Stinkin' Soil

[billyba79]

Hey guys,

I just bought some organic soilless mix that was made at a local hydro shop. They said that is composed of 30 gal Coco coir, 30 gal Perlite, 10 gal EWC. Well, it I noticed over the past few days that it was emitting a sewage smell from the sealed bags they are in. I am guessing that this is due to a build anaerobic bacteria. I opened these bags up and have been mixing the soil around to aerate it. My question is....will this soil be usable after the smell disappears or is it FUBAR'ed? I also poked holes in the remaining bags to get some air into them. Good idea?

 

[Guest]

Get a wiff of some of my fovorite teas and we can both be glad that the buds smell nothing like what they come from. I haven't done any Coco, but mold in your grow can't be good - wait for a knowlegable helper - but I'm guessing get it dry, and fix the mold - possibley a spray with h2o2 then dry; all is not lost.

 

[bakelite]

Its probably anaerobic bacteria like you said (smells like rotten eggs, hydrogen sulfide). Keep agitating the soil daily, the odor should go away. It may take a week or so, but once it starts smelling like good organic earth you should be good to go!

 

[billyba79]

Thx bakelite, I have been letting air out. I wasn't sure if it would return to normal, now I feel better.

 

[3BM]

Anaerobic bacteria will produce sulfur compounds as stated above. "Sewage smell" might describe the funky coco odor; it has a real particular smell. That combined with a little anaerobic odor might be the smell you describe. To be sure you are free from any contaminants you will need to heat the mix up to 180 degrees for at least an hour. Some people use an oven for this, but I dont think thats necessary. Just dump all those bags into a large container, like 55gal rubbermade etc. Water them to field capacity with molasses at about 1tsp/gal. Mix thoroughly, check after 24 hours. It should feel warm at the surface, and if you dig down a few inches it should feel pretty hot. Mix it again every day or so, and then let it sit for another week undisturbed. This is basically a composting period which will increase the availability of nutrients in the mix, and will also serve as a pasteurization stage. Everything will be killed, except the smallest and most resilient colonies (namely beneficials). The rest period will give the beneficials time to recolonize the now cleaned mix. The smell of sulfur should go away leaving a clean "fresh" smell, like soil. However, the coco will continue to smell. Maybe get a pure sample of coco from the store just to get an idea of its smell. Well hope that helps.

3bm

 

[Suby]

3M gave you some good advice IMO.

It`s happened to me before with a sealed batch in my garage in the summer.
My solution was to open up the bags and spread them out on a tarp so they can dry out a bit or even alot, in the sun it took about a day, this will really kill off alot of anearobic bacteria, besides in coco anaerobic bacteria don`t last long because it dries out so fast.
Second step was to eradicate the leftover nasties by competition, so I brewed an activated tea by mixing a little molasses with kelp meal and EWC and bubble it for 24hrs.
I filles 5 gallon containers with soil then I used this tea to wet the mix, I watered until I had runoff.
I waited 2 weeks to use it and by then it was fine.
Now I am ASSUMING this will work in a coco based medium but my experience was with a soil/peat based mix.

S

 

[billyba79]

Thanks for the responses guys. I have checked over the past couple of days and the sewer smell has disappeared completely. It smells like good soil now. Would anyone happen to know what "field capacity" means? I'm not very familiar with this term.