Reef skim tea

Has anyone ever used or made a foliar feeding tea using skimmate from a reef tank?

I have fed my plant skimmate with no ill effects. I've never tested the sg of it but my tank is 35 ppt. If you change that to ppm it's 35000 ppm so if you dilute it quite a lot it should be safe but it is very high in sodium and could screw up the soil biology so I wouldn't recommend doing it all the time. I diluted to about 435 ppm by adding 750 mL to 60 L water. I didn't actually check the ppm or pH of the solution just used math to come to that conclusion. I didn't bother with experimenting on one plant to find the limits I just gave all my plants a shot. I have also given my plants instant ocean in very small amounts without any problems but without soil analysis who knows what's going on. I worked at a salmon hatchery for 15 years and when the salmon were ready to go into the ocean we would pump sea water to the tanks to prepare them. The plant life surrounding the effluent ponds would explode in growth when we did that and that is what prompted me to try so experiment with it and see for yourself.

I am tempted to but I might be trying to do too much since is the first time Ive grown, so a little skeptical. I was just thinking that I could use the waste my protein skimmer produces to benefit my plants in some way. Foliar feeding tea is what i figured since I am not using soil. Maybe ill just try using it as a supplement at first for just one plant.

I haven't tried foliar feeding it because it stinks like s**t and didn't want to have to smell it, so if you do try it let us know the results. There are sea water products made for plants and animals. I suggest reading about Dr Maynard Murray. He experimented with crops and sea water. When I was first considering using sea water I asked my boss at the hatchery as he is a biologist what he thought about it and he said it would just kill my plants so I thought that maybe I should try it on some other plants that i didnt care about first. I had ivy behind my house that I wanted to get rid of so I would dump my water change water on them without diluting. They didn't die. They actually started growing faster and thicker and seemed healthier. So I tried it on my cannabis plants diluted and they didn't die. I'm sure your plants will be fine with foliar application just start with a very small dose. There was an article on advanced aquarist analyzing skimmate. Definitely worth a read. If this is your first grow the best advice I can offer is read. And when you think you have read enough read some more. I have been growing for around 20 years and still try to learn more everyday. Also experiment and don't be discouraged if your experiments fail. Learn from your mistakes and share the wisdom that you have gained.

And let's see a pic of your reef

I think i will toy around with trying to convert it into a foliar spray just need to nail down a solid consistent way of measuring/producing it before I can see if it works. Honestly as far as the growing goes... heh maintaining specific water parameters.. I started with a 6gal mixed reef that I was growing sps in

Very nice. I have a 180 gal that has seen it's ups and downs. Finding a penny in the sump that I'm assuming my son put in it to make a wish just about destroyed it but I was able to nurse some of the corals back. It probably would have been easier to start over but I like a good challenge. The only sps that I was able to survive was an encrusting porites. I don't have any pics as the phone that had the pre penny pics is gone. I was also able to save an 8" carpet anemone that decided that my black spot tang would make a good meal. Dirty mf. Oh well, circle of life lol. Anyways back to the skimmate you might try drying it in different batches and then powderizing it to at least increase the shelf life. Then you would be able to mix different concentrations and record results over a longer period of time without having to keep the smelly stuff around. You should wear a mask when you spray as I don't know if you have tasted it but it is disgusting. I always make sure to keep my mouth closed when I clean out the collection cup. Thats what I learned from that mistake. I also fell in an effluent pond and that smell takes a long time to go away. F***ing yuck!!!

Ive only got a 6 gal (first reef tank) and now a 24 gal that has been up for 1 year last month (moving messed things up a bit). Lost a few of my acans from being bumped by either bucket/rock during the move.

Definitely a good idea about drying it out for a powder, I will be doing that first. I think I am going to just use the awesome brown buildup that slowly encrusts along the inside of the cup and not use the liquid at all. something tells me im going to end up writing down an entire design for testing this :-/ i just hope i dont get sucked into the point of firing up spss lol