Cycling is definitly over, No Ammonia, no nitrites And "Compost Tea"

Cycling is definitely over ammonia and nitrites are undetectable.  Nitrates have been decreasing progressively. Nitrites peaked and totally disappeared very quickly. Also, the intresting thinkg is how the pH decreased until the nitrite peak was over, and then started to increase again. I think it is because there are pieces of eggshells trapped in polyester is the tower.

Last weekend, I did the first of the monthly maintenance check up. I took the system apart to rinse the pump, I removed the profiler that was in it, there was a worm cocoon and a fat worm in it, they both were returned to the tower. The water has an interesting reddish tint, but didn't have any distinctive smell to it. Not sure where that color is from, but  could be natural coloration occurring because of the vermiwash and compost tea. It also could be that the wood I leaching out something. When I built the tower, I remember that the wood was giving away some lightly coloured water. maybe the plastic wrap I have put on the walls has gaps and some of what is in the wood is leaching out. I may need to rethink the cover of the wood, maybe using a double layer of plastic wrap would be better. 

 

The tee, with old socks to filter particles

After cleaning up the pump, I also decided to mess with the water pipe. It is a flexible poly tubing, and was pinched at the level of the tower. Also, the green onion getting soft may be due to over-watering, so I needed to reduce the flow from the pump. I had a couple of tees and a small valve. I used one of the tee and the valve to divert some of the flow from the pump and return it to the reservoir, the other one to play the role of an elbow and avoid the pipe to kink. I covered the ends with nylon sock to play a filter's role, and added a short length of tubing on the "top end" to avoid splashing things around. In the process I kind of messed up the 3 pepper seedlings. It seem that maybe one will survive, the other will definitely not.

Compost tea version 2.0

After that, I added 2 cups of compost tea, brewed for 24h. Oxygenated using the aquarium pump. The tea was "brewed" using worm casting (1.5 teaspoon), seaweed (1/8 teaspoon) and same of brown sugar. After 24h there was no foam on the top (Internet tends to say there should be a lot). I filtered the "tea" measure the nitrate and ammonia (traces) and sprayed some on the leaves (according to compost tea aficionados it is great to fight diseases and so-on), and dumped the rest in the reservoir. I also added 2mL of this house plant fertilizer that we have laying around. I keep checking ammonia and nitrate on a daily basis and the compost tea does not seem to change much of these. There seem to have a slight increase of ammonia, but the plant fertilizer contains both ammonia and nitrate (ammonium nitrate and other nitrate source). I kept adding 2 ml of fertilizer everyday since. I decided that I will add much more  of all the ingredients and get molasses ( instead of brown sugar) the next batch, which I prepared yesterday: 1 hipping table spoon of worm compost, one teaspoon of seaweed, and one teaspoon of molasses.  This version has some foam on the top, indicating that there is life in it. Last night I added another teaspoon of molasses, as tonight the foaming has greatly reduced. It "brewed" for 48h, the colour is yellow-brown, its smells good (like the molasses, with some earthy smell mixed to it) has a little bit of foam on the top, but does not have a significant amount of ammonia or nitrates. I also sprayed some on the leaves and dumped the remaining in the tank. To avoid risk of overflow, I removed about 2 cups from the reservoir. The water is still brown-redish, and still does not have any particular smell to it.

The "growlight"

 I also made a "growlight" out of a power strip, a couple on plug-light-bulb-sockets and 2 23W CFL (5000k "bright daylight"), since the days are seriously shortening. On Tuesday night however, some of the parley looked strange : a few leaves were wilted, and theses leaves, where the closest to the lights. I decided to use only one light, and to put it on the timer with the pump. The wilted leaves did not recover, but no more of these appeared.

some wilted leaves on the lower parley plant.