Fully organic DWC

this hurts my brain

Purpsmagurps said:

this hurts my brain

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No pain, no gain.

I guess I am not awake yet because I don't get it. Teas are supposed to feed the live in the soil which in turn breakdown and feeds the plant was my understanding. What are you feeding with the tea?

Same thing, different medium.

Microbes don't need soil to survive and thrive, they just need a food source. The manure tea has a good percentage of available nutrition and microbes, but a lot that still needs to be broken down.

The compost tea contains massive amounts of microbes that feed on root sugars, nutrition that must broken down for the roots, and other microbes.

I'm feeding microbes and the roots with both teas.

3rd Monkey said:

Ran it a few grows, didn't care for it. I like to run multiple genetics and it's just too much of a pain the ass to fine tune.

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That's me...as much easier as having a single mixing cell for a few plants or so may be, it's really difficult for those of us running either multiple strains or even the same strain that's displaying different phenotypes and all. Anyhow, really cool grow you have going 3rd Monkey!

Logan Burke said:

That's me...as much easier as having a single mixing cell for a few plants or so may be, it's really difficult for those of us running either multiple strains or even the same strain that's displaying different phenotypes and all. Anyhow, really cool grow you have going 3rd Monkey!

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Thanks. I'm hoping it works out. Few unexplored points yet that I'm not sure how they will go, but til then...

Only one way to find out!

I understand the whole microbes and fungi, but I did have a question. Your title says Fully Organic, so do your plants get all the base nutrients (N-P-K) that they need with just your compost tea?

Joint Monster said:

I understand the whole microbes and fungi, but I did have a question. Your title says Fully Organic, so do your plants get all the base nutrients (N-P-K) that they need with just your compost tea?

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No. They get some nutrition from it but the bulk of it comes from the manure. I'm thinking this may be one potential problem in the future if the microbes can't break it down fast enough, but I'll have to see. Maybe I'm worrying for nothing.

3rd Monkey said:

No. They get some nutrition from it but the bulk of it comes from the manure. I'm thinking this may be one potential problem in the future if the microbes can't break it down fast enough, but I'll have to see. Maybe I'm worrying for nothing.

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Find a fish tank and get a filter from it. A sponge filter will do great for single res. Or just buy a 10gal sponge filter and ask someone with a well established tank if you can out it on there for a week. The filter provides a great home for bacteria. By doing this you will seed the filter with denitrifying bacteria. It's these bacteria that break down decaying organic material like manure. The bonus to this is a sponge filter uses an airstone to run so you kill 2 birds with one stone.

Aqua Man said:

Find a fish tank and get a filter from it. A sponge filter will do great for single res. Or just buy a 10gal sponge filter and ask someone with a well established tank if you can out it on there for a week. The filter provides a great home for bacteria. By doing this you will seed the filter with denitrifying bacteria. It's these bacteria that break down decaying organic material like manure. The bonus to this is a sponge filter uses an airstone to run so you kill 2 birds with one stone.

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There should be denitrifying bacteria in the compost, but if I run into an issue I will definitely try that.

Excellent suggestion and application. Never even thought of that lol.

Update Day 23

Topped twice. Roots pruned once every 7 days.

I've had the same bucket going since 3 days prior to sprout, no swaps. The only additions I made were with tap water to top off and a cup of compost tea at day 15.







I decided to dump and sterilize the bucket today (lots of buildup). Ph was sitting at 7.6, water temp at dump was 78F. I didn't need to but, I felt compelled to clean it for aesthetics lol.

I wanted to post the roots especially. Most folks would look at them and scream rot, but look closer. There is no twisting, decay, breakages, nothing. They were pruned 48hrs ago and you can see the new white growth shooting out.

Those are microbial colonies. I used a loupe and you can see the roots are very solid under the "slime". No foul smells, even with manure tea. Smells earthly, not like pond water.

I'm going to top for 8 tops at day 30, then flip.