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Has anyone tried this? Bioreactor dripfed coco

surfguitar

Member
I got this idea watching my compost tea bubbling and from a random comment made by microbe man.

The basic idea is to setup a rez(bioreactor) with a airstone, powerhead or waterfall, a tea bag of EWC and molasses foodstock. Replace EWC weekly and molasses foodstock every couple days. Once microherd is established add a tea bag of 1/3 kelp/neem/crab meal. Using pure coco amended with oyster shell and rockdust, fed on drippers out of the bioreactor on a 3-4x cycle. Runoff recycles back into the bioreactor.

Would love any thoughts or criticism, I already have the coco and kinda already wanted some more pumps so I think I might put together a little prototype in the next week or 2 and put that in the extra space I have in my 1k room if all things go accordingly.

Some benefits I think this system would have,
-If your rez is in your growroom thats extra co2
-constant supply of beneficial bacteria and the wide array of nutrients they create
-hopefully no need to measure anything
-disease/pest resistance?
 

whiteberrieS

brains1ck
Veteran
Front row...nice. I'll be keeping an eye on this one, been thinking of something similar but using a 5gal DWC w/ ACT in the rez, get one of the 10" net pots so it can hold a decent amount of coco for buffering...That'd probably be a little too strong though.


Your idea sounds like a damn fine plan.
 

JohnQQ

Member
I would be VERY interested in seeing this.
Please, I know it's almost been a month, but please go through with it. I'd love to see some real-world results using this method.
 
Uh, that's not likely to work IME.

You gotta be way more careful than that with mixing organics and hydroponic methods. All the organic matter tends to gunk stuff up and precipitate inside your drip lines and stuff. This'd work for a little while but you'd probably have to replace all your spaghetti lines and drip stakes every crop at least.

I'm also not sure why everyone thinks having a res in your grow room substitutes for actual CO2 injection or proper air exchange rates. Someone over in the organic hydro threads has been feeding out some BS...
 
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