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Perception your awesome pics n vids have made me realize I need a microscope badly.... I've been brewing teas for a couple years now based mainly on Tim Wilsons site n recipes but without a microscope I really have no way of knowing what I'm brewing if anything.... Just finished a brew myself..... Zero ,16 , 22, and 36 hours here's hoping I actually got some helpful microbes....
sorry I am reading through it now I have more time, its a very cool thread btw brother. Maybe you are seeing Azotobacter, and or Azospirillium and the related Streptomyces, these will appear more like aggregate, less mobile, but if you have fast moving rod shaped or oval microbes near these strepto bundles, then its likely one or other of the Azo's. If you arent growing tobacco this is a good thing in most instances. Of course each microbe has many strains, so we have to hunt for those types we think might give us an agri edge, these often being very plant specific.I'm just going to water and foliar spray everything (indoor cannabis and outdoor veggie garden). I just up-potted my vegetative cannabis plants to 3 gallon fabric pots that were mixed and sat outside on the earth for a month. Lots of little critters in the pots now. This compost brew is to kick them off strong with some good biodiversity. Not sure what my continuing regiment will be.
24hr update:
The number of bacteria have increased a little, but the biggest change is the increase in biodiversity! I'm seeing different shapes of bacteria that move at different speeds. Also found a nematode and Protozoa.
Does anyone know what the small, fast moving microbes are? Are they Protozoa? They are the same size as bacteria, but zoom around really quickly. I wasn't sure if Protozoa could be that small.
I got lucky with a video, and caught a Protozoa messin with a nematode. Check out the bacteria in background too. I'm trying to get it to upload. May need to use YouTube. Here is a pic of nematode though.
View attachment 629806
@Wentworth I found the microscope at a pawnshop (which was listed on Craigslist) for $60. It's only a monocular, and doesn't have any bells or whistles, but it gets the job done! Goes up to 400x.
I will say, if you can get a binocular, it might be worth the extra $. Looking through a single eyepiece is stressful on the eyes.
I wouldn't buy that one but you can get similar ones from amazon.Although looking at a computer screen can still strain the eyes.
:) Lots of good reasons to foliar I find, not least in providing a point of Ca2+ spiking beneficial for mycorrhization, where we have delicate roots that are easy to flood with a drench app. or we already have wet media or conditions where less helpful bacteria or higher Na levels are preventing efficient rhizo water uptake.Great choice using your botanical teas as a foliar application. Lots of good comes from soil drenching as well but foliar is a great way to ward off pests and other pathogens on leaf surface and offers great protection.
you mix it dry buddy, then add it to the brew...see here@Ecompost is this good to do? Or u think it would go anaerobic from that if it wasn't being aerated at the time? Thanks
this is a barginAlthough looking at a computer screen can still strain the eyes.
Right? I thought that's what he was using.Wow I thought you'd need a super expensive phase contrast scope to get images like that..... Very nice. I'm on it. Thanks:D
Aha! That is no small secret, sir. Thank you for sharing.To spill a small secret, I’ve been pre-feeding or pre-activating [vermi]compost which is not so fresh by mixing in a small amount of wheat bran (livestock store or bulk foods department grocery store) and moistening with very diluted black strap molasses, loosely covered with cloth or paper towel 24 hours ahead of brew. (approximate ratios, wheat bran 1:30 [vermi]compost & BSM 1:300 water).
yeah the RRP is over $700 so I would say so, its half price.@Ecompost that *is* a deal!
@Perception -- your phone and a microscope eyepiece?!
Right? I thought that's what he was using.
Aha! That is no small secret, sir. Thank you for sharing.
yo bro you got that.@Seamaiden Clarification: I'm just holding my iPhone 6 up to the microscope. No special adaptor or anything. Takes a steady hand though
oh man, we have dyes etc here, we have some really pokey scopes. its so mad to look at this world we pass over, or we read about in books for real happening on your slide preps.Wow, I wish I could justify buying that binocular. I get so absorbed looking at everything under the scope. Find myself running late for work, etc... Haha.
hi mate,@Ecompost you got my attention with the mention of the foam. I see foam as DOCs (dissolved organic compounds) that have a hydrophilic and hydrophobic end, polarity if you will, and their presence at the top of the water column is an indication that foam fractionation, a form of chemical filtration (one of the oldest forms IIRC) is occurring.
So I guess I'm curious how you've sorted that the foaming is impacting DO levels, and how application of an oil that would slick the surface of the water column would not similarly drive DO levels down here. Please keep in mind that my experience and thus paradigms come from a different world, decidedly more aquatic, with very different goals. Thus, my lens.
pleasure mate, sorry if the text is a bit bad, I have people I should ask them to read it first LOL@Ecompost :eyepiece:Heck yea dude thanks for all the amazing info!!!!!!
you are very welcome sir :)First of all I gotta say thanks for sharing your time and knowledge :). Please forgive my ignorance as I'm a complete amateur to tea brewing and organic gardening in general..... So in my brewer for that brew the first thing I added was fish hydrolysate . I add it first to allow the phosphoric acid that's added to it by the manufacturer( pacific natural fresh fish fertilizer -same one Tim uses) to be neutralized ( a technique I copied from a colleague of Ingham's) before adding my compost. So anyway if I don't add the fish hydrolysate at all the tea has a tremendous amount of foam right from the start. If I do add it the foam doesn't appear at all til about the 18hour of brewing. I figured it was the oil in the fish hydro that was reducing the foam cuz it's very oily. As u can see from my pics(second pic 16 hour, third pic 22hour) the excessive foaming doesn't start til about 22-24 hour mark. Maybe I should just end my brew there? I know I need a scope badly and as both you and Tim state foam isn't necessarily a good indicator of a quality brew but like a total rookie I was using the foam to determine if my brew was successful. Now that u mention it I can see how foam might reduce DO almost like putting a blanket on a fire especially in a vortex brewer like mine where the oxygenation takes place at the surface not through an airstone(I use none). Thanks again;)
hahaha when only 1.4 million people speak your language, you better learn someone elses if you want to get by. Estonians are good with languages because we have so few people here that other nations dont bother to learn our tongue, like Welsh, people speak it, but most others not born there dont bother to learn since there are so few people with which to use it on. Swedish, Russian, English are the dominant languages, even here in TallinnYour text is great very easy to understand. You write in English better than me and it's the ONLY language I know:D
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