Gardeners all know compost is terrific stuff. But there's something even better than plain old compost, and that's compost tea. As the name implies, compost tea is made by steeping compost in water. It's used as either a foliar spray or a soil drench, depending on where your plant has problems.
Harmful bacteria live best in soil that does not have good air circulation. Good bacteria live best and will thrive in soil that is well ventilated with oxygen. This is where a good compost tea, made the right way, comes in. When you have well oxygenated compost tea, you automatically get rid of 3/4 of the bad bacteria.
Conventionally compost tea is brewed and aerated in a vat/bucket with a bubbler pump.
This seems simple enough though many good bacteria still die in the process, due to dead spots in the bucket which do not receive enough oxygen from the bubbler.
Thinking "out side the bucket" I designed a unit, in which the bacteria receive all the oxygen they need, whilst still being retained within a portable unit.
I give you the Aerobic Bacterial Spawning Tower, or ABST as I like to call it.
It is comprised of a basic sump retainer at the bottom, several cells containing various aerated mediums, several containing fine compost and then more with cow manure. There is a submersible pump in the sump, which returns the liquid back to the top.
The cells (plant trays) were seeded with a product called "Go Go Juice", which is available at Buzzings and hopefully shall see the good bacteria in this product flourish through the cells and then the system as a whole.
It has been running for about, 24 hours now. I just need to find an aquarium heater to put in the sump and bac levels should hopefully rise sharply.
Starting from the top dispersal layer, the unit uses gravity to irrigate each cell as the liquid passes through it.
The nitrogen or food if you like, is provided by the cow manure and compost cells.
The scoria and Aquatic medium as in place to create an aerated space for the bacteria to occupy.
The unit will be switched on and off at intervals (yet to be determined) by a timer, to ensure the layers stay moist but not completely saturated.
Yet it sure looks to me like the new ingredient they use now. Been a while since I looked but I am sure spongelite should be a little smaller rounder and a yellow to pinky even purple colour? 
