compost teas in DWC to dubble yield!

Lemon king

Lemon king

Well-Known Member

  • anyone remember me posting, asking if i could use compost teas in my dwc buckets in replace of nutrients, as you all airate your teas....
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  • turns out theres an an article in uk issue 3 of garden culture magazine saying roots are growing twice as fast and big in half the time if compost teas are added along with nutes....something about hydro nutes only having 17 elements in them were as soil has 90+ and there all there for the plants to use.......it also suggests that you cannot simply buy bennies put them and put them in the water as they have no means of sustaining themselves.
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  • this is very interesting and could really allow organic hydroponics...im going to research this but wondered if any of you have ever done it, its been on my mind for ages as soon as i found out compost teas needed to be airated....​





 
but have you had all the improvements that they claim, most of these mags are just adds so i take info with a pinch of salt.

i think my bennies out of a bottle work great, is it worth the hassel of brewing compost tea??
 
5 GALLON BUCKET - 2.50$
10 GALLON AQUARIUM PUMP WITH HOSE AND BUBBLER - 15$
UNLIMITED MICROBES IN 24 HOURS - PRICELESS
DECHLORINATION - PRICLESS
MAXIMUM DISSOLVED OXYGEN - PRICLESS

Call it ACT if you wish. But Ill pre-treat all my water with time and bubbles. + a little ewc and other junk fairly often.

I went organic and airated my nute solution and used 50:50 coco:soil. My plants are growing twice as fast so far. I used GH 3 part in junk dirt and fresh tap B4.
 
Tea is used in dwc with mineral salt nutes to prevent slime. Organics in dwc is called bio buckets and its tricky. For that you need to provide housing for the bennies like koi pond mats or lava rock until you have a big root ball... and run organic nutes and if you do it right the microbes will keep slime controlled while breaking down your organics. If you fuck up you end up with buckets of rotting sludge. Bubbling the bennies in water with ancient forest humus makes your tea increase population and diversity.

I have always used bennies so I can't say it's double the growth of not using them... but I would guess they don't make that much of a difference in DWC other than preventing slime.
 
Beneficial bacteria..
Do you have space to do a comparison?
A side by side trial of sorts?
I used to throw unmeasured amounts of worm castings in my dwc...looking back on it,i think they may have been happier...thinka bretterrr idea is to put in sock, tie end off, throw in bucket..
 
DWC is easy with Farmer's Pride by Blue Planet Nutrients. Its a three part, and is very affordable. That guy designed it for soil and DWC for growing herb. For yield and tight, heavy, buds... its the way to go if going organic and dwc. http://farmerpride.com/
 
If your running your bubbler right, it should for the most part provide a full canopy. Additions of organic elements, while possible, is probably ill advised for the most part.
 
Kind of off topic. For what it's worth, you CAN get aphids/fungus gnats from EWC, and Composts used in teas.
I always brew my bennies, but stopped with the EWC after getting gnats. Thought it was a fluke, tried again and more gnats.
No more EWC, no more gnats.

I add a 5 gallon bucket to 55 gallons every 3 days and I never have any root problems. It'll definitely make your roots grow better, bigger, and stronger.
Doubling yield? Naw. Healthier roots, and plants with less chances of disease? Yes.

Not saying this is typical, but something to be aware of.
 
accurate claims for the most part, hoping to respark the bio buckets conversation,

I've successfully done it outdoors this summer in an experiment, res temps up to 95f in the desert with wind and 110+ heat, no greenhouse no protection, yielded a awesome plant, that i should of harvested one day sooner. This plant was the hardiest plant i've ever grown it drank 2-3 gallons a day was a solid 3ft by 2ft wide and some days i would just pour a straight CT into the bucket, knowing I'm going to have to refill it tomorrow. The root mass was probably 1-1.5 gallons by volume so essentially it was drinking was we could give it every day id say it was 60/40 synth to ACT or 70/30 it wasnt a science, but it was maybe ph'd twice the whole cycle, maybe switched to a clean bucket once cause its not that hard to do. random cannazyme doses as well View attachment 2968993View attachment 2968995View attachment 2968996View attachment 2968998View attachment 2969000
I think the O2 levels are really important, super O2 saturated being the key there. like i said im looking for input here.
 
grapeoptimo said:
accurate claims for the most part, hoping to respark the bio buckets conversation,

I've successfully done it outdoors this summer in an experiment, res temps up to 95f in the desert with wind and 110+ heat, no greenhouse no protection, yielded a awesome plant
Click to expand...

That's really impressive mate. Despite the harsh conditions (high temp and exposed) it still did so well! What sort of O2 levels are we talking - what is the output of the airpump you're using? Might have to give this a shot
 
i would say that the bucket had 5-10 Watts of the big hydrofarm commercial air pump directed to it, if that makes sense to you, i was running a big air pump with multiple outlets running different size res's. it broke, amazon took it back lol. as a guideline, I think 5 watts for 5 gallons is sufficient.

Ive been reading about it a bunch, id run mostly synth till ur rootball is big then supplement heavy microbes (bact and Fung) and organics n the form of AACT
 
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