What I do is use aquarium pumps and air stones, one pump for every two 5 gallon buckets and one large air stone for each bucket and 1/4" tubing. Works great even in the heat of central Texas. You must use some type of aerator because if you don't your tea will have no oxygen, thus no living microbes and this is a situation which causes your tea to become smelly. AACT or Actively Aerated Compost Tea doesn't have a bad odor and is a much better tea than the anaerobic type. Anaerobic tea, or tea with no living microbes is still good to put on plants but does not compare to AACT.Hello,
I was wondering if anyone knows if you need a special aerator to brew worm casting compost tea. I read on another thread that you need to get one that is powerful enough to create proper tea.
Thanks
@Chuck do you use a prepared inoculant or just your own compost? If you use your own compost, roughly how much by volume in a 5 gallon bucket and what type of containment bag if any do you place it in?What I do is use aquarium pumps and air stones, one pump for every two 5 gallon buckets and one large air stone for each bucket and 1/4" tubing. Works great even in the heat of central Texas. You must use some type of aerator because if you don't your tea will have no oxygen, thus no living microbes and this is a situation which causes your tea to become smelly. AACT or Actively Aerated Compost Tea doesn't have a bad odor and is a much better tea than the anaerobic type. Anaerobic tea, or tea with no living microbes is still good to put on plants but does not compare to AACT.
I do not use a prepared innoculant. I use my homemade compost, organic manure based pelleted fertilizer and garden soil as the base for the tea. I also use other amendments such as fish emulsion, liquid humus and most importantly molasses. Most but not all of the time I also add mycorrhizae. If some of my plants look as if they need something extra such as nitrogen or iron I will add either bloodmeal or iron or whatever the plant needs to the mix. I normally brew 40 gallons or 8 buckets at a time and give each plant 1 quart of tea per week and water it in if it doesn't rain. I do not use a containment bag unless I am going to spray the tea and then I just grab an old sock and fill it up with the dry ingredients and throw it into the bucket and then strain the tea again before using. The object of my tea is not to fertilize but to feed the soils micro-organisms but if I can feed the plant at the same time as the microbes why not? Both fungal and bacterial organisms are fed this way. Molasses is the most, IMO, important amendment you can add to tea. Microbes feed directly on it. There is a backside to molasses though. Microbes can multiply so rapidly, especially in hot weather, that the tea can go anaerobic if too much molasses is added and not enough air supplied. The amounts of each ingredient for the base materials is roughly 2 handfuls of each, amendments are normally 1-2 oz per bucket.@Chuck do you use a prepared inoculant or just your own compost? If you use your own compost, roughly how much by volume in a 5 gallon bucket and what type of containment bag if any do you place it in?
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