New Compost Tea Brewer - Air induction ideas wanted please

Discussion in 'Growing Organic Marijuana' started by jerry111165, Sep 8, 2011.

  1. #41 lawschool2012, Mar 25, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 25, 2012
    They're a bit loud, or at least the ones I dealt with were. You may be able to muffle one somehow. The blowers are powerful; they have to be powerful in order to push a lot of air through 20+ feet of 3/4" flexible PVC pipe.
     
  2. Alita makes some quiet air pumps for commercial use. Way quieter than my Ecoplus 3. But they ain't cheap.
     
  3. ACT can be poured onto the soil or sprayed (after filtering) using one of those sprayers you pump up with air, then pull the trigger. For larger batches we just put a sump pump in a mesh bag (800 to 1000 microns) and pump through a garden hose. You can use a nozzle or your thumb.


    If you use the little squeeze type sprayers, these can damage fungal hyphae and some larger protozoa.
     

  4. MM ,
    thanks for the info - pretty interesting posts - and i especially like the vids of the teas at different times . it will help me make sure i am on track. so how long is the tea viable after i take it away from our brewer ? should we keep it cool as we get it to our patients>? also what price do you suggest per gallon ? i thought 1/2 price of the stores was a good deal... i offer them all they need to do it themselves - info , recipes, where to buy ingredients etc etc if they dont want to do it - i think $10 - a gal is fair ... if they want to save cash they can make it , its what i encourage them to do ...

    on the Vortex brewer ... unbelievable .... perpetual brew!!!:confused: OMG ...what ppl will do to make a buck ... it s shameful ...:rolleyes:

    any way i try to help the people around me as much as possible to do for themselves.if they want me to do it for them they can pay - i think you can understand that .

    thanks as always , the Falcon
     
  5. Falcon, good morning.

    Its definetly a tough situation regarding selling tea. Who knows what its "worth"? That's a tough call. I do say, tho, that if you've given the people the info they need to make their own, told them how easy it is, and they still don't want to brew their own, and want you to make it for them, then power to ya pal. Make yourself some money. Why not make enuff to pay for the equipment and ingredients? Why the heck not? I have, with the cost of my Alita pump (which I love) and the cost of my cone tank and stand (the shipping was ridiculous) I probably have almost $600.00 into my setup. Sure, its good, solid equipment and will probably last me the rest of my life, but If I could find a market to help pay for that six hundred bucks yer darn tootin' I'd be doing the same thing.

    Now we come down to the very important component of this whole deal though - PROOF that your brewer and ACT tea recipes are doing what you, and the rest of us THINK it is doing - what it is supposed to do - breeding the right amounts/types what have you of bacteria, nematodes, cilliates - etc. Chances are, if you are using QUALITY vermicompost/castings that you are all set, but then we come down to proper brew times. How long is *exactly* right to ensure that you are getting it right? I bet that a few to 6 hours could make or break a tea. So, we come down to using microscopes to tell us that the brew time is correct, or too long, or not long enough - you get the idea.

    I don't have the resources right now (maybe someday) to own and use a microscope on my teas. The only thing that I can do is to make educated "guesswork", using the information that I have gottem from Tim, GC, some other websites, etc. Its all guesswork without a scope.

    I just about guarantee that at least 90% of the hydro stores that are selling tea don't scope their results, most probably do a "perpetual" tea (gack) and most have no idea whatsoever what they are even selling, but folks are buying it.

    I've seen the results of my own teas - it works. Could it be a lot better if I had a scope to verify the results? You betcha. Its a tough call, and an expensive one too. Would I even know what I was looking at under a scope if I had one? Probably not...*lol* that would take some education, too.

    I hope this works out for you. I wish I had the means to help pay for my setup. I say if they aren't willing to go to the trouble of building a brewer and can't be bothered, and that if you ARE going to take the trouble to build a quality brewer and use quality ingredients then power to ya man. At the very least I bet you'll have more knowledge and better recipes that the hydro stores and hopefully end up with a better end product.

    Jerry

    Ps - just my .02c.
     
  6. Hey Jerry ,
    thanks man , good words of encouragement ! btw didnt you see the celestron microscope i got for around $150- ? it isnt any where near as good as MMs but it is good enuf and takes movies/pics.

    and you bet every day i am freely disseminating this info to lots of folks. Everything they need to know i tell them/write it down or give them links to.
    the most common request after the "tea intro" is why i dont sell it ...LOL city folks!!:rolleyes:
    at this point i am using vermicompost from MY bins to make tea so i KNOW its top notch. cant wait til i have enough to use in my soil ... ( EWC ENVY )ROFL

    so top of the morning to you all ~
     
  7. I'm with jerry. The info, designs, and ingredients/methods are all attainable free of charge. What they are paying for is your investment in equipment and investment in time, both in learning about how to make it and for actually making it.
     
  8. I do not think there is anything wrong with selling tea.

    I know some people, who most of you also know of, who have invested much more than $100,000.00 into research and development and laboratory testing. They also invested over $4K in a microscope and more in cameras and various meters. They charge $5 per gallon for ACT.

    I myself have many thousands of dollars invested into research, equipment, patents, etc. When I figure out a price to sell something for, I do take my investment into consideration but I can't expect to make it all back right away, not even in the first 5 years unless sales are fabulous. What I do consider are my immediate costs for parts, material, labor, shipping and transportation (by percentage per unit). I estimate how much I feel comfortable marking this up. I then look at the market and what I think is fair and affordable. As I said before, it costs up to $1 to make a gallon of quality ACT, not counting the one gallon container. Even right now, I'm going through tremendous amounts of time, parts, shipping costs developing through trial and error our new brewer but I cannot expect to pass those costs onto the consumer.

    It is best if people use ACT right away. If there is a delay, they should keep it at around room temperature with the lid off. If they have a little aquarium pump and air stone, they can keep it probably for an extra day. I have done this.
     
  9. Thx MM ,
    now you gave me an idea ! i will take it to the point of pick up in a 5 gal bucket and when i arrive i can open it and keep an airstone in it and bottle as ppl want it. i think its the only way for me to make sure they get a viable tea.
    i appreciate the input it will help me make sure my people get a good product.

    any other suggestions or links you think might be helpful always appreciated, so far it has been great.
     
  10. Sorry for digging this back out Jerry but I'm curious after a year how do you like that brewer? Any changes or mod you would do? I'm starting to piece mine together now.
     
  11. I will truthfully say that I do not use it very often these days; if I had the choice and know what I know now I would concentrate on quality compost & vermicompost - I haven't made an ACT in over a year now. Maybe more.

    I did dust it off a few months ago and have since made some botanical teas in it but probably could have just as easily made these teas in a pail.

    Organic gardeners make ACTs to boost microbial levels in soil. By using high quality vermicompost and homemade, aged/mature compost I certainly don't have issues with microbe levels.

    I wish I'd have saved the $500 or so bucks tbh.

    J
     
  12. Jerry's right. Kinda unneeded in container gardening.
    Even outside, I mainly used my brewer for making ACT inoculations for wood chips, leaves, and other OM for starting compost piles. That and making botanical tea concentrates. 
     
  13. #53 Bnebel15, Jun 21, 2016
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2016
    First, I just wanted to say thanks yet again to Stankie for his ideas regarding the absolutely cool tea brewer that he posted, and which I definetly used to get the idea for my own brewer that i am in the process of building. I kind of hated to start a whole new thread, but at the same time felt like i was "hijackingI" Stankies thread with all of my posts regarding the one that I am building...*lol* If so, that wasnt my intention.

    Anyhow -

    So, I did buy a 15 gallon tank and stand from TankDepot.com. When I get home later I will work on getting a picture of it up here. I was very pleasantly surprised when I got home yesterday to find it on my porch, and to find that it wasnt as huge as I had previosly thought that it might be. I was expecting this huge monstrosity, being 15 gallons, but again was really pleased to find that it wasnt big, giant and bulky.

    My Alita AL-60 air pump is supposed to be at my house tomorrow. I did run into a temporary snag when "Aquacave.com" sent me the AL-40 model, but this one got shipped back and the new one is on its way. I have no doubt after looking at the "slightly" smaller AL-40 model that the AL-60 is going to kick some serious tea brewing butt! Hey, LD and others) told me that when buying the air pump, which is really the heart of the brewer to "Go big or go home"! - so I did! :)

    My reason for this post is this - I am in a bit of a "quandry" as far as the actual induction of the air into the tank chamber. I saw that Stankie had run his air into the drain bottom of the tank, and it looked like it worked really good, but as far as getting the tea out of the tank? I'm not sure how he did it, and this will be much heavier to simply tip over, or pour out into a 5 gallon bucket.

    I have attachjed several CADs that I whipped up here, showing several ways that I have thought about doing this. There are several pros and cons to each, and I value the Blades of Grasscity opinions highly and really want as much input here for the build. I can go thru the bottom like Stankie did, but have no diffuser at this point. Is one really needed? I can go thru the top, but then have to drill a (tight) hole thru the new tank...

    take a look at my CADs. Input Blades!

    Thanks in advance!

    jerry.[/QUOTE]
    Here was my basic idea. I took tea labs concept and made my own with a mister from home Depot. And a 32 gallon trash can. One lesson I've learned is leave a 5 inch buffer at the top. Don't fill the water all the way to the top cause once the foam starts you will have a mess. Trust me. So I'd you want to brew 5 gallons do it in a 8 or 10 gallon bucket just to be safe. But here is my simple idea. Didn't put any filters in it as I will use a cheese cloth on top of a smaller 5 gal bucket that I will put under the spigot when the tea is done. So I basically took the mister, cut off both ends. The end that has the mister anfor the other end where you attach the water supply. I capped off the bottom inlet. And a fixed a 1/4 compression valve on the end the misters used to be on. Then drilled out holes all alone the tubing all the way down. Then I simply attached my air pump to the fitting and my home made tea brewer was done. After testing it out there are very little dead spots now in my tea. It's basically the same concept as tea labs but buying the mister saved me time from having to assemble my own pvc pipe and make all the bends. I did have another idea for using flex tubing and it would have worked too. Compost brewers are so fun to make. There is so many different ways to skin the cat.
     

    Attached Files:

  14. Can you return any of this equipment for a refund?
     
    • Like Like x 1
  15. Sure. By why it works great
    Sure. But why it works great.
     
  16. Because you can get the same benefit from taking the compost and top dressing with it.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  17. I agree but then why does everyone make compost tea. It's easier for me to brew the tea. And feed the plants rather than walk around my garden with 11 different ingredients top dressing

    Sent from my SM-G930V using Grasscity Forum mobile app
     
  18. Most organic growers (around here at least) have stopped using compost teas. If its easier for you then go for it.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  19. Interesting. I've seen nothing but compost tea diy posts. Recipe posts etc. I've seen little info on people top dressing only. I definitely use the left over grinds in the tea bag and top dress with those. But I can tell you my plants love the tea. Ever since I started using the tea in between synthetic feedings the stems and branches are way thicker and more new growth. So it is working for me. And again I have 11 things in my tea. It wouldn't be feasible for me to walk around to 20 plus plants and top dress with 11 ingredients. That would waste my whole day. And trust me brother these parts didn't cost much. I think I am about $35 deep into my brewer. For that money I will continue to brew the tea. It works for me. Thanks for your input

    Sent from my SM-G930V using Grasscity Forum mobile app
     
  20. Everyone has their own paradigm. Teas and Brewers went the way of the dodo around here a few years back. What some of us focus do around here is geek out on the humus, specifically compost and vermipost. Those "11 things" would not need to be top dressed. They would all be broken down into a nutrient rich microbial source that interacts with the soil environment. When top watered or blumats your essentially doing the same as making a tea. Now, you are mixing synthetic and defeating the microbial benefits, so I can see your need for teas. There are a million ways to grow this plant.
     
    • Like Like x 3

Share This Page