Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Does anyone know what might be the contents of the juice produced after the worms have consumed the leaf waste from the aquaponic system, and would this be harmful to the fish?

Hello Faye! As many people have worms in their growbeds, I would say any bi-products of their waste must be all good. Welcome aboard!

Hi Faye - I think the main issue is if the worm juice ends up in an anaerobic state in the bottom of the farm and goes a bit rank.

ahhh but if the "worm juice " was being created as part of the AP system that problem would be over come. Sweet deal.

Yep - and it is now in my system and many others. Because we rarely have problems getting enough nitrate in the system, the real benefit of the worm juice would be the presence of the any other elements that we tend to end up short in. Now I guess these are only going to be present if they are in the plants that the worms are eating (which they will be to a certain extent). In essencem recylcing this stuff through the worm farm would make sure that the good stuff that these plants has taken up/stored is not lost.

Although I have not got around to ti yet, I have always intended growing in my dirt gardens around here some of the plants that take up high amounts of certain good elements from the clay and soil (like yarrow for instance) and then add these to the system via the worm farm or fish food if the fish will take them raw or included in a pellet formula.

That's "Worm Tea". Good stuff for plants. Here's a blurb on the good stuff in worm castings, and therefore worm tea...

Castings contain: 5 times the available nitrogen, 7 times the available potash and 1 1/2 times more calcium than found in 15cm of good top soil. Castings are supplied with available nutrients which are water soluble and immediately available to plant life.

Okay - so we have the nitrate, most likely have heaps of calcium (I do anyway - cause my buffer is calcium carbonate), but potassium is something we definitely can lack at times - so that is good. I image though that this break-up would depend heavilly on what one feeds the worms.

Faye, there has been considerable discussion before on this.

What came out of it was that there is a distinct difference from leachate and tea. The former being the stuff that comes out of the bottom of the worm farm, possibly bad, partially digested/broken down organic waste anerobic.

The latter or "tea" is what is made by steeping finished castings in water.

Steve

am just thinking out loud here so bear with me
there are issues in ap with lack of Iron yes ?
Iron can be found in plants yes ?
worms live in the gravel so if we add high iron plants into the gravel as worm food would this add iron to the system ? which would be put into the water via the worm "juice", i guess the plants would have to come from a non AP scource or at least a seperate one or the Iron would already be there ?

how my thinking ?
(so much for me keeping quite lol )

You are right in saying that a plant gets its iron and other elements from the environment it lives. Therefore if you want to use plant to add element to system, it needs to be grown elsewhere where the element is present in a usable form. The beauty of some plants is that they can get this stuff from deep in the earth. This is why we use these sorts of plants in permaculture to make the elements available to other plants by chopping and dropping the plant that retrieves it for us.

comfrey would be one of those, yes?

any chance of sending me some more of that? i'll promise to go cut you sa sample of that edpm and post it today if you say es

Steve - yes comfrey is a great example. Roots really deeply and pulls up silica, magnesium, calcium, iron as well as producing nitrogen.

I'll see if I still have any Steve - it has all died back due to no water, but it may still have viable roots, well take a look.

thanks i can't belive a killed it! almost as bad as my mate killing the mint i gave him

I'm always killing mint. The bugs love it and if you don't give it enough water as well you are stuffed.