has anyone tried fish emulsion for organic nutrients

not needed if you have a soil based on a good humus source. check the soil mix for beginners and the no-till sticky threads for info.


if you still want fish ferts i would go with neptunes harvest.

 

when you say hydro, I'm going to assume you're using coco because adding something like fish emulsion to a rez of water for an extended period of time will most likely cause root rot. fish emulsion is not as good as fish hydrolysate. the fish emulsion is a byproduct and heavily processed so a lot of the good stuff is not there. if you use fish hydrolysate, it is a cold processed extraction and a lot of the good stuff is retained. there are a few people who have tried to do something like compost teas in hydro and I haven't seen anyone successful at it.

 

I was reading a guy using CPB for his hydro worked out good but he had 2nds rez with a filter that would slowly pull the water through it cleansing it. He also had a gravity fed 3g bucket that would push water down into the veg rez as its being removed.

I wish I could remember the thread.
Oh yeah and he was using fish emulation.

 

why do you want to do hydro if you are going organic?

 

Sounds like he made a bio filter for the pathogenic bacteria to be removed. You should check out aquaponics if you don't want to do soil.

 

^^^this

I understand that due to methods of processing etc it may contain higher level of heavy metals as well...I'm no expert. Just remember reading it.

 

Hydrolysate is where its at.

 

if it can break down and decompose, it should not be added to hydro systems. that is why synthetics work well because salt doesn't break down like fish products do. take the fish emulsion and set it out on the counter and set synthetics out too for comparison. smell them daily and tell me which one smells like the smell has gone "bad" first? does that make more sense?

root rot is caused by lack of oxygen in the water due to rising temperature. for every degree in temp increase your water will lose oxygen so in a hydro set up, this can cause root rot.
in soil, overwatering can indeed cause root rot but in my opinion, is easier to treat as I've dealt with both. a plant in a hydro set up is much more vunerable than soil. you can let soil dry out and then water less and the problem should be gone if you're using a quality humus. in hydro you HAVE to have them in water so this makes it tougher as well as controlling water temps or providing enough oxygen via air pump, or have shorter watering cycles on the water pump timer. I know a lot of people swear by beneficial innoculants but when you do reading on hydroponic tomatoes, it shows that perlite and rockwool can house microbiology but it's limited to what lives in that particular environment. hydro is not hospitable to microbes. I've tried both live and dead rez's and nothing helped as I could not get the temps down in the water and so it just took one time of getting heated up after that first run in with rot to make a bloom, or not I swear it wouldn't leave. I'm too embarrassed to say how much money I spent trying to fix that. it was that point I started organics and now I've traded rot for bug central. yay. lol

 

I know a few people who do 100% organic/probiotic hydro. anaerobic, sitting water. fed nothing but anaerobic teas, fermented plant extracts, bokashi... never seen such happy plants. I'm not convinced anaerobic is bad for the garden, not by a long shot

 

Can you elaborate or do you know where I can find info on it? Did a search in the soil mix for beginners and didnt see any about that subject.

 

Humus is compost or vermicompost. It provides the biology to break down your amendments, conditions soil structure and provides some nutrients. It's what makes your soil alive so quality will make or break your grow. It's that important and there's no substitute.

 

So the main purpose of using fish hydrolysate, a good humus source already has if not better?

 

I use mine in compost teas now and it is included to feed microbes growing in the tea but I was using it to feed plants before just by following the directions on the bottle. It works but I'm in control of what it eats. That's a lot of responsibility. Lol so now I only use it in a compost tea at 2oz per 3-4 gallons once in a while and only if there's an issue. Lately though, I've just top dressed ewc and watered it in with some malted barley flour and it doesn't make a difference. Fish fertilizer is plant available for the most part meaning, you will see an immediate response. If I was to use a raw amendment like fish bone meal, it would take a lot longer because it isn't immediately available. It needs quality compost or castings to cycle/make available. Using raw ingredients gives you an advantage over available ferts because the microbiology breaks them down providing many things that bottles can't. Now this is where it gets hard to explain. Basically this process of breaking down ingredients makes plants healthier and provides life to your soil. Using available bottled fertilizers doesn't give your microbes anything really to break down compared to raw ferts. So they aren't needed as much when compared. Is it bad then? No. It has its place and importance depends on which way you decide to grow. The No Till folks have no need for it but someone who can't find a quality humus source to provide that process of breaking down food, will find fish hydrolysate a much needed tool.



I hope that explains it.