[compost_tea] Re: back pack sprayers to use for compost teas?

From: <dkemnitz2000_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 03:39:11 -0000

--- In compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com, soilfoodweb_at_a... wrote:
> John asked for a comment on hydrogen peroxide. I've been known to
use 15% H2O2 with really badly bio-filmed tanks, so you do what you
have to in order to get the tank clean.
>
<><><><><><><><><>Be sure to use adequate safety gear when using 15%
H2O2. Dennis




> H2O2 reacts rapidly in environmental conditions, so is typically
less likely to stick around and cause problems. Most aerobic
organisms make catalase, which is an enzyme that breaks down H2O2
into water and oxygen.
>
> Chlorine bleach is another alternative cleaner, but then you have
to deal with the chlorine water. Oxy-Clean is another cleaner, which
if I recall correctly, is OMRI approved? So using cleaners to remove
bio-films is quite possible. The cleaners need to be degradable by
aerobic microbes.
>
> I've also been upside down in a few brewers in order to scrub bio-
film out of places that were hard to reach. It is important to buy
brewers and sprayers that don't leave little surprises.
>
> For instance, the brewer that uses disc-diffusers - please check
the bottom of the discs. They accumulate bio-film with each brew.
You HAVE to clean them. The manufacturer does not inform his clients
about this problem when he talks about how "easy" it is to clean this
machine. It is NOT 20 minutes to clean this machine.
>
> You have to take the pipes off that hold the discs, turn the discs
over, blast the under-sides clean, and re-attach. Twenty minutes to
clean? I don't think so.
>
> But not hours to clean. It is relative. I've used brewers that
take hours to clean, even when using bleach, H2O2, or other
cleaners. Pipes with 90 degree turns in them are not recommended.
Brewer-makers that say that the haven't seen any effect of the 90
degree turn need to show you that on the fifth, sixth, or tenth brew,
the tea organisms are still just as good as on the first tea brew.
>
> I don't argue with people about their machine designs anymore. I
tell them what is what, and if they choose to ignore me, it just
means that their clients will go elsewhere when their machine cannot
get good numbers of organisms in the tea.
>
> My experience with bio-films comes from the Microbe-Brewer whose
design was changed from the inventor's plan by Growing Solutions.
That tea maker was then sold without being adequately tested for the
effect of those changes. The manufacturer said that the pipes
couldn't have that much effect. I think we showed how wrong that
belief was.
>
> It isn't the first tea, or third or fourth tea that you start to
see an impact of bio-film developing in a pipe. It's the fifth, the
tenth, the twelfth..... Once bio-film builds up, you will not be
able to make a good tea. When will the bio-film get going?
>
> If you clean with a good cleaner, then you MAY get the bio-film
dealt with and the pipe cleaned out. IF the bio-film gets really
bad, you may have to take the pipe apart and scrub.
>
> But when you once could make good tea, but now can't, suspect a bio-
film developing and getting worse and worse as time goes by. A 90
degree turn may not give trouble until the tea brewer has been in use
for awhile. But it will, sooner or later, result in poor tea.
Adequate MAY avoid the problem. We need more data on that.
>
>
> Elaine Ingham
> President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
> SFI Corvallis, OR
> SFI Port Jefferson, NY
> SFI Lismore, NSW, Australia
> SFI Hilversum, The Netherlands
> SFI Cambridge, New Zealand
> www.soilfoodweb.com


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Received on Tue Dec 16 2003 - 23:02:29 EST

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