Re: [compost_tea] Brewer types,fish oil and DE

From: Mike Harvey <mharvey_at_westnet.com.au>
Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 16:36:20 +0800
Mike Benton,
I have taken a while to reply to your post as I had sent a sample in to SFI=
Lismore Aus that had a bearing on this topic.
I use the rubber disc type diffusers in my machines and they create a mediu= m
size bubble of high oxygen transfer rate.
I have used fish emulsion regularly as a way of feeding fungi and keeping the foam down The oil content seems to be the important part (for fungi) an= d
I have found it difficult to source high oil content fish hydrolysate. So I=
have been using cod liver oil, however it goes straight into emulsion so is=
no good to keep the foam down however it does feed fungi incredibly well. There is a guy in Eastern Australia who passed this info on to me - he said=
he had done lots of testing with it and it gave consistent results. I
believe he lurks on this site so if you are still there thanks for the info= .
I have trialed using sunflower oil as an oil to keep the foam down and this=
works ok (you need a fair bit though). Canola oil is fungicidal so it may not be a good idea to use it (it is in most vegetable oils). Does anyone know if sunflower oil has any fungicidal effects?? The oil does float on th= e
top so it does not come into contact with all of the tea. The following tes= t
results I got today and the recipe has 0.1% cod liver oil as well as 6%
molasses, paramagnetic rock dust, 2.5% humic acid by weight, sunfower oil (to keep foam down) and other material. (You need massive aeration to keep<= BR> this aerobic).
It took 3 days to get to the lab so the numbers direct out of the tank woul= d
have been better.
This material was used as a soil drench and inoculant on strawberries.
By the way what is DE?
Regards Mike Harvey New Life Soils www.composttea.com.au
      Sample
     Unique
     Tea
     Active
     Total
     Active
     Total


      #
     ID
     Volume
     Bacterial
     Bacterial
     Fungal
     Fungal
     Hyphal



     (mL)
     Biomass
     Biomass
     Biomass
     Biomass
     Diameter




     (µg/mL)
     (µg/mL)
     (µg/mL)
     (µg/mL)
     (µm)

      4134
     NLS-Soil food
     1
     40.3
     110,080
     239
     382
     3.5










      Bold


     In
     Excellent.
     Excellent.
     Excellent.
     Disease-

      Means Low

     desired



     suppressive




     range.



     fungi were








     extracted.











     Desired
     1 -
     10 -
     150 -
     2 -
     2 -
     (A)


     Range
     1
     150
     3000
     10
     20




----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Benton" <compost_at_mweb.co.za>
To: <compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2004 12:40 PM
Subject: RE: [compost_tea] Brewer types,fish oil and DE


> OOPS yes Kirk I did me to say water.In my rush to get everything done = I
had
> a bit of brain fade :}
> On diffussers,I also started with drilled pvc about 3 years ago and wi= th
big
> holes ,then I got inside the unit while it was running,goggles and sno= rkel
> time,luckly this was in summer..There I realised that smaller was
> better.This meant drilling about 2000 holes af about 1mm or 1/25"= .Hmmm
less
> than funny.I have been interesed in waste water treatment for a while.= I
> found rubber diffusers thru the net in the USA but the costs where too=
> high.So I started making them locally.This allowed me to change the si= ze
of
> the slash that let the air out.As for durabilty I have only had one customer
> with damage to the sleeves and he has a triple 1200 lt set ,running if= one
> big blower and at times I suspect the his workers are putting all the = air
> thru one tank and stressing the sleeves to much.As for cleaning being<= BR> > difficult,I can not agree ,less than 10 minutes turn around time.
> Bending PVC is easy enough.Use glycerene heated up to 110/120 C if I > remember right.?Or was that210C Icant remember..
> I did a fish oil brew and this time the oil formed an emulsion on the = top
of
> the water.There was still foam ,so I added a teaspoon of cooking
> oil.[Veg}Made great  tea even the fishy smell was reduced.
> Anyone using DE in their tea ?If so why?
> Regards
> Mike Benton
> Compost Technologies
> mike_at_composttea.co.za      mobile 0823345371<= BR> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>


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Received on Thu May 20 2004 - 11:58:59 EDT

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