Bio-Cultivator

[drrico]

Welcome to the forums!

<SNIP>

Yesterday, I add some fish (MaxiCrop - 1/2cup) and immediately my foam dissipated to nothing now. I'm not sure why this happened other than maybe something to do with the oils in fish perhaps act as a natural anti-foaming agent? Any ideas about this?

J.

Hey J., thanks fer the welcomification! I'm happy to be here and am learning the culture before I Hold Forth about Ye Olde Daze of cultivation and axing about New Approaches.

RE: the fish emulsion. IIRC, fish emulsion has surfactants in it (i.e. molecules that act like natural detergents -- deoxycholine comes to mind) which would, indeed, explain your observation of Foam-Be-Gone.

 

[Guest]

drrico,
Indeed you have been very helpful, Thanks for the explanation.

This afternoon, I checked on it and the foam is slowly returning again and my babies are hard at work on the fish slime. I noticed that the "slickness" to the water had left too but has come back this morning. The slickness feels just like a surfactant added but I had not added any surfactant except for the fish yesterday. From what I understand, the "slickness" is a sign of good health!?

J.

 

[vonforne]

Man, thats a nice set-up P. I think I would like to try that one out. I'm with JK, I will have to read through better and get one built up.

 

[Guest]

At first the concept sounded good but it's adapted from a few things out of Big Tokes bucket thread. After I got it going and it's runs for a few weeks now it keeps itself pretty well. It still has a bit of pineapple left and I feed the bucket once a week with molasses. 1/2 cp of molasses wears thin faster than you'd think in it; 2 days later the color returns back to normal. At this point there's about 20 known bacterias in it as well as the unknown colonizers from the air but I ran the system with a lid for a while with the innoculation to make sure beneficial got the first foothold. Once every other week I've added fish and kelp and that thins pretty quick too. I only need to add about 1 gallon of fresh water every 3 weeks so far. I'm not sure if it'd do much as far as breeding Mycorrhizae though.

J.

 

[vonforne]

I read through this thread again and wanted to add something. Commercial fish emulsions have very ;little bacteria left. If it did it would explode in the bottle. Now, have you considered making your own fish emulsions? There would be added fish oils and calcium to name a few. You could do this with canned fish that is packaged in their own oils. You could get fresh fish from the market. Hit it with a blender and brew in a seperate 5 gallon bucket. Strain and add to your larger set-up.......just a thought.

good thread btw.

 

[Guest]

I have been running thoughts like that through my head but my primary concern right now is making sure that it runs stable in the long term. With the pineaple, it gave me the confidence that the bucket could digest it's own products. I have been thinking fish, alfalfa, fruit, pretty much anything that can be digested to some degree of ease. Another thought that occured to me is the production of proteine eaters, the Brom. enzyme, and Nepenthes enzyme have a great capacity to digest proteine products. Then it occured to me that Rid-X and shit like that supposedly digest proteines and fats, don't know how well that would go over.

Here's a pic of the foam:



P.S. this is 4 days after the bucket has eaten so is in "sleep" mode, I'll have to take a pic about an hour after feeding; my beasties are savage!

Here's what I use; 3full go into a 5gallon bucket with clean, dissipated water. it also gives you an idea of the color when stable in concentration.



Thanks for reading, and feedback, I appreciate it.

J.

 

[vonforne]

There are a variety of stuff you could use to produce bacteria and fungi in that. Fungi take longer to multiply in a regular tea but with that set up they would have plenty of room to grow. The reason I said fungi is because alot of the foods you are adding or thinking of adding are fungi producers. Now about the fish emulsions. You could substitute the fish emulsion and make your own with kiwis or papaya peptidase I believe these will produce the same enzymes.

That is if you are trying to make a balanced tea...bacteria to fungi.

 

[Guest]

Yeah, I plan on adding Myco to the bucket. I had originally planned on adding them to the bucket a month after initial setup which would be this weekend. I figured I'd use a couple handfulls of Happy Frog chips on the top of the bucket and they should take off. Maybe put 'em in a loose net bag so it'll be easier to get 'em back out in a couple weeks or so. As far as what to put in there yer right, any fruit/veggie as well as many proteins could be digested in the bucket. I think now that the bucket should be really running full throttle, it'll be fun trying different things which each having their own properties. Thanks, for the kiwi/papaya idea; I can get both of those cheaply at the store - organic even.

J.

 

[muddy waters]

nice apparatus j, good thread ... to me it's like aquaponics without the fish and plants...

one small correction is that the bucket bubbling method also cultivates bacteria, they use the shit sock and surface of the bucket and pump as media. i talk about this and its greater resonance of the micro-macro cosmos in my new book, SHIT SOCK OF LIFE, with a forward by oxford's own evolutionary biologist, richard dawkins



(as you can see my publisher decided to cut costs by outsourcing the cover design to me... and i spent more than 45 minutes perfecting it... which is more than double the time it took me to write the book in fact)

 

[vonforne]

Any updates P?

 

[Guest]

I have moved forward with the bucket and it's in full swing digestion. I have onion, apple, pineapple, horsradish root, shredded Epiphyllum stems. It's all going very well so far. 18 strains of beneficial Fungi have been intentionally introduced now and to be honest I don't know how well they are doing. When the bacs are working hard it gets a tanish foam but not sure what to be looking for in terms of "signs" the Mycos have taken hold. Any ideas? I'll get some pics of digesting scraps so you all can see how they look in there. The pineapple is almost gone now; it took about 3 weeks to digest a 1lb chunk of raw pineapple - leaves and all.

J.

 

[vonforne]

Post ups some pic. I would like to see an update.

Onions, tell why did you use them?

I wonder how JK is coming along with his?

 

[Guest]

I used onion cause it seemed like a good source of the natural compounds that make up intense scents. Not very scientific but it can't hurt, the same idea with horseradish. Give a wide girth for possible flavor and scent compounds, I guess I won't really know until come harvest.

Me too, I was wondering yesterday if he is working on something like this. Can't wait to see another version. JK, where art thou?

J.

 

[vonforne]

I ask about the onion because it is one thing I never add to my compost piles or worm bin. The horseradish I never have in the root form. I take it that is the type (root form) you used?

 

[Guest]

Is there a particular reason for not adding onion? Yeah, the horseradish is root cut into "wafer discs" about 1/4" thick, about 1" diam. I'm just going on the idea of plants that contain particularly strong scents or flavors or perhaps unique scents and flavors.

J.

It also occured to me that this same idea could be used to culture yeast and have a bio-CO2 generator. Deffinately not as strong as a mechanical generator, but I think a step above using tablets and things like that. I know my nitro-fixers are releasing gas cause it's very strong smell near the bucket but the tea itself does not smell like this - strictly a gas cloud surrounding the bucket.

 

[Guest]

As the bucket goes on it has an oddly sweet stink to it, almost like a composted Pepto Bismal smell.
As of now it has:
almonds bits, pecan bits, onions, horseradish, pineapple, apple, Cereus peruvianus flowers and shredded Epiphyllum stems.
here's a pic



I use about 10mL of tea per gallon of clean water. This is a shot of the water less than a minute after adding the tea.



J.

 

[mrgrowmez]

wow great thread pyrex...im just getting interested in bio culture so this is a great plpace to start....Grow those beasties pyrex!!

 

[Guest]

Thanks,
I know it's a very niche kind of thing but I love it. It's actually alot of fun too. I've been feeding them stuff just to do it. After they chew down some of what's in there now I have a coconut to crush up and toss in too, milk and all.

J.

 

[muddy waters]

i always assumed onions have natural anti-bacterial properties, because they are almost always the last thing to decompose when i introduce a load of kitchen scraps to my worms. there are other possible explanations for this, though.

there is the additional concern that onion waste can harbor plant pathogens, like onion white rot and others. theoretically though those pathogens shouldn't have a competitive advantage in your bio-filter. and i'm not even sure they would affect a plant like cannabis.

 

[Guest]

Ya know, I have no idea. I kinda assumed the same of citrus since citrus is a raw source for culture of antibiotics. Perhaps a more learned person here could enlighten us.

J.