[McDanger]

Originally Posted by McDanger

I did not add the epsom salts or lime because I don't have any right now. (can you let me know what these provide and if I need both with the holly-tone?)

:

Any thoughts on this???

[rrog]

Well, the Epsom Salts are 80% sulfur 20% magnesium, while the lime is Calcium. You'd need them all.

Standard Epsom Salts have been recommended, and a "fast acting" Lime called Pennington's Fast Acting Lime was also called out

[LadyLargely]

Hoooo,

Yea, don't skip out on that shit McDanger! Epsom can be added in water later on, but calcium has to be mixed into the medium up front. It is not water-soluble. The only way to get good coverage of it at a high enough concentration is to mix it in when the medium is mixed.

If you have already built your medium this is a bit of a bummer. Once the medium has been mixed and activated you must take care to disturb it as little as possible. Mycorrhizae fungus is extremely fragile. If you have to re-mix your medium to get the calcium in there then the fungus is gonna have to re-build itself all over again.

Mg, Cal and S are all very important. Without them proper cell structure is impossible. Get calcium from fast-acting lime, hydrated lime or dolomite lime. Mix a generous quantity in up front. Stick to my recopy for this part.

Epsom provides sulfur and Mg, but in the wrong ratio. Epsom contains 4 times more sulfur than magnesium which is exactly opposite of what we want. 4 times the Mg compared to S is desirable for cannabis. Check your holly tone. If its anything like bio tone it should have decent Mg. Epsom provides the sulfur and a little Mg boost to boot.

[LadyLargely]

Originally Posted by DrunkenMessiah

Lady Largely

I'm sorry our little reunion had to happen this way. You know that I didn't want the last time we saw eachother IRL to go the way it did. You're just so damn hot-headed, you forced my hand!

Oh DrunkenMess, you sentimental old fool. Your self-image must be even more inflated then usual if you think that I wanted 'other things' from you back then. You know that when I want something I take it! If I wanted other things from you I would have taken them too. You know you wouldn't have stopped me. Your balls where so blue that you thought it was a good idea to fuck that psychotic bitch who has crushed your spirit and manhood. And then you stayed with her. Good god man, quit while you're ahead already. I have nothing to talk to you about. Why don't you try and keep our personal lives out of my gardening thread hm?

Anyway, and now on with

Today's lesson!

Last we left off we had let our rice wash sit in the dark with the bubbler on. Things should happen to it within 48 hours:



Obviously with a bubbler in it there are going to be bubbles. However after about a day you should start to see a noticeable increase in foam. Look at the above image compared to the first one I posted.

Also, you should see this:


See that nasty gunk that has crusted up on the side of the jar? That is a sign that the bacteria are working and we want to remove it.

When the culture is 'done' the foaming will subside and it will be bubbling like when you first mixed it up. It should also be a bit more transparent than before.



Now comes the much less pleasant step 2:



Get a bigass jar or other suitable container and a measuring device. In the bigass jar place 1 part starter culture and 8 parts milk.



Now put it back in the dark place and re-insert the bubbler



It should froth a little, but it won't excessively...... Yet.

Soon this should happen:


God Why!?!?

The jar will start to produce 'cheese'. This is the Lacto Bactilli taking hold of the nutrients. They can only consume carbohydrates. Therefore they push all of the fat and protien that they can't process out of the liquid. That is the horrible foam that you see. Sadly, it must be removed promptly


Oh the humanity!

For me this new culture has been particularly good. The second stage of my culture hasn't even been mixed up for 8 hours yet and allready it has produced this:


Yuck!

The culture is seriously rocking and rolling, I think I'm gonna set a new personal record. My fastest previous lacto B culture took between 5 and 6 days. This one has yet to hit the 72 hour mark and already it is entering the home streach.

Diligently remove the cheese once or twice a day. Soon the culture will become a transperant, pale yellow. This means she is finished! What we do with this awesome culture will be posted soon!

[LadyLargely]

Holy Fuckin Shit Batman!

Just had to share this with you guys. I had tended to the cheese right before I made this last post so that I could take pictures for you guys. After posting I decided to go back down into the box and have a look at things.

In the 30 minutes that it had taken me to make that post my Lacto B culture had produced this:



I threw it on my scale for shits and giggles. 43 grams. That means at this point my culture is producing more than one gram of cheese every minute

This is fabulous. I'm getting such a good vibe from this. The air here is special. This is my first grow in this new location and I just keep feeling better and better about it. I swear my old rig suffered from Bad Room Syndrome. This new one is tits and cake!

See, this culture is made by pulling bacteria out of the air. The only thing different between this culture and ones I have done before is that I am dealing with new air in a new part of the country. The Lacto B around here must be stronger than where I was before. I have never run such a badass culture. The air here is alive, and the life in it is awesome! I can feel the good vibes washing over me and my plants-to-be who are still cooped up in their seeds. Not for much longer at this rate!!!

[Citizen024]

EXCELLENT!! Love it. Good breeding there Lady.

I was wondering when the "Lacto" part was going to come into play. Now I know.

I am going to make a rather educated guess that them thar little friends of yours have a few different uses.

Would you agree that say a rice-per-gallon ratio might be something like 1-2 cups per 32oz. water? Making that about 4-8 cups per gallon.

Have you ever tried a filter bag of rice flower or bran would do in place? I am assuming your after the simple carb loaded outer layer and wash from the rice.

If the air flow where too high, what do you see happen? Am I correct in that we are seeking a more anaerobic bacterial starter- hence the low air flow. Just enough to put lots of airborne bacteria in, not enough to stay aerobic. Somethings not quite fitting together for me around that, just looking for a little more clarity is all.

For the record, I totally appreciate your comment about following the plan. Totally totally here your wisdom in that. In me you have no refuting of the logic. I intend to veer as little as possible, only modifying what need be done to modify the system. They "should" run effectively identical to what your doing.

I hear the wisdom of coming to understand the basic system before trying to run multiple- since I am not even sure I can get one to work yet, and have no frame of reference then for many. I could easily make any number of wrong turns and not know exactly what factors caused it. It's like I have no idea of what mark I am trying to aim for.

That said, I am inclined to start a 4 or 6 simply cause I need to spend time f'ing with it all, and if I am going to invest the time/space, I may as well spend it on the model that I am going to try and be running. There are many factors I need to see in practice about. Time/space is limited, I don't have forever to do this. Owww it might bite me in the ass yet, I know. You can officially give me an "I told you so"- and I will not pull some crap and blame your system I promise.

I am hoping previous experience with bio systems and a lot of other knowledge will see me through. I "believe" I have the basic concepts of this one grasped, and am turning to you my dear to fill in a lot of the practical bits. Trust me- I am taking notes.

I think if I can get the thing incubated and ready to plant into, that will tell me a lot at least about the feasibility of the multi tub design I am working. If that happens, well- I know I am heading in the right direction, and it "should" run pretty much like the single units from then on. If I can't even get there I know I need to go back to the drawing board.

I may as well get familiar with it in one big heave hoe.

[McDanger]

Originally Posted by LadyLargely

Hoooo,

Yea, don't skip out on that shit McDanger! Epsom can be added in water later on, but calcium has to be mixed into the medium up front. It is not water-soluble. The only way to get good coverage of it at a high enough concentration is to mix it in when the medium is mixed.

If you have already built your medium this is a bit of a bummer. Once the medium has been mixed and activated you must take care to disturb it as little as possible. Mycorrhizae fungus is extremely fragile. If you have to re-mix your medium to get the calcium in there then the fungus is gonna have to re-build itself all over again.

Mg, Cal and S are all very important. Without them proper cell structure is impossible. Get calcium from fast-acting lime, hydrated lime or dolomite lime. Mix a generous quantity in up front. Stick to my recopy for this part.

Epsom provides sulfur and Mg, but in the wrong ratio. Epsom contains 4 times more sulfur than magnesium which is exactly opposite of what we want. 4 times the Mg compared to S is desirable for cannabis. Check your holly tone. If its anything like bio tone it should have decent Mg. Epsom provides the sulfur and a little Mg boost to boot.

OK,
I found some epsom in a closet so I will add that.
The holly-tone side panel states that the sulfer=5%, Mg=.5%,(.3% water soluble) Ca=3%
I also have MagiCal, which I assume is not organic. The bottle ststes: derived from Calcium nitrate, Calcium cloride, Magnesium Nitrate, Iron EDTA, and Iron DTPA.
Analysis-N 2%, Ca=3.25%, Mg=1.25%, Fe=.11%

comments???

[McDanger]

Originally Posted by rrog

Well, the Epsom Salts are 80% sulfur 20% magnesium, while the lime is Calcium. You'd need them all.

Standard Epsom Salts have been recommended, and a "fast acting" Lime called Pennington's Fast Acting Lime was also called out

I went to the espoma website and compared the holly-tone to the bio-tone. The holly has less Ca and Mg but more sulfur.
I will get the fast acting lime today.

The rest has been mixed but am I correct in thinking it needs the water and air to activate it? I have not added water or air yet, that will be done today.

[LadyLargely]

Eh, that figures

McDanger

Sulfer lowers the pH of a medium. Holly tone is meant for acid-loving plants so it only figures that it would pack a lot of S. That MagiCal sounds like just what you need. It may not be organically-derived but I'll look the other way this time.

With low moisture and no air the medium will indeed sit dormant. This is good. Flop it into a tub, wet it and bubble it when you are ready.

Citizen024

Your rice/water ratio sounds about right. But remember that the the stage one mix gets combined with eight parts milk, so you don't need much of it. Add to that the fact that you are supposed to water the final culture down 10-20 times before using it. A little bit goes a loooooong way.

Screw using a filter bag. That sounds like some cold-extraction crap. Takes too long.

Originally Posted by Citizen024

If the air flow where too high, what do you see happen? Am I correct in that we are seeking a more anaerobic bacterial starter- hence the low air flow. Just enough to put lots of airborne bacteria in, not enough to stay aerobic. Somethings not quite fitting together for me around that, just looking for a little more clarity is all.

BZZZZZT! Wrong!

We specifically do not want anaerobacteria. The little fuckers breed pathogens. The usage of a bubbler in this process is meant specifically to kill them off. If you have done things right there will be no anaerobic creatures in the mix.

The only reason I say not to use excessive air pressure is because it makes a mess! This is messy business to start with and over-excessive foaming just makes it worse. Nothing bad would happen if you used "too much" air other than getting gunky nasty crap on your floor! I also use low pressure because my accessory stone runs off a common manifold. Running it wide-open would drastically reduce air levels in my OBBTs. I've got it on a cheap plastic air-control needle-valve.

It sounds like you've got your shit straight Citizen024. I was discouraging experimentation without having run an ordinary OBBT, but given your previous experience you will prolly get away with it. You are an organic green-thumb and I think you will have an easy time telling if things are 'right' after you've run incubation. It will be plain weather or not your crazy table idea is gonna work long before plants get stuck in. An OBBT either works or it doesn't, it will not languish in a 'half-way-there' limbo. You won't end up with something that looks good enough to use at first and then goes sour later on. You have to know how to talk to them and I think you will have a very easy time learning their language.

You have my blessings to experiment right from the get-go. It sounds like you want to mess with the OBBT recopy as little as possible. I think you understand the underlying concepts well. Go fourth and do great works my son, I have confidence in you.

[LadyLargely]

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you do that!



54 hours dead. A new personal best. Perhaps one of the fastest Home-made Lacto B cultures ever! Eat your heart out jaykush!

Strain off the last of the cheese and you should be left with a pale yellow liquid. Smells a little sour, like a strong blue cheese.



Now that the Lacto B have pushed out all of the fat and protien they have almost certainly used up all available carbohydrates (its not like theres a lot of em in milk anyway). I squeezed about a teaspoon of honey into the mix to keep them happy for a couple more days until I'm ready to start my veg tea and foliar spray.

OBBT UPDATE!

Things are starting to get properly fuzzy now. A thin gray haze has completely coated the surface of my tubs. I'd wager that it is safe for me to drop sprouts in today! Sadly I am a wee bit behind schedule. Still gotta get my ventilation squared away and get my lamp hung and wired. Gonna buy some fresh tubes for it as well. Until next time, here's more fungus porn!