MediMary

Originally Posted by Heisenberg

The concern with using this tea in a aero setup is that it could clog sprayers. Although the tea keeps away gunky build up and keeps my air stones very clean, it does cover everything in a slight biofilm. Very small sprayers could be effected, though I can't see how it would be any worse than salt buildup. I suppose if you are already dealing with an infected gunky res and not having sprayer issues then you should be fine using the tea.

In terms of disease, bennies will let you tolerate res temps into the mid 70's. Some growers will cry that cooler water holds more dissolved oxygen, but I encourage you to look up some charts and see just how much 'more' DO 68f holds than 78f.

You are confused about organics and tea. The tea is perfect for organics...however organics themselves are NOT perfect for hydro. When you see me caution people against introducing organic material to the res, it is because they have proven to be prone to slime and are trying to prevent it. So we keep organic material out of the res which removes the food source for the slime, and we add the tea which displaces and hinders the slime. If you have no slime problems, the tea can and in fact should be used when using organics. If you do have slime, use the tea and drop the organics, or switch grow methods.

Organic material can not be eaten by plants. Never. It must first be decomposed by microbes. The microbes break down the organics into a form that is available for uptake by the roots. At that point, the organics have become chemical fertilizer. So anyone who implies that organic growing involves no chemicals either doesn't understand the process or has given in to the marketing hype. Synthetic chemical fertilizers simply remove the need for decomposition, and are available to the roots right away. Since hydro is about controlling and enhancing the environment, it doesn't make sense to give up part of that control to microbes, and depend on them for your nute balance. I prefer to control my own nute balance and use the microbes for their other uses.

So if you are using organic ferts you MUST add some beneficial decomposers to the water, or else you are inviting bad stuff to come in and take over.



From Skeptoid