Mold in cartos?

[kellogg]

I boiled all of my cartos to clean them. Blew them all out and put in the oven @225 degrees for one hour (not two hours like others have suggested). Took 4 out to use them and put the others in a ziplock bag for storage.

I just took one out of the ziplock bag, filled it up and when I when to vape, it had the must god awful TH and a weird burning sensation in my throat. Got out another carto and filled with different juice and the same thing happened again.

I know it's not the juice since I have been using it all day.

The cartos looked clean when I filled them but for some reason I keep thinking they have mold in the filler.

Has anyone had this problem? What do I do?

 

[Xanax]

I saw a thread someone on here posted where she dried out her cartos and I believe dissected one or just looked inside at the filler and there was mold ALLLL OVER IT. So yes, that's VERY possible and most liekly what you are experiencing. The cartos were most likely not dried completely or just not dried fast enough.

Why is it that carto users don't just put their cartos in front of a blowdryer?? That's what I do for my atomizers to dry them... They're completely dry within 5 minutes.

 

[kellogg]

So i guess that means I have to clean them all over.

Will soaking them in vodka destroy all traces of mold?

 

[SimpleSins]

I don't know if any of the standard mold killers are safe to use and then vape. Borax, bleach, and peroxide come immediately to mind, but with the filler in a carto, I don't know how you'd know that you'd really gotten it rinsed and cleaned well enough to safely vape. You may have to consider it a painful learning experience and know now to not put a cleaned carto in a zip-lock.

 

[kellogg]

I think I saw something on this site about cleaning with peroxide. I'll have to see if I can find it and hope that will work. Thanks for jogging my memory, Simplesins.

 

[OldDragon]

Really, to be safe, trash them. Even if you kill the current mold, there will still be mold spores in there and it would not take much mosture for it to regrow.

 

[satoshi]

I would definitely toss any carto with mold in it...

 

[dajawu]

Luckily the empty carts are very cheap online. I just ordered a bunch of new flavors and also picked up 10 empty carts to go along with them.

 

[irwink]

What evidence of mold do you have? And why did you put them in a ziplock bag in the first place? There may or may not be mold present but if so putting them in a ziplock bag before they were completly dry would have certainly promoted that possibility. Toss 'em, learn and move on.

 

[Skruf]

I agree that putting them in a zip-lock bag might have caused the problem. A small cardboard box (like the cartos came in) would keep the dust off and allow any residual moisture to dissipate.

 

[kellogg]

I have no proof that there is mold in the cartos but the TH when I vaped was unbelievable. It almost was like it was stinging my throat. I know it wasn't the liquid, so mold was the first thing that came to mind.

I am currently boiling the crap out of the cartos (already soaked them in hydrogen peroxide) and have ordered new ones, too.

 

[Xanax]

Mold loves warm wet places (TWSS) and forms verrrrry quickly under those circumstances. Honestly just trash the ones that you suspect. You really really don't wanna be inhaling mold. That will get you feeling terrible and you'll be asking if it was worth it. Just be safe.

 

[Springbird]

I use Krazy_Kid's You Tube video, drawing a lot of water through each carto with one or two repeats with clean water (just boiled). I blow out each carto twice in five minutes, and as I've posted I "bake" them at 225 for 2 hours. My oven routine might be a little excessive, but it gets really humid here in the summer and nothing dries. The top of the carto can look really dry when it's really wet inside. I would love to be able to repack them rather than clean them, but all of my efforts to take one apart have had very ugly results. When I store them, I keep them with the tops off in an open bottom of a tin. They aren't going to be there for long as I'm probably going to fill them with juice pretty soon so I don't worry too much about dust.

 

[Nomoreash]

I don't know if it's mold you're tasting or not but don't put them empty in a ziplock bag after cleaning. If there's a trace of moisture left in the carto it's just asking for trouble. Let them air dry until you're ready to use them. As far as the ones you have now with the funky taste, trash them. Cartos are cheap and it's not worth the hassle or expense to keep messing with those when they can be replaced so cheaply.

 

[dukeofdata]

Thanks for posting. I was keeping my used, empty cartomizers in a zip lock bag. I transferred them to a plastic bottle filled with 100 proof vodka until I can refill them.