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Ditch The Stones , Microbe mans Air Lift Brewer


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if your making compost teas with air stones it's possible to have living organisms in the stones which are hard to clean & you leave a cleaning product residue 

that takes lots of time & water to remove 

 

a air lift brewer or as Tim Wilson aka Microbe man calls them , the microbulator , is a better option in more ways than one 

they are much easier to clean , you can pull all the bits apart to do so , but by Tim Wilson's testing it seems a better air /  environment 

for multiplying life than using air stones , 

 

the PVC pipe bits , bungee cord & hose , cost round $45 for 50mm  , i used a PVC end cap & drilled a hole for the hose in that

prob need to drop to 40mm PVC to fit in a smaller bucket , i'm using a 90lt barrel to brew & 50mm works fine ,

 

system works best when the brew bucket /barrel is on the fuller side if you don't need to brew that much have a shorter second

center pipe so it fits in a smaller "Full " bucket rather than trying to brew half the amount in a larger bucket 

 

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you want a electromagnetic air pump , $35 to $95 , depending on what size you get

i got the ACO-003 model sometime back , it has been hanging up under a veranda on 24/7 bubbling rain or RO water , only ever gets turned off 

when it's barrel scrub time , hasn't missed a beat in at least 2 years  

 

Tim Wilson's mini microbulator , 5gal , https://youtu.be/Ac29ZfvMjmo & his poorboy microbulator , 50gal ,https://youtu.be/pKj7LV3hgrQ

 

someone else that gives you a good look at putting it together https://youtu.be/xr-VhOoUC6I not that it's a difficult process , considering you can buy all the bits pre cut if you like 

& depending on your container size only have to do one cut to the center pipe for height 

 

this is Tim Wilson's web page , https://www.microbeorganics.com/ some great info on brewing times , recipes , living soils & just a massive amount of info on a single page site 

if he was here in oz i'd buy a pre-made microbulator from him just for the info on his site  

 

Warning turn your pump on B4 putting the pvc in the water & only turn off the pump once the pvc is fully out of the water 

otherwise you can run the risk of giving your pump a load of water = by by pump , most likely , or just make sure the pump 

is well above the water line 

 

cheers all 

hope this is something you find handy in your garden 

itchy 

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i've been reading up on this myself and the gardening guru in our area was saying just scrub the stones with a stiff brush after each brew. 

but i'm with you itchy. i just cant see how you can scrub microbes out of those stones.

 

going to try a setup with a 20ltr bucket and a 4 outlet fish tank pump plus fish tank heater to get the temp right. 

i dont have a grow going atm so ill try it in the vege patch. 

the local organics crowd where i live swear this ACT (activated compost tea) is a real plant booster.

the brew will be  15 ltrs with 5ml per ltr of molasses at 20deg C for 24 hours. then use it as a foliar spray.

i'll start my next grow sometime in August/September so i should know by then if my ACT is working. 

 

btw i'm always editing my posts cause i'm such a bad speller  :x

Edited by slicker1
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you can use vinegar to try & clean the stones but i found you then need to clean out the vinegar b4 adding the stones back in to the brewer

 

as far as heating go's , i've been brewing teas in the backyard now , sprayed & soil drenched a bacteria tea yesterday & did a fungal tea 2 weeks ago 

i'm using around 90lt barrel & have not used a heater , just brewed longer , double the time , you can sort of use the amount of foam / suds in a bacterial 

tea , to let you know she's done , a lill diff when it comes to a fungal dominated tea , they don't foam up as much if at all 

 

best place to try / experiment with tea making is the backyard , 

& is absolutely a plant booster / whole garden booster 

 

when foliar feeding make sure the plants are hydrated , teas can have a bit of a negative effect if sprayed on plants needing a drink 

you can also brew lots of diff teas , microbial's , pgr teas , & pest teas 

 

Kelp Neem Tea 

1/2 cup neem seem meal with 1/4 cup kelp meal bubbled in 5 gal water for 24hrs

I keep the cloth bags worms are shipped in and use those to put whatever I'm bubbling in so it stays contained.

To this finished tea before watering I'll add powdered aloe at 1/4tsp per gal and fulpower fulvic acid at 10ml per gal.

For new soils or soils that are lacking this can and should be used at half to full strength and as often as once weekly,

maybe alternating with an alfalfa/kelp tea at the same amount. 

I dilute the 5gal tea to whatever I need and that's more often than not 20gal water. 

Now let's go make a tea!

 

Alfalfa Kelp Tea 

The tea that I mix is 1 cup alfalfa meal, 1/4 cup kelp meal and I bubble that for 24 - 36 hours. Whatever works for you - nothing is cast in stone.

What I look for is 'that smell' I remember as a young kid growing up in Southern California when we would go surfing. Kelp meal when reconstituted

smells like it does in at dawn when the beach is quiet and all you can hear are the waves crashing - smells like the ocean.  
  
Then I know it's ready - pretty scientific stuff we're talking about! 
  
Always, always follow the application information on BioAg's labels. I'm certainly not going to second guess a mentor of mine, Dr. Robert Faust. He's

the one that inspired me to focus on using neem meal as a soil amendment in every garden situation. That sage advice has helped me grow the

strongest plants possible. 
  
And for the NPK Kidz the neem tree is one of the world's premier bionutrient accumulator on par with kelp, alfalfa, comfrey, et al. 


ps your spelling can't be any worse than mine 

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