wierd stuff growing on my air bubbler

giglewigle

Well-Known Member
this thing has been goin for a few weeks i put a soil probiotic and bio flores i keep it bubling so it stays oxygenated and i used as needed after i watered i noticed this brown stuff growing around thensides of buket went 2 further inspect and it was covred on the whole air stone can sombody tell me what it is 20170708_165605.jpg 20170708_165541.jpg sorry for the light on had no choice its like a light brown tan colour id say its more on the lighter side wondering wtf this is hope its not harmfull
 
Biofilm builds up on those things pretty bad. Get some water and mix it with hydrogen peroxide (be pretty generous with your ratios you want a lot of peroxide), clean off the air stone with a rag or paper towel best you can then have your air stone bubble in the peroxide water for 6 hours or so. If the stone is still gross it is time to replace. Regularly cleaning your air stones like this, and cleaning and washing out your res with hydrogen peroxide will prevent this from happening in the future. And make your air stones last longer. But they are magnets for bacteria so you do want to replace them on a semi regular basis.
 
Biofilm builds up on those things pretty bad. Get some water and mix it with hydrogen peroxide (be pretty generous with your ratios you want a lot of peroxide), clean off the air stone with a rag or paper towel best you can then have your air stone bubble in the peroxide water for 6 hours or so. If the stone is still gross it is time to replace. Regularly cleaning your air stones like this, and cleaning and washing out your res with hydrogen peroxide will prevent this from happening in the future. And make your air stones last longer. But they are magnets for bacteria so you do want to replace them on a semi regular basis.
lol iv pretty mutch made sure ive got 2 get a new one then i toped the water aded some emsome salt humic acid and dynamic lifter witch is comosted chicken shit thats been pelletized some dolomight and some volcanic rock dust
 
pluss all i did was remove the bio film oh and i also put some of that powdered vegetable stuff in and some gogo jeuce witch is bene microbes i think im gunna make sure my p,ants arnt dead
 
I hope you don't mind if I share some information with you friend!

The composted chicken shit is straight, but dolomite (you mean lime right?) and volcanic rock dust is wasted in water or tea applications, they are not water soluble and their benefits are only available through weathering when you mix them into the soil.

And I'm not sure what vegetable powder is and you don't need to worry about adding bottled benes if you just use compost!
 
I hope you don't mind if I share some information with you friend!

The composted chicken shit is straight, but dolomite (you mean lime right?) and volcanic rock dust is wasted in water or tea applications, they are not water soluble and their benefits are only available through weathering when you mix them into the soil.

And I'm not sure what vegetable powder is and you don't need to worry about adding bottled benes if you just use compost!
its allgood man allway happy 2 listen and learn ye i googled kt after and realized it was a mistake lol when i cheked on it it was foming like a mother fucker an stank a bit but im 99 percent sure it was the vegetable powder i only put that in cuse it says its got cytokinins in it
 
Anytime brother! I run a small compost and soil company in Michigan, gimme a shout if you ever need any advice on sustainable organic growing and water only soil recipes!
holy shit ur a legend man im tryng to put a recipe together for spring its rally hard to get things in australia im trying to find things on ebay so far i got some rock dust but its mainly the measerments iv got a 190 liter 50 gal compost tumbler any advice would be apreciated
 
holy shit ur a legend man im tryng to put a recipe together for spring its rally hard to get things in australia im trying to find things on ebay so far i got some rock dust but its mainly the measerments iv got a 190 liter 50 gal compost tumbler any advice would be apreciated
Do you got any garden centers or home depot type stores in Australia?
 
the store i was just at today sold mosty scotts andbottled stuff thay dident have amenments
We can worry about amendments for later! Since you are probably gonna have to order amendments off Amazon. I would recommend going with an organic all purpose fertilizer blend instead of buying individual everything and paying a fortune in shipping! I'm curious if you're able to get your hands on peat moss bales! Perlite, vermiculite, or course Sand. Gypsum, ag lime, and compost or manure of some variety.

You might have to hunt around but all those items are hopefully present in some form in the garden section of whatever big retail home improvement/hardware store is in your area.

If they only have premade soil start looking at the ingredient or component list. Even Scott's might have some products you could use depending on what's in them.

If something has synthetic fertilizer it's a no go. But if it's just peat moss or pine bark and Perlite. You can use that.
 
We can worry about amendments for later! Since you are probably gonna have to order amendments off Amazon. I would recommend going with an organic all purpose fertilizer blend instead of buying individual everything and paying a fortune in shipping! I'm curious if you're able to get your hands on peat moss bales! Perlite, vermiculite, or course Sand. Gypsum, ag lime, and compost or manure of some variety.

You might have to hunt around but all those items are hopefully present in some form in the garden section of whatever big retail home improvement/hardware store is in your area.

If they only have premade soil start looking at the ingredient or component list. Even Scott's might have some products you could use depending on what's in them.

If something has synthetic fertilizer it's a no go. But if it's just peat moss or pine bark and Perlite. You can use that.
cool cool thay had compost perlight vermiculight manure and thay had blood and bone bio char thay hay thoxe coco blocks that u have 2 hydrate pretty sure thay have peatmoss amd thay havr organic slow release fertilizer stuff im mot sure how organic it is tho alot of stuff there seemed 2 be organic based so when macking a soil mix. so when macking a soil mix i dont need to use individual ingrediants
 
been hitting up google theres a brand called neutrog thay make a peeletized produced made from fish seaweed humic acid and manure
 
cool cool thay had compost perlight vermiculight manure and thay had blood and bone bio char thay hay thoxe coco blocks that u have 2 hydrate pretty sure thay have peatmoss amd thay havr organic slow release fertilizer stuff im mot sure how organic it is tho alot of stuff there seemed 2 be organic based so when macking a soil mix. so when macking a soil mix i dont need to use individual ingrediants
Not necessarily no! I like to buy them individual but they are easily accessible to me! I'll holler with some cheap soil building advice this evening when I get my work for the day out of the way!
 
It sounds like you should be able to get what you need to get your base set up!

This is my simple soil building lesson! My apologies if I go over anything you already know! This is for container gardening (like in pots!), I'd have some different advice for gardening in the ground directly!

We'll start with the medium or main soil components themselves. Organic matter is key for organic gardening, this could be home or store bought compost, worm castings, composted manure, forest humus. I like a little bit of everything but bacterial dominant worm castings and composted manure will serve you best for cannabis. This should be at least 15% of your medium for Max yields. If you've seen my recipe on this site you'll note I prefer a higher ratio of compost in my soil blends, my compost is pretty fluffy and doesn't get overly compact when wet so I am able to do this successfully, when using compost that is heavier (like composted cow manure can be), you'll definitely want to keep the amount of compost in your medium less than 30%.

Next aeration! Perlite and vermiculite and course (builder's) Sand are the easiest to find. Sand is cheapest but makes your pots super heavy, so unless you like to make your plant work into a form of exercise I would try to get Perlite. Vermiculite can be useful but holds a little more water than I like when putting together an organic soil that already has so many water holding elements. You want this ratio to be pretty high, it should be 35-55% of your base mix. The more compact your compost, the higher the ratio. It is extremely important for excess water to drain off.

Finally you need something that can hold water and nutrients but doesn't compact up and get heavy the way compost does when wet. Having access to Coco and peat moss you can take your pick! Peat moss has a higher CEC so it'll hold onto some nutrients for longer, coco doesn't get more acidic as it breaks down so you don't have to monitor soil pH in future grows so recycling soil has one less step. Neither one is that more advantageous than the other so I would just go with whatever is cheapest. Depending on your compost this could be anywhere from 20%-45% of your mix.

The best place to start until you gain a little more experience is to just do even parts of everything. One part compost, one part Perlite, one part peat moss.

This is your base mix. The compost will give you a tiny bit of plant nutrition but not for long. A plain mix like this is good for starting seeds in though!

I'll go over amendments in the next comment
 
So for amendments in building a water only mix these are the most important things to think about if you're trying to follow my mix it up and go style. If you're able to compost or "cook" your mix before planting in it than you can approach a little differently, but in my opinion my approach is more conducive to a water only grow.

For nitrogen, you need an amendment that will release it quickly, but you don't want to use it in large amounts or you'll have too hot of soil to plant in right away. Blood meal in small amounts can do this, I prefer alfalfa meal, the N releases quick but not in large amounts. Alfalfa meal also conditions the soil and has a handful of other benefits and nutrition content. You also need longer term N for later in plant life, N is kinda the building block for life forms so it's pretty important. Feather meal, neem seed meal, and your compost all carry slow release N. You can always do repeat applications of your faster N fertilizers if you can't access slow release ones.

For P you need the same, some for now some for later philosophy. All variations of bone meal will release some P after a few days of first getting in there, and will continue to release it through out the grow along with some calcium. I like having crab shell meal as well because it takes longer to break down but ensures that the later plant stages are well taken care of, without the crustacean meals I would do an application on bone meal about a week before I switched to flower.

The lime will provide slow release calcium and Magnesium plus help buffer your pH if you're using peat moss. But I would also add gypsum for the sulfur it provides along with the additional slow release calcium, that will make sure your mag levels never get out of control!

Speaking magnesium, it can be the hardest to keep kicking in a container water only grow. It's really easy to just apply some epsom salts when you water every once and a while, if you're able to order some Langbeinite (they might have it in the store as k-mag or sul-po-mag) not only will you not have to worry about mag, but you won't have to worry about potassium at all!

If you only had those things you already are gonna grow dank bud! Get it danker by adding trace mineral stuff. Kelp meal and rock dust. Some people push kelp meal for potassium but I've always had to way over do it to get adequate K from kelp meals. I much prefer getting my potassium from a mineral source like Langbeinite. The only successful alternative I've had is home-made compost.

You can get your amendments separate! It is a better value and you control the ratios. It is more upfront money. Most all purpose organic vegetable or tomato fertilizer blends are made with these same principles in mind tho, and are a great way to get into organic gardening without having to think to much about everything. And if you are in a situation where you have to get them shipped, they will save you some money.

And remember water only mixes can't always be water only mixes, sometimes you gotta top dress a little fertilizer. You can so teas too, but you can top dress a lot less often, where nutrient teas require more frequent applications. Bigger pots are your best bet. 15 gallon pots or bigger will do best for water only mixes. Anything seven gallons or smaller will require some fertilizer applications.
 
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