new SCOBY is barely covering any surface area

[Nastassja Riemermann]

I started growing a scoby on November 15th (possibly the 16th) using GT's Organic Raw Kombucha, black tea (with rose petals), and white sugar.  There's clearly a SCOBY growing in there, but it's covering maybe 2% of the surface area of the jar and I'm not seeing any film over the rest of the jar.  What's going on, and is this salvageable?

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B122ibj9alucaVBCOWp4bkhCa0U&usp=sharing

[peter]

It looks not entirely either normal or abnormal. With my kombucha it takes between 2 to 3 weeks to get a healthy scoby.

I'd let it go and see what happens. If it smells pleasant like the original then it is good. Perhaps the different tea or the fact it was from a commercial product that it is finding it's way so to speak

cheers

[David Sweedler]

Warmth. The scoby grows much faster when kept at 80 F. During winter months, figure out a way to provide the culture witha warm environment to increase growth rates.

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[Michael Castro]

If your jar isn't open to air with a paper towel or clean cloth so it can breath it will not grow, the CO2 is toxic in high concentrations so it needs to be able to circulate oxygen for the bacteria. I had the same thing you had in your picture in mine and now after only 4 days being kept around 80~82 it has not only covered to whole surface of a gallon of tea around 6" x 6" but it's obviously thickening already and lots of extra stringy things have appeared all around it too.