Pop’s Recirculating/DWC/Continuous EWC Tea Brewing/Bio Filter

[mojave green]

One input near the top of the 5 gal bucket, one output near the bottom of the bucket (4 or 5 inches up, enough so ewc can steep) draining back into the dwc rez. Inline pump pulls from the bottom of the rez and pumps into the top of the bucket.
Drop a nylon stocking ful of ewc or ancient forest on top of the airstone in the bottom of the bucket. Place bio filter medium of choice in the bucket. I'm using some Rasta Bob's Coco Mon I had laying around. Pot and shower scrubbers work great as well. As does rockwool. My system recirculates 15 minutes every hour.
Advantages: Lots of DO. Nice herd of bennies. Medium can be used to reinoculate after rez changes. Continuous fresh tea.
I designed this system as a preventative measure after inducing root rot in my previous hydro system. I will soon also be adding benny fungi to the system.

 

[Jhhnn]

I like it. Sorted out well, I think organic hydro could be a great system. It's like aquaculture- if you get the beneficials going right, they'll help keep out the undesirables, provide an excellent environment for living things of your choice.

 

[Medium Pimpin']

How long until you change the stocking of ewc?

 

[mojave green]

Drop a fresh bag o ewc bout once a week. Here's a pic from the top of the bio filter. Started the system out with three bags. Ran for a week before putting my seedlings in the system. Now, just one bag a week.

Here's the recirculating inline pump

Microherd hotel.

 

[Medium Pimpin']

thanks man.
so the ewc bags just lay on top of the croutons?
the rest of the bucket is all croutons like the top?
thanks for your time, great idea!!

 

[mojave green]

Spent the day reading heisenberg. Wow, did I learn a lot! Just completed rez change out. Had way too much organic matter in rez. Too much ewc, Taking a little different approach with my bio filter rig. Removed and rinsed media. Removed old ewc bag. Air diffuser in bottom again. Fresh bag o ewc on top of that. Placed media back in bucket. Filled bucket with ro water. Inoculated bucket with subcultures B & M. Immediately top fed plants in rockwool cubes with solution in bucket. Apparently the benny fungi only populate roots so it won't thrive in the bio filter. The benny bacteria do though. Refilled 5 gal bucket with ro water. Gonna let that stew for 48 hours and them dump that into rez. Will then remove bag o ewc from bio filter bucket and begin recycling rez water through inoculated filter medium 15 min/hour. Rinse repeat every rez change out. DWC is finicky aint it. After veging in this system I will be transplanting into my new linked bucket ebb & flo which don't have the root problems that dwc can have, thank goodness! lol. My education continues.

 

[mojave green]

forgot to add the molasses and kelp last night. hopped up and did it this morning.

 

[Mister_D]

Very cool Thanks for sharing

 

[mojave green]

Removed ewc bag, (i'll talk bout that later, fooking nylons!) and released a gal or so of my tea into the rez last night. Recorded microbe activity in bio filter as well as rez, with microscope. Refilled bio filter with ro water. This morning mixed some subculture m and top fed seedlings with solution. Tonight, 72 hours into brew time, recorded a population explosion in microbe activity in bio filter. A little bit of activity in rez. Def more fungi in rez than in bio filter. Foliar fed seedlings with diluted bio filter tea, too strong i think, which appears to have stained leaves but growth is looking good. Couple roots have begun dangling from 6" rw cube. Lookin good! Dark fungi seems to have attached itself to one of the roots. ( it ink its good microbes anyway, we'll see, never done this shit before, lol) Rez water is dark from subculture but clear otherwise. No slimy buildup on rez walls. Smells great! Think i'll brew 3 gal next time instead of 5. Fresh is best with tea. After I use all the current tea in rez, gonna start the continuous recycle through the bio filter, kicking microbes out of thera homes along the way! Sheesh, recording microbes on a digital microscope while growing cannabis, lol. WTF?
I LOVE GROWING CANNABIS!
mg

 

[The Groff]

What microscope are you using? Very interestd in this. Recently RDWC converted, tried brewing once just to get a hang of it. Loved it - also started thinking on how to adapt a continuous bacilus "factory" to keep the rez alive all the time... Thoughts for the future - lkeeping and eye on this one - keep it up!!

 

[Ole MacDonald]

This is a really cool idea. Mojave, are you still trying this??