my Oasis about 2 months ago and filled it for the first time today. As I took out the reservoir and looked at the top hole, there was a white film on the floral sponge. Suspect it is mold.
I didn't see anything specific about how much Everclear to add with each refill. Anyone know about this? I am assuming there will not be any unwanted scents right? This is in my cooler, no loose sticks, everything is in boxes/tubes.
Thanks for any help.

[Old Sailor]

Dumb question....you did use distilled water right? May just be crap from spongy thing in there.

[Silound]

Adding alcohol won't really do much. The alcohol's vapor point is too low, it will evaporate before the water does. PG solution will work better, but it will render the foam useless faster.



I use PG in mine, but I also converted it to using gel crystals. Works beautifully.

[s15driftking]

Originally Posted by Silound

I use PG in mine, but I also converted it to using gel crystals. Works beautifully.

Agreed!


http://www.cigarasylum.com/vb/showthread.php?t=6346

[mash]

Originally Posted by Old Sailor

Dumb question....you did use distilled water right? May just be crap from spongy thing in there.

No worries Dave, yeah I used distilled water.

[Agent11br]

Originally Posted by s15driftking

Agreed!


http://www.cigarasylum.com/vb/showthread.php?t=6346

I followed S15's thread and modified my oasis ultra with the gel. I'm not using PG but haven't had any issues.

I was given the oasis from KidRock and he had never used it before but had received it several months prior. The foam had mold by the openings as you described, although mine was actual green/brown mold. After reading around it appears that oasis may ship these with some moisture in them.

Either way, the gel mod is the way to go. Absolute no brainer.

Honestly, I'd ditch the CO and get beads from Heartfelt. I owned a CO and it did nothing but cause me problems.

As far as the modifying the CO with crystals, that still does not make sense to me. I have a feeling those individuals are going to find those things going buck wild on them in the summer since their is nothing in place to regulate the RH.

I've had CO's in 2 humis for 2 years, 1 year in El Paso (RH20%) and 1 year in Chicago (RH70%). I don't use any beads and haven't had any mold issues or humidity problems since I switched to the CO's.

[s15driftking]

Well, i see a little revival of this thread so i will throw out an update.


Tuning an Oasis to work in a vino is very tricky. you must do a lot of guess and check but once you get that dial set in the right position it works like magic, rock solid 64% all day long!

Now, with that being said, i told people that i was having toruble evening out the humidity. It was 4% mroe humid up top than it was below... A simple shifting of a few of my make-shift trays cured the problem right up.

I guess the temporary plastic drawer system was blocking about 85% of the humidity flow. I moved the drawer set up one "Wrung" and put my CC boxes on the bottom where the lower humidity was and the movement let the oasis breath more an balance the entire unit out!

So like i said, i am sitting rock solid at 64% all across the vino.