Continuous generation of worm tea

[bornakang]

I have two fishtank filters inside a 5 gallon bucket with a 'teabag' of worm castings and (a very small amount of) insect frass. I mixed around 1 1/2 -2 tbsp molasses into the water (about 3 1/2 gallons) and I'm going to let it sit for a day or two and do it's thing til I use it.

Also, since worm tea goes bad because of bad aeration and lack of food (molasses) killing the bacteria, I'm only going to use a small portion of it, then replace what I used with more water, keep it good and alive and filled with beneficial bacteria by keeping the bucket aerated and stocked with molasses, so the new water becomes just as saturated with bacteria as the original worm tea. This will essentially give me an endless supply of worm tea.

In theory though, couldn't I also drop organic solid nutrients like insect frass or bone meal into the tea as it's brewing, let it sit in there and brew for a few days and get eat up by the microbes, and then add it to the coco as if it may as well be liquid nutrients (while still being organic?)

Makes sense to me and I saw someone on a gardening forum (not for weed) mention doing it themselves, but that's all I know of this being done really.

 

[Zill]

Seems like much ado about nothing. In essence you maintain bacterial based fermentation by feeding molasses. Then feed that spent liquor to the plants. Have you tried a simple NPK based fertilizer with some micro nutrients thrown in.

 

[bornakang]

Seems like much ado about nothing. In essence you maintain bacterial based fermentation by feeding molasses. Then feed that spent liquor to the plants. Have you tried a simple NPK based fertilizer with some micro nutrients thrown in.

the main point of this isnt the nutes; adding nutes via letting dry amendments 'brew' for a few days was an afterthought. Obviously the main idea of it has more to do with being able to keep the substrate stocked with beneficial bacteria and fungi that keep the plant and the subtrate healthy.

After setting it up it's basically self-replenishing compost tea, without me having to mess with it much at all; about 30 minutes of setup to be able to water with compost tea whenever I want without having to continually use new worm castings or insect frass i think is worth it; to save on molasses also I'm adding sugar on days im not going to be using it for watering, then use molasses instead the day before and day of watering for optimal microbial diversity. Using sugar on most off days makes it very cheap, as molasses goes slowly this way, and sugar is dirt cheap.

Maybe I could use a simple npk fertilizer and throw it all out right now, but then again fertilization is less than a third of the reasoning i had to do any of this lls

 

[Zill]

I guess. But feeding microbes sugar, molasses, gives you really high viable cell counts for sure, providing the microbes can metabolizes sugar. But aren’t you predisposing the bugs to feast on gasoline, sugar. Then your “supercharged” bacterial/ fungal liquor is added to the growth medium. Promise you, 99% of the bugs you add don’t know what to do with the soil, medium and will die off. All they know is sugar. Loads of metabolic changes need to happen in those bugs before it can begin to digest soil organic matter.

Borna,
I am not criticizing you, no. A better approach might be to feed the bugs something more complex. Soil organics.

 

[hoobastank_enthusiast]

I think this being in the coco subforum is what's throwing everyone off lol

 

[Zill]

What tha…