(banjo music)
- Hi, so today I'm gonna talk about
one of my favorite parts of this system.
It's in response to some of the folks
that have asked questions
on some of our other You Tube videos
about using red worms.
So, in traditional hydroponic systems
this isn't always a possibility.
The nutrient solution will probably kill your worms.
And they're not necessarily something you want
in traditional hydro, because they're always kind of
consuming these solids and producing solids of their own.
And it's more biologically active
than most hydro guys really want.
But I'm not saying it's impossible,
especially when you're starting to look
at organic hydroponic methods.
We're talking, using min-er-tees, nu-tree-en-tees,
and the like, for your production.
We do aquaponic production, so we're using fish waste
in a solution that we just recirculate constantly.
And we use red worms in our towers, okay.
So red worms are really awesome.
They're great at taking unavailable nutrients
that are tied up in organic solids
and organic compounds, and consuming them.
And they're like little bioreactors;
all the microbes inside their guts
basically help mineralize, break those solids down,
oxidize them, mineralize them,
release them back into the solution, and a lot of the time
they're almost immediately plant-available.
So the plants can start taking those nutrients up
right out of those castings.
If the plants don't take them up,
they just go right back in the solution, and they circulate,
and they do their thing; it's part of the marvelous
cycle of life in aquaponics.
So, people ask, how do you get red worms in your system.
Well, you start by ordering a few red worms online.
And we did that a number of years ago,
and then we basically put them in worm bins like this.
And this is really all you need
is just a few Tupperware tubs from Walmart, pretty cheap.
Drill some holes in it so they drain.
Drill some holes so there's some good aeration.
And then just start throwing
all of your waste from your system in, and if you're a home
or a hobby producer start throwing in all your waste
from your kitchen, and pretty soon you end up
with this nice, rich
kind of mix of great stuff.
And the nice thing is, you can do this inside
if you're a home producer.
It really doesn't smell, and that's the nice thing
about vermicompost is if you mix it very nicely,
if you keep it in good shape,
you can do this inside without too many issues.
So, you see I've got some really nice rich stuff here,
and if you notice it's just crawlin' with worms.
Well, what happens after we kind of have this
vermicomposted in these bins is, we take this media,
we take this,
vermicompost, basically,
and we just plant our seeds into it.
So, we start our seedlings for our system in these..
basically like plug trays.
So we're growing our seedlings in these plug trays,
and they're just naturally inoculated with these worms.
So, when we take those seedlings,
and we transplant them to our towers,
the towers are just naturally inoculated
with eggs and with the worms, just through those plugs.
Occasionally when we get in a new batch of towers
that need to be cycled,
this is the hardest part of the system.
Any aquaponics system is cycling it up.
We'll take red worms; we can just add them
directly to the tops of the towers
so long as they're being irrigated.
Now, when the towers are first getting started,
a lot of the time I think the worms probably
just crawl right through and get in the system solution,
but that's not a bad deal, either.
They will clog some of your emitters,
but those worms will just flow with the system.
Alright, it's aerobic enough that they won't die,
they won't drown,
they'll just kind of float right through the system,
and they'll squirt right back into
the tops of the towers, typically.
So, we have red worms in all of our towers,
all through our system, and they do a great job
at keeping our percolation rates very fast.
They do a great job at reducing our solids
and making a lot of our organic solids..
converting those into plant-available nutrients.
So, I highly recommend the use of red worms with towers,
especially in aquaponic systems.
Any kind of media-based aquaponics system,
red worms are going to be a huge asset to your system.
They're gonna increase your nutrient availability,
and they're just kind of another fun little element.
You know, biodiversity in these systems
equates with better resiliency; better system stability.
So, I encourage it,
and they're just pretty cool little animals, too.
So that's how we get red worms in our system.
(banjo music)