Do you need to further dilute guano tea after it's been made (i.e. right b4 wateing)?

potsticker

potsticker

Active Member
The goal of an AACT (actively aerated compost tea) is exactly that, an AERATED tea full of aerobic microorganisms which will help break down the nutrients in the compost (guano) and deliver them to the plants. Letting an aerated tea sit for 24 hours defeats the purpose of aerating it in the first place. I let my teas settle for about a half hour, just to let the bubbles settle so I can get my scoop in there. Whatever solids are left in the bottom go in the compost pile out back.

Letting a compost tea sit and go anaerobic (no oxygen) is dangerous to your health and can very likely ruin your tea especially in hotter climates. You run the risk of breeding deadly bacteria and pathogens including e.coli.

As far as adding the mycos, you'll do best to add them a few hours before you use the final tea. The reason for this is that the tea you are brewing has so much bacteria, they will out compete the fungi and potentially kill them off. Adding them at the end gives them the best chance for survival.
 
Mrfootball420

Mrfootball420

Well-Known Member
orchiid.wild said:
Hey my friend!

First off, do NOT let your tea sit for 24 hours before feeding. I've been researching teas for about a month now quite heavily and after 6 hours of leaving your tea unaerated the oxygen levels decrease by 300%. I can't tell you where I read that but the idea of having a pump bubbling air in your tea is to keep it oxygenated. You want the aerobic bacteria to thrive because this is the type of bacteria that benefits your plants by breaking down the unavailable nutrients in your tea and soil into nutrients your plant can absorb.

FYI all of my plants are growing outdoors in the natural soil. I started using tea about 4 weeks ago during flowering as I obtained some high P bat guano.

What I'm doing now (and it hasn't harmed my plants) is as follows:

Per PLANT, (I'm sorry I use metric)
- 1 Litre of unchlorinated water (meaning I bubble the water over night before adding the rest of the ingredients. This is very important and should not be avoided)
- 10g of 0-27-3 bat guano (I don't know why it's so high in P but I'll go with the info on the package)
- 14g unsulphrured molasses
- 28g EM (it's a mixture similar to SUPER PLANT TONIC. Info here: https://www.rollitup.org/organics/117084-uses-super-plant-tonic.html)
- about 100g worm castings (that I find under some logs beside my house)

I bubble this mixture between 24 and 72 hours and usually any time after 24 hours there's a foam that appears bubbling on top of the mixture. I transport however many litres of tea to where I'm growing then I add 1 litre of stream water to every litre of tea (halving the concentration). I do this once ever two weeks.

This tea is a modification of some of the recipes I found on the link to the thread below because of the high P value of my guano.
https://www.rollitup.org/organics/93913-making-tea-ez-cheap.html
It's 47 pages of info but in the end you realize that ohsogreen knows what he's talking about and you start to trust the information he's posted.

I have one litre of tea bubbling right now that I will add to a plant either tomorrow or the day after. That same plant was given the exact tea I stated above 2 weeks ago. More later ;)
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why do you care how much oxygen is in your tea? your still going to mix it with water. how is it any different then using a bottle of ff bigbloom that sits on the shelf for months?

and to the op, you do in a sense dilute your tea. your mixing your tea with water so that is diluting the tea.
 
Dankster4Life

Dankster4Life

Well-Known Member
Could be wrong.......may be correct.

The way i perceive it is when i mix up say some Fox farm grow big or some maxibloom powder and i mix to my desired ratios,adding water to some thing like this is dilution.If i add more water things get weaker correct?That is dilution to me.


When i brew a tea,say a 5 gl bucket.I can add another 2,3,4 gls of water.This doesn't dilute my tea or make it any weaker,as all i'm really doing is taking a certain amount of life and just expanding their environment.What was brewed up in the tea doesn't get diluted by adding water it just gives them a bigger world so to speak.

Does this make sense to some or am i actually fubared already this morning????

I can dilute all my bottled nutes.......but i can't dilute a tea in the same manner.



Mrfootball420.......with out any oxygen going into a tea you DO NOT end up with the amount of living organisms like you would with it.And that is the main goal of brewing teas,to create the life that you need in a living soil.
 
potsticker

potsticker

Active Member
Dankster4Life said:
Could be wrong.......may be correct.

The way i perceive it is when i mix up say some Fox farm grow big or some maxibloom powder and i mix to my desired ratios,adding water to some thing like this is dilution.If i add more water things get weaker correct?That is dilution to me.


When i brew a tea,say a 5 gl bucket.I can add another 2,3,4 gls of water.This doesn't dilute my tea or make it any weaker,as all i'm really doing is taking a certain amount of life and just expanding their environment.What was brewed up in the tea doesn't get diluted by adding water it just gives them a bigger world so to speak.
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What you're actually diluting when making a fertilizer tea is the fertilizer itself. 2 tbsp of guano in a gallon of water will be stronger than say 2 tbsp of guano in 5 gallons of water, just like you dilute your foxfarm products. You're correct, the biology will be about the same if given enough time, sugar and oxygen but the actual plant nutrients in the fertilizer will be diluted by adding water.
 
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