My 2 cents on increasing AACT activity: add hay (or straw, whichever doesn't have seeds) and diversify your inputs. You may not need to buy anything new.
Regarding the hay, the air stones never worked well for me. They quickly clog; I now use them as weights.
I use the 6 or 7 tubes coming out of my air pump, held on the bottom by a few weights so that the tubes are as close to the bottom as possible. Then I place mats of hay above the tubes. When the bubbles hit the pad of hay, they break into smaller bubbles, thereby increasing dissolved oxygen. As the hay softens, the bubbles penetrate the hay-matt better. The tubes and weights can be positiioned to direct the stream of bubbles in the middle.
There could be some sort of enzyme in the hay that increases foam, indicating increased activity. But I think it's physically breaking the bubbles into countless more tiny bubbles.
I started doing this to innoculate my hay with beneficials. It's not quite sterilizing the hay, which I probably should do prior to adding to the tea. The hay is cut into smaller pieces and used as mulch, ideally with a cover crop, to let my homemade SIPS pot wick water.
All that said, unless that soil is completely exhausted to begin with, that looks like fading due to drying out. Plants that size aren't likely to deplete that amount of soil.
Regarding your recipe, I'll simply share mine. It works well and has yielded my best plants to date. For soil growers, (experts correct me if I'm wrong), apparent nutrient deficiencies can be the result of at least two influences: actual nutrient deficiencies or poor watering habits. I know the later negatively influenced my grows, though I attributed the cause of poor growth to the former. The compost teas I added didn't necessarily hurt, but they also didn't address the underlying problem, which I believe are the inhospitable conditions to prolonged soil dwelling critters. The soil communities can't establish and flourish.
So again, I'll share my recipe, but if I saw that same issue at any other point in veg or flower, my first question would be to check watering and drying cycles.
AACT -
Many say that a small handful of fresh soil (preferably not from outside), often soil from forest detritus, isn't a bad idea. I hate bringing unsterilized media into my grow, and the following inputs provide plenty of microbial cultures to brew a healthy tea.
Oly Mountain Fish compost - anywhere from a handful to an amount covering the bottom of a mug relatively well.
Kelp - same amount
EWC - same amount
Build-a-soil re-amendment mix and mineral mix - small handful, lightly covering the fingers.
Alfalfa (relatively new) - Two scoopfuls of an unidentified size container, approximately 1 Tablespoon.
Liquid Fish Compost - a dash or two, relatively heavy.
Mammoth P- a dash
EM-1 - a dash
2-3 handfuls of hay (preferably mixed while wearing a face mask; same with any powdered ingriedient)
3-3.5ish gallons of water
mix thoroughly
Top with molasses spread like chocolate sauce upon the mat of hay in delicate, precise, critical patterns.
Mix Thoroughly
Sometimes I've added SSTs to the mix, simply because it was easier than adding separately.
Lids and saucers to maintain the environment and capture excess foam are good.
For a plant that size in that pot, (which I presume to be grown legally for sake of peace of mind), 9 times in 10, I'm going to think water cycles are the issue, not nutrients. Grandmaster Level on Youtube has an episode about the importance of watering.
This is probably way more than you wanted.
Honestly, the only thing I want to tell you all about is my new SIPS pot. It's ingenious; it's completely changed my growing! I suffered with the same issue as you: yellowing of young plants prior to transplanting. Often the issue went away initially after transplanting, but those portions that have faded never get better, though new growth may be greener. The yellowing returned in veg and continued into flower, unquestionably hurting yield.
I just had a 3 gallon smart pot with a yellowing plant. Based on the size of the pot and plant, the plant shouldn't have yellowed that much. In my experience, they always did, but inside I always knew they shouldn't. One thing to note, I never observed my roots breaking through the pots. During transplant, after removing the plant from the 3-gallon pot, no roots were evident on the outer portion of the soil mass, begging the question: how could this plant have depleted all the soil, if its roots had not yet hit the outside of the soil?
After being removed from its pot, the 3-gallon plant was transplanted directly into a 10-gallon smart pot with about 7-8 gallons of soil and a thick layer of hay mulch. Azospirillium was generously applied to the root mass for the first time, (creating the one monkey-wrench in my otherwise flawless demonstration of SIPS as a superior system). Within 6 or 7 days, the roots had penetrated the outside of the 10-gallon pot; the plant was at least 1-2 months old prior to transplant, (I think). I now have hundreds of roothairs penetrating my SIPS smart pots, and it's only day 3 or 4 since they first broke through. The growth is better than ever.
The monkey-wrench: the added azospirillium, was also added to every other pot in a top dress. The 5-gallon smart SIPS are doing well. I have one 10-gallon, one 7-gallon and two 5-gallon smart SIPS in a 4x4.
I'll share the design because I think your issue is with which many people struggle.
I use saucer about 1 size too big for the pot; I use commonly available plastic stands for holding pots a few inches off the saucer. My stands have 7 protrusions leading down from the plastic stand, providing the support legs of the stand: one circular mold in the center and 6 smaller legs providing the majority of the support. Coco was sterilized and packed into the molds, creating a wicking column from the bottom of the saucer to the bottom of the smart pots.
I'm experimenting with the best way to water. I generally leave about 1/3-1/2 of a gallon in the saucer, and the plants wick it as they need it. Plants without a sufficient mulch layer may need to be top-watered; all run-off goes into the saucer, where it is later wicked as the plant needs.
No one wants to pay whatever build-a-soil is charging for their SIPS kits, no disrespect intended. People can make them any size they want, depending on their growing style. It's as simple as placing a pot on a stand, and watering from below. Voila!
Dontesla has amazing pictures of water-only bud. Compost teas are awesome. But I don't think that was your issue.
What's your root situation looking like?
What's up man.. I'm trying to make a AACT and I'm sure I don't have a large enoughair pump.. my question is, is it worth even putting on my plants or would it harm them maybe if it's not done corectly..
I put 1 cup ewc, a tea spoon of 3-4-4 organic plant tone fert, a tblspoon of unsulferd molassas, a tblspoon of kelp meal and a tablespoon of alfalfa meal. It's been brewing gore bout 12hrs and there's just a little amount of foam covering the top...
Also what do u think of this recipe for a simple AACT?
Is there anything u would add or take away from it?.. like neem seed meal, havnt herd of anyone adding it.. just trying to find a simple veg and bloom AACT recipe.. I'm still new to living organics.. one of the hardest things I find about it is having to not do anything but water besides a tea here and there and some topdressing.
