Wicking bed sewer smell

[ziggestardust]

I have built a wicking bed in my walk-in-closet. It's been going for a couple of months. A week ago I added lots of ferments to the feeding water and now the refill pipe emits a foul odor. I am not sure how to counter this. Of course I am not adding more water until the wicking medium is thoroughly dry, but then what? LAB + molasses?

 

[MrSterling]

Try lab, but a bad sewer smell sounds like ammonia and that sounds like anaerobic water. Is your watering system aerated?

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

Sewer smell? Hydrogen sulfide? You have so many nutrients in the solution that your normal bacterial load bloomed, consumed all the oxygen, and suffered a big die off. What you have now is an oxygen depleted soup with anaerobic bacteria doing their best to feed off the brew.

If you can, remove whatever old nutrient solution you're able too. Flush what you can. Aerate what you can.

 

[OrganicOzarks]

Flush the toilet.

 

[ziggestardust]

Can't do much other than wait for the bad water to be consumed and fill with fresh tap water. Will that balance out the bacterial composition or do I have to do something to kill off the bad bacteria spores still present in the dry LECA before filling up with water again?

 

[ziggestardust]

I have H2O2 but I am not very happy to use it as it will hurt my worms and the good bacteria.

 

[lonelemming]

I would also top water with a nice ACT after current water is depleted...

 

[bajangreen]

You got any pics of the system? sounds like your good to convert to aquaponics.

Best practice is to drain current water wait till plants start to wile from dry media then put in fresh water. You would know next time go easy on the ferments (powerful stuff) LAB is good. Hold up on the molasses for now its better if you add your "things" to the media direct as well.

 

[ziggestardust]

You got any pics of the system? sounds like your good to convert to aquaponics.

Best practice is to drain current water wait till plants start to wile from dry media then put in fresh water. You would know next time go easy on the ferments (powerful stuff) LAB is good. Hold up on the molasses for now its better if you add your "things" to the media direct as well.

Aquaponics seems interesting indeed. The plants drink ten liters a day, any idea of how big a tank I would need? Good species to cultivate in the aquarium? I need to do some reading!

 

[al-k-mist]

tilapia is a great fish for aquaponics, and you can make fish taco;s out of them too!
ever go to San Diego, pick up a fish taco, sometimes theyre only .99, lol, and they are bomb
but anyways, how much medium is it that uses 10 liters a day? and what kind of medium. i have noticed a MASSIVE reduction in watering by using the cover crops(crimson clover indoors, and clover and lots of herbs in the greenhouse pot, in the grow in my sig). like, for 6 pots that are like 30 gallons each, i use between 2-4 gallons, twice a day, mostly. sometimes they are still great. today was 4 gallons total. and the greenhouse is using about 3 gallons per plant in the beds(like 120 gallons) and 1 in the pots(about 35 gal).
amazing reduction. i was using a lot more, maybe 80 gallons every 2 days, before all the cover crops went in
sorry, that was wayyyyy off topic

 

[ziggestardust]

tilapia is a great fish for aquaponics, and you can make fish taco;s out of them too!
ever go to San Diego, pick up a fish taco, sometimes theyre only .99, lol, and they are bomb
but anyways, how much medium is it that uses 10 liters a day? and what kind of medium. i have noticed a MASSIVE reduction in watering by using the cover crops(crimson clover indoors, and clover and lots of herbs in the greenhouse pot, in the grow in my sig). like, for 6 pots that are like 30 gallons each, i use between 2-4 gallons, twice a day, mostly. sometimes they are still great. today was 4 gallons total. and the greenhouse is using about 3 gallons per plant in the beds(like 120 gallons) and 1 in the pots(about 35 gal).
amazing reduction. i was using a lot more, maybe 80 gallons every 2 days, before all the cover crops went in
sorry, that was wayyyyy off topic

Haha, no probs. I have 100 gallons of soil in one massive lump the size of the walk-in-closet. I tried clover but they don't get enough light so they won't grow unfortunately. In two weeks its time to harvest a couple of plants so I might get the clover to take then maybe.

 

[ziggestardust]

So I let everything dry out and started feeding pure water a couple of days ago. The smell is almost gone. Since the evap is ten liters a day there's a steady flow of water through the res washing out the bad stuff.

Peace!