If pantyhose aren't easy to come by, try a paint strainer. They come in 1 and 5 gallon sizes. I've heard of people using a bag of some sort for making "teas" anything from a pillow case to a burlap bag or pantyhose as you mention. I expect that most people who intend to put their tea into a sprayer, probably want to use a bag so they can avoid the step of straining the tea before use.

I've not made compost tea myself.

How would you use a piece of soaker hose for the operation? I doubt my aquarium air pumps would have enough volume to make a 1/2" soaker hose fiz very uniformly and the fittings required to convert a soaker hose to a bubbler would require some creativity. Let us know if you have worked it out though and how you weight it down to keep it from floating.

Here is a link that might be useful: My Bins

I use a 33 gallon trsh can in which to make my compost tea. I fill a large rectangular piece of cheesecloth with about 5 lbs of compost, tie it off, and suspend it in the trash can, then fill with water.

AFter a couple of days, I remove the teabag, add molaasses, and insert the aquarium pump.

maupin: my concern with bagging the compost is that i can't mix it with the water to get maximmum freeing of microbes from the compost. What do you think? My problem with aquarium airstones is that the stream of bubbles is quite feeble. Perhaps you have a larger pump; what size do you use? Regards, Peter.

Peter-- I could make the process more unwieldy and time consuming by dumping my 5 pounds of loose compost directly into the trashcan, which may--just may-- increase microbe liberation. However, by adding the molasses and keeping it aerated I sleep well at night and do not have nightmares about lost microbes.

My method gets me 33 gallons of high quality, easy to use tea in less than a week with very little work on my part.

As we say in Southern Illinois--The perfect is the enemy of the good.

I have a dual outlet pump that I bought at Walmarts for $9+. and I connect a 'splitter' in line with each outlet, giving me four outlets. Three of them are weighted to the bottom of my container w/ water. The remaining one, which has the smaller filter stone, I insert in the paintbag with the compost, then into the water. That gives plenty of bubbling action, and in two days I'm ready to apply. Hope that helps.

Had a thought while reading this. An aquairium pump won't do a soaker hose, but what about a 1/4" drip hose with the slots? You could curl a bunch of that in the bucket and have lots of areation.

Have you looked at the design here? It uses a bag and an airstone inside the bag.

Bruce Deuley, the creator of that design, also has experimented with a design using a 55-gallon drum, soaker hose, and a commercial air pump. The hard part was finding an inexpensive air pump. I'm not sure he ever did and don't know what his tea quality results have been. Bruce also has some videos on YouTube that might be interesting for you.

If you are handy, you can sometimes find an air pump from the old carburated cars of the 80's. Those cars had all the smog controls. The pump ran off one of the belts and provided lots of air. If you mounted one of those pumps to a board and aligned it with an electric motor, you could drive it with a belt and pump more air than you'll ever need.

maupin and denno: thanks; I will certainly try both techniques -- always ready to learn. Regards, Peter.

Excellent, I was looking to get a few of these questions answered.

dchall_san_antonio,

What other sources of air pumps are possible besides using aquarium pumps.

I have heard that the compressor from a refrigerator makes a nice small air pump. I think I'll try getting one off of a junked fridge. I have a 33 gal plastic barrel that I can use.

What other sources of air pumps are possible besides using aquarium pumps.

What are you looking for? More air? Less air?

I was looking for more air. I settled w/ two aquarium pumps. They are rated for 125-gallon tanks.

You could use any air compressor with some type of diffuser on the submerged end. If you can pick up a fine bubble diffuser from a WWTP supplier, you would have air transfer gold standard of the compost tea world. Find a sales rep from one the following companies (Environmental Dynamics, Stamford Scientific, Alab)

Fine bubbles are better(IMNSHO)...more surface area to impart better oxygen transfer...

joepyeweed,

Thanks, I think my set up will suffice for now.