Peat does work for microbial activity, provided you have a good source. I'd get the minerals in the soil mix, rather than add them as a tea.
Are you trying to make a 'nutrient' tea or an 'aerated compost tea'? I think this is something that people get confused on. One has a goal of added nutrients, the other of added biology.
Lastly, I think the claims of humic acid as a good fungal food are highly overstated. Done some testing in conjunction with Tim and neither of us got good fungal growth from the humic acid (I tried a couple of the top US brands). I think it has other benefits though.....
Very important to make that distinction, it is and can be confusing for many people.
Unless I can get the Canadian peat that I *know* is being harvested sustainably, I'm staying away from it. I would love to move away from all mined products, to tell the truth, I feel they keep us, as a society, locked into and highly dependent on fossil fuels.
For your review:
Here is my current set up.
CT Guy. Thanks for your replies and comments. You are obviously very knowledgable about this subject.
Ooo! Very nice work.
I don't have a scope, so I'm curious as to whether you or anyone you know who's worked with the minerals in tea has quantified fungal attachment to these "benthic" surfaces. I still have mostly nitrifiers in my head,
Nitrobacter and
Nitrosomonas. It's my fishiness. They are also benthics and require substrata upon which to attach. In the fish world, gravel/substrate or filter media is the inoculant and substrate upon which most attach. But those have some weight to them, don't get bounced around.
Things that make you go, "Hmmmm..."