beneficial bacteria in hydro

check out daltrons bio bucket grow if you wan to learn about benefiical bacteria and what it can do for you.

It's an amazing read. It's a recirculating system though and doesn't deal with dtw in rockwool at all.

You got my ears here. Do you nute and PH at the beginning and let it ride depending on the BB`s the rest of the grow to feed and contol PH?

jG

@bgb post#10:
At the moment, I hand-water the veggies to waste when I need to be quick, but at least once a week I steep the pots in the compost tea for at around 8-10 minutes and drain fully. The flowers I steep each and every time for the same time. Veggie pots are 2 litres, flowers are around 30 litres. The 2 flower pots I have on right now soak up around 14 litres every two days. All are in worm-castings amended compost.

sounds like a lot of work

especially when you get into more numbers

i was thinking more like adding store bought BB additives to my res

i dont have the option to make my own compost and im not sure thats the best way fro me to go

im thinking more like..add a few scoops

if i was in a recirc system i wouldnt even consider it
and i still may not do it until i figure if the dtw factor is a deal changer

i dont run any sterilizer (since switching to DTW) and havent had much need to .. root systems are healthy to the end

at this point im thinking of improving whats already working well

@brb - post#16/17

Yes, I agree, but I have the time. I do plan on buying/solving the time it takes to irrigate.

A properly looked-after worm-bin will free you from the cost of buying the nutes plus you get to make the compsition yourself (ie, extra potassium, all amino acids, vit b group, sugars, etc). I have a very healthy grow just on worm sh!t...not a penny spent on nutes - how cool is that?

after doing some reading it seems the store bought BB products are likely unreliable at best

i read that most microbes and fungi cant survive in a sealed container without O2 for any lenght of time

so it seems making your own compost is the way to go

i dont think i will go there

am i adding any BB by using fresh dry kelp and or fulvic acid...

i might be confused by the hole BB thing..but

if i fill a res..add my nutes and some kelp... were would BB come from if any

i could imagiam bad bacteria of no benefit growing but were would any of the good bacteria come from?

while im on the topic.. im also confused about another thing i guess...

i have a large primary res outside the grow room that i mix my nutes in (dry salts)
this res then feeds a secondary small res in the grow room by a float valve

the primary res i do not have an air pump... it basicly sits stagnent for 10 to 14 days except when being pumped into the secondary daily

the secondary then has a huge amount of air pumping from a commercial air pump to oxygenate the water b4 being fed to plants

what does that mean to the health of my ecosystem... is the water being negatively effected in the primary res or is the secondary res adding the o2 back and what does this mean to bacteria be it good or bad