Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The MT was running along fine yesterday. I added some corn starch and took 2 of the three air stones out to add to my worm tea brew. Later yesterday, I opened the GH and the smell was terrible. Putrid, hydrogen smell. I added some more air, but is there anything else I should do? Smell is so bad in my small Gh, that I don't want to work in there.

arg, the down side of mineralization

Sounds like the bacteria are producing hydrogen sulfide in anaerobic respiration. I believe this means that there are no other substrates that they can get their oxygen from (except carboxyl groups) so they are taking it from sulfate ions SO4 by combining them with Hydrogen to make H2S. There is still a step left after this where they produce methane gas and you don't want this around a greenhouse heater. Was the air added to the MT or the greenhouse? H2S is pretty potent stuff I'd probably do air to both . They need oxygen or another source that they can get it from - it depends on what you are after. Wait and see what cookie says since he's likely run into this.

Many of the breakdown products from anaerobic respiration are lost to the atmosphere as gas

If you were intentionally doing de-nitrification or even if you weren't, you should have no nitrates left to get rid of. The oxygen was stripped from them and the Nitrogen was probably lost to the atmosphere. If this is what you hoped to do then you are done with this batch I think, but as I said wait and see what you hear from cookie since he's done this.

Cheers

Thanks Scotty, will wait to hear what cookie says.

More air

Patience

More air is in the works, and also waiting to see what happens next.

Just curious... did you omit to put the two stones back, or feel one was enough...
It sure demonstrated the absolute role of O2, unless you actually want to gas off the Nitrogen ..

I'm not into mineralisation YET, as I don't have enough poo to process (and I am not setup to collect solids, other than the pool filter), but have wondered about any benefits from trying the process with other stuff, like the Worm-Juice, which I now just add direct to the sump..
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Interesting idea with processing the worm juice BuiDoi. If you don't have enough solids to do the process I would just add the Worm-Juice as you are now doing. Even with the best management there are both aerobic and anaerobic portions of almost any bio-filter so it will likely be processed one way or the other at some point.

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Chris, it would be interesting to know your readings, especially if you have them before adding air back in and a few hours after

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What I was thinking about is the more muddy slurry that I get in the collector tank...
Kinda looks like the stuff you would get from a RFF or any solids collection, and thus lend itself to further breakdown...

And you can add other natural goodies like molasses or..or..or..

I work in the belief that the less solids in the GB the ultimate better off, even though the worms might break some down ...
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What the heck, why not Might be worth giving it a try before disposing of anything that didn't break down enough, especially if you have a way to test and see how it's working.

Cheers

Free nutrients (relatively) from their MTs compared to you adding "natural goodies" that you more than likely had to pay for. I would give mineralization a go. Than test to see what goodies still needed to be added for the optimum levels to be reached. Save a few bucks along the way that could fund more AP expansions/upgrades.

I didn't test before. It was a new batch. I added the old one last week. I can test after getting it back aerobic again. It still smell bad, and I need 1 more day in the worm tea bucket before adding the other air stone back in. I've been adding the worm tea about once a month and spraying all plants with it. I haven't tried adding it directly to sump or Gb's??
Since I now have 6-7000 worms??, I am trying to use the compost and worms as often as I can. Is there a limit to how many worms I could add to the system?

Chris, I'm thinking there may still be ammonia but I'm not sure. If there is and you aerate enough I think you'll probably get nitrates again since this is a new batch. We'll see



You can expect the bad smell to continue as long as the conditions are favorable and sulfate ions are still present.

No idea on the worms Chris, proceed with caution, more isn't always better. If you leave them alone they'll reproduce to a supportable level. If conditions become unfavorable they'll probably just leave (hopefully the systems outside where it won't be a concern).

Gee your a smart cookie, Scotty. Nice one!!

Thanks Charlie but sometimes I can be pretty dense. I'm not sure which way this thread is going