Bloodmeal

[Eleven11]

Well nothing new to report. Today's water tests look great. My conclusion... Blood meal Rulez !

[attachment=0:uvd276a7]3.14.12 Water Tests - fish tank.JPG[/attachment:uvd276a7]

[jared.plowman]

Eleven11 I added over a tbsp to my 40G system!!! My ammonia went up to ~1ppm... I thought I was going to lose my fish. Now everything is good-to-go! Anyways great tracking and thanks for this information, wish I understood/read it a few weeks ago. Have you been able to run the system on just BM? Maxicrop isn't readily available here in Vancouver and I don't really want to spend $20 for it either.

Also I attached a picture of my Kale and Cilantro does this look familier?

Oh one more thing, I am assuming you had an ebb and flow system, did you put the BM where the water could access it or did you just put it on top and allow wind, water additions, etc. move it into the water stream?

[Eleven11]

Did you take a few more tests to see how fast the level went back down?

I only added the BM a few times to my system so never tried to run it on BM alone. Everything has been growing pretty good so I haven't added any more since this last experiment. The peppers are still slow but it's because they are growing in the shadows of the corn and cucumbers which have taken over the place.

I don't see your attached picture.

My system is flood and drain. I added the blood meal right under the water inlet.

[commander]

I too added a bit of bloodmeal to my little blue barrel system to kick start some lettuce I had sprouted. I added mine to the intake side of by swirl bio filter. My thinking was the BM would get trapped by the filter media and the water passing it would leach out the nutrients. The water from the filter goes directly into the grow beds. It seemed to work as the lettuce greened right up and the other plants in the beds took a small growth spurt. I haven't added more as I really want to let the fish do the work as much as possible.

[jared.plowman]

Good call on the pics Eleven11!! I was late and my other half was beckoning me to bed

When I added the BM the Ammonia shot up to ~1ppm (I edited this after the first post, I exaggerated) and then the nitrite shot up, within a few days it stabilized. I actually started another thread on the topic because I had no idea what was going on. UrbanFarmer pointed out that insoluble nitrogen breaks down into ammonia. I added a little bit of BM last night and the nitrite and ammonia are still zero, maybe my last "shock" created bigger colonies.

Here are the pictures I mentioned before.

[Eleven11]

Ok, there ya go. You could try adding a bit more each time the nitrite level goes back down close to zero.

Let's see what they look like in about a week.

[jared.plowman]

I tried a little bit yesterday and it didn't effect ammonia or nitrite. I added a bit more to the GBs today. Thanks for all the help, I will let you know how plants do in a week or so!

[Eleven11]

You may as well include testing for nitrates as well as ammonia and nitrite.

At first, my nitrates went up big time but the plants adjusted really quick and knocked it right back down and kept it down.

From what I understand.... the blood meal itself is not soluble in water so it has to be broken down by the microbes before any ammonia is released... that will add a delay in your measurements.

[jared.plowman]

Ok so I am at my wits end. I think I might just plant salad greens until my system is matured The kale is basically dead, the leaves are becoming necrotic my new spinach sprouts are dying, and the swiss chard is stunted. The tomato plant has brown spots and some of the leaves are necrotic as well. I have been adding little bits of Blood Meal to the system and monitoring the Ammonia and the Nitrites, so far I have recorded no jumps (at all). I have attached some more pictures, does anyone else have any hail marrys? Cheers!

This might be important, but Basil seems to thrive in my system... I looked up the nutrient density of Basil and it seems it doesn't have very much Iron... could that be it? What about the Blood Meal I have been adding. I should look into getting some better Iron Supplement.

One more thing, my fill and drain cycle is very short ~5min drain ~1min fill (depending on the syphons mood) I can't figure out a different cycle time with such a small system, the window is so tiny to get the syphon to work in the first place. Could this be a problem?

Inputs: Banana Peel, Blood Meal, Tropical Fish Food
pH: ~7.4
Nitrite: 0ppm
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrate: ~30-40ppm

[Eleven11]

Blood meal is suppose to have a good amount of iron in it.

You may need trace minerals. I bought a bottle of trace minerals from Petsmart when I was getting my system up and running. I downloaded a pdf file that UrbanFarmer uploaded, which shows a number of plant maladies and the corresponding mineral deficiency. I can't seem to find it now. Basically though, you'll probably need a broad spectrum trace mineral supplement. The one I used was from SeaChem.

http://www.seachem.com/Products/product ... urish.html