Tea Article

[CT Guy]

Hey my first post! Going on my 4th run now using pure organic AACT/guano teas. I am getting phenomenal results in every department thanks to CT, MicrobeMan, BurnOne and many others. My patients thank all of you too.

Can anyone tell me if this microscope will let me "see" my tea?

http://lansing.craigslist.org/ele/3834697727.html

I don't understand all the lens jargon on there.

Best thing to do is take a sample with you and take a look. Depending on the quality of the objectives it may get the job done for you just fine. If you do get it, I would invest in some new objectives anyway, because you'll never use the 100X, and the 4X and 10X are not great for ACT. I have a 10X, 20X and 40X and spend most of my time at 20X (assuming a standard 10X eyepiece for a total of 200X magnification).

 

[TeaFreak]

Here is the bubbler I'm using. It's made out of 3/8 soaker hose from Amazon. It fits in the bottom of my 15 gal tea bucket. It creates loads of tiny bubbles although I do have it hooked up to a rather large pump. There is a piece of brick tied in the middle to hold it down.

24 hour brew then hose it off and let er rip again.

 

[TeaFreak]

Hey thanks CT.

 

[MrSmokeyMacPot]

yo TeaFreak.... what kinda pump are you running?? Nifty bubbler setup ya got there....

 

[mapinguari]

Neat design, TeaFreak.

I'm assuming you hose it off to remove accumulated sediment, right?

I wonder if you will have to replace the tube before too long, do you have a sense of that?

 

[CT Guy]

How would clean a soaker hose effectively? I feel like biofilm buildup would be an issue....

 

[TeaFreak]

Here is the pump: $70 on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-AAP...F8&qid=1372106492&sr=8-7&keywords=Active+aqua

I can run my bubble cloner and make tea at the same time with it.
I've been running this one almost 24/7 for about 6 months no probs. It will buzz your whole house if you don't set it on a cement floor.

**Notes on the bubbler**
I hose it off between brews to get the sludge off of it. For whatever reason a thick layer of slippery dark stuff forms on the hose during brewing. I could probably brush most of it off into the tea but I've been just spraying it off and it comes right off and leaves the hose squeaky clean. I will say that i wouldn't dare let it dry on there or it might never come off. I had to scrub the hell out of the airstones when I was using those and then they would break eventually. This don't break and the tea results seem to be more consistent.

Here is a finished brew. I brew 7 gallons in this 15 gallon barrel and then add more water to make 15 gallons total per brew. So that's about a foot and a half of foamy plant-crack comin out the top!

 

[OrganicBuds]

So you never let your bubbler dry out? Couldn't that effect your brews? In between my brews I take all my components and wash them with soap and water. Then I let everything dry out before using it again. That way I can ensure that all micro life is either dead from the soap, or dried out.

Also, you can up your air flow by instead of using a 3/8 hose coming off your pump, change it to a 5/8 hose and go around the air outlet. You should take off the brass fitting when doing this. Then use a hose clamp to keep in place.

What do you put in your tea and amounts? Looks like you are getting a nice brew, nice job.

 

[TeaFreak]

Hey OB, Yes my bubbler dries out sometimes just never while it has any bio stuff on it. I rinse everything with city tapwater as soon as I'm done pouring the tea in my plants. I dont use soap other than to give the bag a good cleaning once in a while (400 micron diesel bag) I do make sure I get ALL of the soap off because I had a tearuption one time. I am aware that the foam is not an indicator of good tea but it is one of the aspects that I take note of along with PH fluctuations, smell and color to get consistency. I used to use soap and foam levels were all over the place, literally.

A note on consistency: I use rainwater. When I used to use city tap water I had no consistency even though I went through great pains to remove chlorine and adjust ph. Without consistency you will never be able to tweak your system and observe the changes in your plants and find the sweet spot.

I built a $60 110 gallon rainbarrel system that i will share on here if anyone wants to see it. It's the best 60 bucks I ever spent.

I fully agree about the airflow thing but I just dont feel that I need it right now. If I had to brew 50 gallons I would make a bigger bubbler and do exactly what you said. If you build this bubbler/pump setup you'll see what I mean.

I will take some pics and make another post showing ingredients and amounts. It's based on BurnOne's tea recipe with a few tweaks. The soil is a 50/50 mix of 707 and Sunshine #4 with some extra garden/lawn lime in there. Again, simple and consistent. Tweaks come later.

 

[OrganicBuds]

First off, I would love to see a pic of the rain barrel when you post your other pictures. You think rain water is consistent? I know my filtered city water is all over the place like you said, which was a great point. I ask because I have no experience with testing/collecting rain water. I would have to save up a ton of water with how much ACT I make in a year. I average 50gal of tea's a week from March - October. Which is about 1600gal during these months.

Thanks for the response.

 

[lost in a sea]

yeah rain water is usually consistent..

 

[TeaFreak]

Yup, mine is PH 6 and PPM 10 every time I check it. In fact It's so pure it makes my PH pen go haywire and I gotta use the dip tabs.

 

[FinestKind]

Just a note from the field...

I was following MM's tea recipe, and my potassium levels were waaaaaay high (due to the molasses); poisoned the little ladies. I'm not sure if I was giving it to them too often (once a week), but it IS possible to overdo it, even with tea. Just my

 

[MileHighGuy]

Just a note from the field...

I was following MM's tea recipe, and my potassium levels were waaaaaay high (due to the molasses); poisoned the little ladies. I'm not sure if I was giving it to them too often (once a week), but it IS possible to overdo it, even with tea. Just my

What recipe exactly?

That molasses should be eaten before the tea is poured into your plants. Besides that, I doubt it was just some sort of Potassium overdose. Blackstrap has much more than just potassium (manganese, copper, iron, calcium etc).... either way, I know that molasses is for the microbes and not the soil, a good coating of sugar can't be good for the soil structure.

The Compost tea is just an inoculation, kick start, and certainly doesn't require weekly usage..... so on that conclusion, I think you are safe!

 

[DARC MIND]

lol
@FS
what kind of compost or casting were you using?

ive seen kids use & recommend WAY more molasses mixed with just water,to "sweeten" the plants near harvest & "flush" the opposite of your claims

let alone guano tea

 

[dizzlekush]

Just a note from the field...

I was following MM's tea recipe, and my potassium levels were waaaaaay high (due to the molasses); poisoned the little ladies. I'm not sure if I was giving it to them too often (once a week), but it IS possible to overdo it, even with tea. Just my

lol
@FS
what kind of compost or casting were you using?

ive seen kids use & recommend WAY more molasses mixed with just water,to "sweeten" the plants near harvest & "flush" the opposite of your claims

let alone guano tea

DARC my first thoughts were the same as yours but then I decided to do the math real quick.

MicrobeMan's suggested maximum application rate for blackstrap molasses is 0.75% v/v, or 1.92 TBSP per gallon, or 28.8 ml per gallon. Personally I've never seen people suggesting that heavy of an application with the intentions of it acting as a sweetener.

Using my blackstrap molasses as a reference (from Wholesome Sweeteners), which has 730mg of potassium per TBSP, that can be up to 370 ppm of K just from the molasses, not taking into account the K from the compost, EWC, humus, or any other feedstocks (seaweed, guanos, fish emulsion/hydrolysate), which could make the total level of K much higher than even that. That's alot of K. Since I formulate my own nutrients, I can say with confidence than most people could grow giant plants through the bloom cycle by providing only ~35% of that amount of K.

Now I know that some (e.g. MileHighGuy) will point to the molasses supposedly being metabilized (eaten) by the microbes but this doesn't make the K magically disappear, its being cycled through the tea's ecology, hopefully ending up being absorbed by the plant once its made completely available. MM would have a much better understanding of what percentage of the total nutrients become available to the plant, IIRC he's mentioned the range of 40-70% but I might be mixing things up. If its closer to that 40% range we don't really have any worries, If its closer to that 70-100% range then I could see some plants getting pretty burned with heavy and consistent applications.

Either way, glad you mentioned it FinestKind, that probably is a serious potential liming factor on the benefits of ACT, which is often claimed by very knowledgeable people to have no potential toxicity when maintained aerobic. It's also claimed to not be a food/fertilizer, which I agree with that it should not be thought of simply as such, but this does imply that one should be aware of the significant amount of nutrients it could be providing when application rates start to become more significant.

 

[DARC MIND]

Using my blackstrap molasses as a reference (from Wholesome Sweeteners), which has 730mg of potassium per TBSP, that can be up to 370 ppm of K just from the molasses, not taking into account the K from the compost, EWC, humus, or any other foodstocks (seaweed, guanos, fish emulsion/hydrolysate), which could make the total level of K much higher than even that. That's alot of K.......I know that some (e.g. MileHighGuy) will point to the molasses supposedly being metabilized (eaten) by the microbes but this doesn't make the K magically disappear, its being cycled through the tea's ecology, hopefully ending up being absorbed by the plant once its made completely available. MM would have a much better understanding of what percentage of the total nutrients become available to the plant

i feel you dont quite understand what quality compost is,how real humus rich mineral soil works or what it is were doing with ACT

thers plenty of threads trying to explain this but heres mine
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=243151
& quote by MM~

"raw organic matter (such as plant matter) is utilized as a food source by one tier of microbes and is transformed into another food type known as humus which can be utilized by another tier of microbes. Humus (and in many regards compost) is a form of microbial food which is stable. [There may be (and probably is) an inbetween stage where raw organic matter is microbially mineralized and is directly available to plants but this likely occurs less frequently.] This stable humus is a source of food for the tier of microbes I described earlier which are responsible for feeding the plant. The ionization of the humus does take place microbially "(in the proper environment)" in the fashions described in my previous post but it is true that once in ionic form the nutrients are free flowing and carried to roots by water. Why don't the microbes just go to town and gobble down on all that good humus? Because the plant-life has some control over the microbial populations kinda like a farmer has control over livestock. When the plant is hungry for nitrogen she exudes carbon compounds with molecular bonds which feed a certain type of bacteria (or archaea) which then multiply like crazy [every 20 minutes] and in conjunction with fungi derive food from the stores of humus; this population explosion stimulates flagellate (or naked amoebae or bacterial feeding nematodes) to hatch out and divide like crazy [up to every 2 hours] and they begin consuming the bacteria/archaea. Not only does this control the bacterial/archaeal population (thereby conserving the humus) but they poo out ionized nutrients which directly feed the plant. There are many complexities involved but basically when the plant has had her fill she stops exuding bacterial food and sucks up any residual ionic nutrients which might get the bacteria going again, thereby starving out the bacterial (yes I mean archaeal too) population. This causes the bacteria to form dormant stages which in turn causes the flagellates, etc. and nematodes to also form dormant stages. In this way the humus is not all greedily gobbled up and the majority of nutrients are sequestered rather than being in ionic form where they could leach out.

Some good examples of humus like substances which sequester nutrients for years and years are sphagnum peat moss humus and Alaska humus(quality compost or casting). The nutrients are released when the substance comes in contact with living plants and the microbes come to life."

 

[dizzlekush]

i feel you dont quite understand what quality compost is,how real humus rich mineral soil works or what it is were doing with ACT

thers plenty of threads trying to explain this but heres mine
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=243151
& quote by MM~

"raw organic matter (such as plant matter) is utilized as a food source by one tier of microbes and is transformed into another food type known as humus which can be utilized by another tier of microbes. Humus (and in many regards compost) is a form of microbial food which is stable. [There may be (and probably is) an inbetween stage where raw organic matter is microbially mineralized and is directly available to plants but this likely occurs less frequently.] This stable humus is a source of food for the tier of microbes I described earlier which are responsible for feeding the plant. The ionization of the humus does take place microbially "(in the proper environment)" in the fashions described in my previous post but it is true that once in ionic form the nutrients are free flowing and carried to roots by water. Why don't the microbes just go to town and gobble down on all that good humus? Because the plant-life has some control over the microbial populations kinda like a farmer has control over livestock. When the plant is hungry for nitrogen she exudes carbon compounds with molecular bonds which feed a certain type of bacteria (or archaea) which then multiply like crazy [every 20 minutes] and in conjunction with fungi derive food from the stores of humus; this population explosion stimulates flagellate (or naked amoebae or bacterial feeding nematodes) to hatch out and divide like crazy [up to every 2 hours] and they begin consuming the bacteria/archaea. Not only does this control the bacterial/archaeal population (thereby conserving the humus) but they poo out ionized nutrients which directly feed the plant. There are many complexities involved but basically when the plant has had her fill she stops exuding bacterial food and sucks up any residual ionic nutrients which might get the bacteria going again, thereby starving out the bacterial (yes I mean archaeal too) population. This causes the bacteria to form dormant stages which in turn causes the flagellates, etc. and nematodes to also form dormant stages. In this way the humus is not all greedily gobbled up and the majority of nutrients are sequestered rather than being in ionic form where they could leach out.

Some good examples of humus like substances which sequester nutrients for years and years are sphagnum peat moss humus and Alaska humus(quality compost or casting). The nutrients are released when the substance comes in contact with living plants and the microbes come to life."

Funny, since due to your answer I feel you are the one who doesn't understand what we're talking about.

1. Please explain the value of your underlined quote. How exactly does the plant control the tea's ecology when you brew the tea separate from the plant? Telekinesis? I fully understand that once the tea is applied to the rhizosphere, due to specificity of root exudates and soil chemistry, the plant can somewhat control what microbes it forms symbiosis with and can control their rate of production. We aren't talking about too much nutrients in the soil becoming available, we're talking about too much readily available potassium from the molasses in the tea that was made available by bacteria, archaea, and hyphae consuming the molasses and flagellates and amoebae eating the bacteria, archaea, and hyphae and essentially shitting it all out. All this was done at an incredibly accelerated rate with unnaturally amplified microbial density completely uncontrolled by the plant and its exudates. So where is the relevance of your quote?

2. To call something "sphagnum peat moss humus" is redundant, call it peat or humus, no professional does both. Technically peat is usually less degraded and from a single source (e.g. sphagnum moss or coconut husk) while humus is usually more degraded than peat and is made up of a variety of decomposed stock materials. But as MM has made the public aware, many products being sold as 'humus' are identical to products being mined from the same area and being sold as 'peat'.

3. There is no such thing as alaska humus castings, castings refer to worm shit, and Alaska isn't known for its vermiculture.

4. You quoted that last bit as if it was quoted from MM. Either MM was high/tired/lethargic as hell when he wrote the last bit, or you quoted it from something else. Even though its only 2 sentences, its misuse of phrases is staggering. Please quote more responsibly.

 

[DARC MIND]

Wow

with ACT, we manipulate microbial populations for specific purposes by using various recipes and brew times...period

not taking into account the K from the compost, EWC, humus, or any other foodstocks (seaweed, guanos, fish emulsion/hydrolysate), which could make the total level of K much higher than even that. That's alot of K.......

NO ONE is advising guanos or extacts as a feed stock, read the firest page of thread

the goal is to inoculate your soil/media with beneficials who are cultured in compost or ACT again using tried and true recipes based on experience and microbial analysis

as for the other vomit

aslaska humus is a baged product & dont kid your self on the professional BS

 

[dizzlekush]

Wow

with ACT, we manipulate microbial populations for specific purposes by using various recipes and brew times...period

NO ONE is advising guanos or extacts as a feed stock, read the firest page of thread

the goal is to inoculate your soil/media with beneficials who are cultured in compost or ACT again using tried and true recipes based on experience and microbial analysis

as for the other vomit

aslaska humus is a baged product & dont kid your self on the professional BS

Nice straw man argument, but you didn't address any of my points. Plenty of people advise the use of guanos and extracts. Molasses is a plant extract, which i guess you somehow weren't aware of. Plenty use and suggest seaweed extracts in their teas. I could name the 5 most sold teas and they all have guano in them (e.g. Budswel and Pure Blend Grow and Bloom), you even said 'guano tea' 3 posts ago, you f**king hypocrite. Now i know guano doesn't help microbial density because I've read all the material you have and guess what, I actually have a microscope and test my own brews.

Why don't you answer my first question in my previous post about your lack of comprehension and the relevance of your quote, or stop posting until you have something valuable to contribute in this conversation instead of just restating obvious facts and copy/pasting (or look up what a straw man argument is and realize that you're doing it)? I was actually bringing validity to concerns that another member expressed that you rashly belittled. You're just putting a damper on the conversation and being a dick, so ill return the civility.

Back to the discussion of the potential toxicity of readily available nutrients in tea with heavy application rates...