What's new
  • Happy Birthday ICMag! Been 20 years since Gypsy Nirvana created the forum! We are celebrating with a 4/20 Giveaway and by launching a new Patreon tier called "420club". You can read more here.
  • Important notice: ICMag's T.O.U. has been updated. Please review it here. For your convenience, it is also available in the main forum menu, under 'Quick Links"!

Hydrolyzed Fish Fertilisers ( just say no to emulsion)

Vandenberg

Active member
When non-hydrolyzed fish fertilizer (emulsion) is manufactured, fish products and scraps are boiled and then used primarily for other industries, like creating paint and cosmetics or for livestock feed.
Most of the oils are drained for those products long before they are used to make fertilizer.
The process causes most of the essential amino acids in the fish to be lost or used for other purposes.

Hydrolyzed fish fertilizer is manufactured by a much different process.
Basically, 100 percent of the fish product is used for the fertilizer, allowing for more nutrients in your soil and for your plants. A more useful product is obtained from this process, making it more cost effective and longer lasting. There are also more environmental benefits from this this type of fertilizer, as there is little waste and no chemical additives.
The fertilizer creates no toxic minerals that many high-grade emulsion products tend to have.
These type of enzymatic cold processed biological products do provide a comprehensive mix of macro- and micronutrients, trace elements, minerals, amino acids, peptides, proteins, calcium and enzymes, all in a useable form perfectly suited for maximum efficiency of uptake for your plants.
kelp extract is also often applied with the fish fertilizer, which has also been proven to be very beneficial to home gardens as well as large crops.
These organic fish fertilizer are known to also stimulates water penetration and increases nutrient assimilation.

Borrowing a hot sauce brands advertising slogan
" I put that shit on everything. :)

Vandenberg
 
Last edited:

Vandenberg

Active member
Fish hydrolysate, in its simplest form, is ground up fish transformed into a liquid phase, where the cleavage of molecular bonds occurs through various biological processes.
Raw material choice; either whole fish or by-products, depends on the commercial sources of the fish. In some cases, the fillet portions are removed for human consumption, the remaining fish body (generally the guts, bones, cartilage, scales and remaining meat) is put into water and ground up.
Some fish hydrolysate is ground more finely than others so more bone material is able to remain suspended.
Enzymes may also be used to dissolve bones, scale and meat.
If the larger chunks of bone and scales are screened out, calcium or mineral content may be lacking in the finished product form.
Some fish hydrolysates have been made into a dried product, increasing the potential for inclusion as an ingredient in other food or feed products.
The oil is separated out in this process, which means the Omega 3 fatty acid would remain with the oil and not the hydrolysate.

Most soils are deficient in fungi, so by adding the fish hydrolysate to it, it becomes just this side of a great To excellent way to make sure fungi will grow after application of the tea.
It is important to note a huge difference in hydrolysate which is a bacteria food unlike the emulsion product which has had its oils removed, which is what fungi predominately feed on.


A smart woman who is very knowledgeable expert in all matters related to soil web biology whose name is Dr. Elaine Ingham has highly recommended a brand called Organic Gem, but I have found it hard to source.
I have succesfully used products made by GS Plant foods and Indian River Organics and can recommend both and will continue to use these brands.
The Neptune Harvest brand has been around for decades and is another likely choice for a ready to use quality product readily available in the USA, although I haven't used it due to its higher price per gallon.
If you're of the you've got to pay more to get mo' better persuasion, Neptune is waiting for you with their palms up and out. ;)
Beware and careful when shopping as some brands will subtly imply/ suggest theirs is a hydrolysate product when in fact it is an emulsion product in actuality.
A salmon based product by Bloom City at Amazon comes to mind.

This is posted in the New Growers section in the interest of steering a new grower in the right direction with a simple fertilization strategy to help assure success the first time out of the chute at this rodeo. The addition of a micronutrients package is easily achieved by the addition of kelp to the mix, that and some unsulphered molasses for microbe food and game on, now you too can make the medicine.
Liquid-Fish-Fertilizer-Marketing-Image-1v3-1200x799.jpg
 
Last edited:

Vandenberg

Active member
A Do it Yourself fish hydrosylate recipe

I know somebody is going to go there and insist on making their own homebrew which I strongly advise against if you want to keep it simple and just purchase the ready made variety, I do suggest, instead of dealing with the funky ass smells that are part of the process, but more power too ya you ambitious soul.
Fish hydrolysate is an awesome product and can be naturally produced at home and is a four course Sunday dinner with dessert for the various microbes present.
The Fungi absolutely adores it, I think it's safe to say.

Fish hydrolysate is composed of fish and glucose based sugars and uses lacto bacillus to break everything down using enzymes. Fish hydryolysate doesn’t undergo the heating and skimming process that you get with fish emulsion products. Heating breaks down beneficial amino acid chains and this cold process also retains the fats and oils that microbes love.


How to make it;

1. Get some fish, you might as well use fish discards like fish heads, guts, etc. We use whole fish as there are naturally wider range of nutrients present.

2. Cut fish into chunks then either blend or run through a meat mincer. The finer the fish bits, the more effective the fermentation.

3. Add water. 3 parts water to 1 part ferment material. (1litre fish mince: 3 litre water) ALWAYS USE NON-CHLORINATED WATER. Chlorine kills microbes.

4. Add 3:1 Fish: Sugar. Sugarcane molasses or Raw (unrefined/ unbleached) sugar is good.

5. Add lacto bacilli to blended fish mixture. Approx. 2tbsp per L.
Liquid from a Lacto ferment, eg, Kimchi/ Sauerkraut works excellent.
The Lacto-Baccilli is likely/probaby an easily sourced product online, if you don't make scratch fermented products, nobody I know does but its worth a mention.
(A Yogurt With live culture Lactobaccillus Acidophilus in it may be a source, but am unsure whether if its the same lacto bacillus variety or not.
Science geeks feel free comment if I'm wrong.)

6. So now you have liquefied fish, sugar, and lacto.
Pour this mixture into a container to ferment. Cover with a cloth/ mesh to stop insects, etc.
The process takes anywhere from 2 weeks to over a month.
You know its finished by the smell.
During fermentation there is a pungent smell, but once completed there should be little more than a faint vinegar smell.

7. Transfer it to a smaller container.

It should be used as a soil drench as opposed to a foilar feed.
Inoculate compost to boost fungal population.
·Use in compost teas to encourage and enhance populations of micro-organisms in the soil.

I searched and found a commercial product for making fish Hydrolysate.
It's called "ea-B-Zyme L200 Papain" used to hydrolyze fish proteins to produce fish protein hydrolysates ("Enzyme Innovations").
Products such as Adolphs Meat Tenderizer is a dry powdered form of the enzyme Papain and may potentially work for this Junior mad scientist project. :)
Papain is an enzyme that occurs in raw papaya fruit (pineapple too.)
It is a protease, meaning it breaks down proteins.
So go ahead and toss your mango smoothie in there while your at it to get things going. ;) :)
 
Last edited:

Creeperpark

Well-known member
Mentor
Veteran
What is the difference between fish emulsion and fish hydrolysate? The difference from a plant's point of view is minor, but if you are trying to sell a product–there are big differences.

Fish emulsion and fish hydrolysate start with the leftover bits from the fish industry–the parts no one else wants. These are then treated with various chemicals and enzymes to break down larger organic molecules into nutrients and other small organic molecules. Further treatment can take one of two paths; it is either heated or cold processed. Fish emulsion is the end product if the heating process is used. Fish hydrolysate is the result of using cold processing.

There is great debate about the benefits of emulsion vs hydrolysate–which is better? The reality is that plants can’t use most of the large or even small organic molecules from either process. Normally microbes in the soil degrade these into nutrients plants can use. So the argument that heat in the emulsion process is detrimental, makes no sense. it is true that heat will denature proteins, but they need to be denatured for the plants to use them.
It's so stinky to use indoors. I've used it outdoors in the past and didn't see any real gains, to be honest. with you. 😎
 

Vandenberg

Active member
Radioactive Kelp

According to a new scientific study, kelp on the California coastline was contaminated with short-lived radioisotopes due to Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant disaster. This effectively proves the theories that the radiation reached the United States coastline. The kelp was collected off of Orange County, Santa Cruz - and many other coastal locations. Radioactive iodine was detected, which was released from the damaged nuclear reactor.

Giant kelp is the largest species of algae and grows faster than nearly anything else on Earth. Its large, dense forests off the coast of California accumulate iodine, thus making it a useful way to check how far radioactive material spreads.

The concentration in certain areas was about 250 times higher than levels of the isotope found before the accident. "Basically, we saw it in all the California kelp blades we sampled,“ said Steven Manley, a CSU Long Beach biology professor who specializes in kelp. Despite what many believe about radioactivity, it had no harmful effects on the kelp, local fish or other marine life. In fact, it was virtually undetectable. In fact, the isotope found, Iodine 131 - "has an eight-day half-life, so it’s pretty much all gone,” Manley said. "But this shows what happens half a world away does effect what happens here. I don’t think these levels are harmful, but it’s better if we don’t have it at all.“

There is no published research on what iodine 131 might do to fish at the levels found in the kelp."It’s definitely not harmful to humans,” Manley said.
 

Capt.Ahab

Feeding the ducks with a bun.
Veteran
Ive got a covered 5 gallon bucket of chopped fish heads , water , and yogurt sitting in my back yard.
Its been there for a month or so.
It smelled so bad I had to move it about 50 yards into the woods.
When I noticed how bad it smelled it was bulging like it was ready to explode.
It was like a rank biohazrd nuclear bomb waiting to pop.
I gingerly moved it into the woods and eased the top off a bit to release the gas.
Holy cow. Evacuate the neighborhood.
I don't think I'll do this again.
Its easier to just bury the fish waste under the plants at the start.
 

Vandenberg

Active member
I am now using a premium Fish hydrolysate product that I found online that has the added benefit of crab and shrimp and its desirable chitanase content. Affordably priced too.
biologic-systems-crab-shrimp-hydrolysate.jpg

And if you are interested in DIY hydrolysate, this post will be of interest. :)

Vandenberg :)
 
Last edited:

BOMBAYCAT

Well-known member
Veteran
I used fish hydrolysate outdoors once and the damn Raccoons dug up a couple plants looking for fish. I think they go for strong smells as they tore up some garlic plants a couple years later. I swear there is a herd of Raccoons around here.
 

Rodehazrd

Well-known member
Yeah outside it’s tough coons make a mess of mine. Now I just use it to feed the biota over winter after harvest. I use it on every run indoors as my go to base fert . I love the stuff I get from Mississippi it’s the enzymes I think work
best.
 

Creeperpark

Well-known member
Mentor
Veteran
Any type of protein amendment can attract coons and coyotes. I have found knee high plants laying on the ground next to a hole left by somthing. A heartbreaking moment, so I never used fish or blood after that. 😎
 

acespicoli

Well-known member
Any type of protein amendment can attract coons and coyotes. I have found knee high plants laying on the ground next to a hole left by somthing. A heartbreaking moment, so I never used fish or blood after that. 😎
Yeah same went thru a stage like that too, Best leave in in your compost pile for atleast a full year before use, nothing wrong with a vegan patch either
Blood and bone is excellent fertilizer, have a bunch of graphs in my soil link. Free ammendments are hard to frown on unless its for indoor organics sometimes paying for purity is worth it

@Vandenberg
if you stop by my thread drop a link to this one you already have a ton of good info on page one thx for addressing these other organics
Thorvin Icelandic kelp meal is superior product by guaranteed analysis I challenge anyone to post a single better ingredient side by side :huggg: best vibes
Green sand is no slouch either...
1663617910650.png

It is generally known that many minerals and metals exist, dissolved in seawater and in the waters of briny lagoons and salt lakes.

According to Stanford University, in the US, seawater contains 47 minerals and metals. Starting with the most abundant and proceeding to the least abundant, these are chloride, with a concentration of 18 980 parts per million (ppm) in seawater, sodium (10 561 ppm), magnesium (1 272 ppm), sulphur (884 ppm), calcium (400 ppm), potassium (380 ppm), bromine (65 ppm), inorganic carbon (28 ppm) and strontium (13 ppm). Then follow boron (4.6 ppm), silicon (4 ppm), organic carbon (3 ppm), aluminium (1.9 ppm), fluorine (1.4 ppm), nitrogen in the form of nitrate (0.7 ppm), organic nitrogen (0.2 ppm), rubidium (0.2 ppm), lithium (0.1 ppm), phosphorous in the form of phosphate (0.1 ppm), copper (0.09 ppm), barium (0.05 ppm), iodine (also 0.05 ppm), nitrogen in the form of nitrite (also 0.05 ppm) and nitrogen in the form of ammonia (once more 0.05 ppm). Thereafter, we have arsenic (0.024 ppm), iron (0.02 ppm), organic phosphorous (0.016 ppm), zinc (0.014 ppm), manganese (0.01 ppm), lead (0.005 ppm), selenium (0.004 ppm), tin (0.003 ppm), caesium (0.002 ppm), molybdenum (also 0.002 ppm) and uranium (0.0016 ppm). Then come gallium (0.0005 ppm), nickel (also 0.0005 ppm), thorium (also 0.0005 ppm), cerium (0.0004 ppm), vanadium (0.0003 ppm), lanthanum (also 0.0003 ppm), yttrium (also 0.0003 ppm), mercury (once more 0.0003 ppm), silver (also 0.0003 ppm), bismuth (0.0002 ppm), cobalt (0.0001 ppm) and, finally, gold (0.000008 ppm). Altogether, there are some 50 quadrillion tons (that is, 50 000 000 000 000 000 t) of minerals and metals dissolved in all the world’s seas and oceans. To take just uranium, it is estimated that the world’s oceans contain 4.5-billion tons of the energy metal.

If its there the kelp will use it
 
Last edited:

Lotto

Well-known member
I use many tons of horse manure, copious amounts of rabbit manure and fish entrails for outdoor plantings. Hydrolyzed fish & kelp indoors. Some manures are merely amendments while some are food. After decades of using manures, nothing breaks down faster and provides quicker results than raw fish. Raw fish is pure food.
 

Vandenberg

Active member
I do use a well thought out open source compost tea product called " Boogie Brew" that incorporates the "Sea-90" brand of a mineral and trace elements product as one of its components.
Definitely a less is more type of a thing when directly dosing a sea-90 type product as it will become phytotoxic if It is overdosed, so caution is advised with sea salts.:)


Full Spectrum Ocean Minerals and Trace Elements / Trace Mineral Salt​

SEA-90 fertilizer is natural mineral crystals produced by solar dehydration of sea water trapped in retention ponds in a very arid and pristine coastal region devoid of industry or agriculture. The particular sea utilized by SeaAgri is considered as one of the most diverse in marine life and minerals on earth. The full spectrum minerals and trace elements contained in SEA-90 are exactly proportioned and balanced as in sea water to sustain optimum biological life. Consider that the elements in sea water are at essentially the same ratios as human blood, and that sea life living in pure and balanced ocean water seems immune to most cancer and other degenerative diseases.

SEA-90 fertilizer, a trace mineral salt, is the product of 40 years of extensive research by Dr. Maynard Murray and SeaAgri proving that soils and crops enhanced or remineralized with full spectrum sea minerals and trace elements grow crops superior to those grown solely with conventional fertilizers.

SEA-90 can be broadcast directly on the soil surface and allowed to absorb into the soil or dissolved and sprayed directly onto growing crops and plants.

Note: I've read some postings here at icmag, that rabbit manure is considered one of the best manures to reportedly enhance trichome production, a member here is a big proponent of nutritionally enhanced (feeds herbs and diverse goodies to the bunnies) rabbit poo pellets that can make for a premium top quality nutrient source.
Nothing wrong with your standard issue rabbit poop, that for sure, but one can take that poop to another nutritional level if you raise bunnies.

Vandenberg :)
 
Last edited:

Cerathule

Active member
According to Stanford University, in the US, seawater contains 47 minerals and metals. Starting with the most abundant and proceeding to the least abundant, these are chloride, with a concentration of 18 980 parts per million (ppm) in seawater, sodium (10 561 ppm), magnesium (1 272 ppm), sulphur (884 ppm), calcium (400 ppm), potassium (380 ppm), bromine (65 ppm),
it seems unusably
 

Cactus Squatter

Well-known member
Ive got a covered 5 gallon bucket of chopped fish heads , water , and yogurt sitting in my back yard.
Its been there for a month or so.
It smelled so bad I had to move it about 50 yards into the woods.
When I noticed how bad it smelled it was bulging like it was ready to explode.
It was like a rank biohazrd nuclear bomb waiting to pop.
I gingerly moved it into the woods and eased the top off a bit to release the gas.
Holy cow. Evacuate the neighborhood.
I don't think I'll do this again.
Its easier to just bury the fish waste under the plants at the start.

Next time just do chopped fish completely covered with an equal weight of brown sugar. Keep that in a dark area out of the heat. It will not stink, try to explode or make any messes. After a few months it will be a sweet smelling juice that plants love.
 

Vandenberg

Active member
I know, Salt, it seems counter intuitive to add just a pinch to grow an inch. :)
New growers, ignore this salt advice, use sea kelp for your micro-nutrient source with liquid fish instead. :)

All mined salt on earth was at one time sea water. SEA-90 Essential Elements is technically sea salt or “sea solids” as named by Maynard Murray, MD and contains the full spectrum of periodic table minerals and trace elements in the exact proportions as sea water. SeaAgri accomplishes this by solar dehydrating sea water from a desert estuary receiving less than one-half inch of rainfall annually, thereby, providing the complete spectrum of minerals and trace elements found in sea water...

To be called SEA-90 Essential Elements or sea mineral solids as defined by Dr. Murray, sea salt cannot be touched by rain or leached of any minerals and trace elements, and contain no more than 82-85 percent sodium chloride (NaCl) with balanced mineral and trace elements in the remaining 15-17 percent.
Sea-90 apparently tests at 57% sodium chloride.

Mineral Comparison – Competitive Analysis (pdf)
 
Last edited:
Top