ThaiFelix

Impressive frog pond there. What sort of dimentions is the frog tank?

Thank you green thumb. The whole structure is 6 mt x 2.5 mt x 1.2 mt high (wall height) with a centre dividing wall making each tank apprx 3 x 2.5 mt. One side for frogs the other for catfish. The frogs have an island in the middle apprx 1.4 mt x .90 at the base and apprx .10 high. The netting enclosure above the walls is .93 high because that was the width of the netting I used, it makes the whole enclosing job a lot easier, less cutting and joining. Hope that helps.

Shouldnt the poster be blurred??

If she had shot him there'd be 5 pages about how bad guns are by now.

RIP to the guy.

Trying to use this to score points for gun ownership? Really?

Have a word with yourself.

Shame you cant press the "like" button multiple times!

One impressive frog pond TF, wow. The frog "farms" I have seen have never been tiled and as clean as your aquarium. I was about comment of the need to feed them at all given the insects at this time of year until I notice the flyscreens. Looking at what appears to be feed pellets, I would think you may be overfeeding them. There is plenty of vegetative food which they would probably eat more of with a bit of a push.

It is hard to see an problems with what you have got there as It is so clean. Perhaps if you could find the source of the smell it might give some clue. Is it the plants, the frogs, spoilt feed or even the algae on the rocks? Can you describe the smell?

Thank you for your kind comments IA, I always strive to do a good job with everything I do, but as mentioned before I think sometimes I'm a bit too pedantic,my T. wife is the same. I believe keeping their environment clean aids the frogs health. The tiles make it easier to clean and also is less damaging to the frogs. Growing up as a kid in Oz I always kept lots of wild critters at home and soon realised that rough concrete tank walls caused injuries/abrasions, particularly to their noses. Flyscreens, no, its just 3/4" plastic mesh. Insects will/have entered, in fact I have lights above to attract them but we dont see them this time of the year except for mosquitos and the odd fly. Once the rains come its a totally different story, every light in the pace is swarming with bugs.

The tank in the picture had only just been cleaned and the frogs given their morning feed just before the photo was taken. In fact I had not yet even added the EM otherwise the water would be slightly brownish. Two hours later 99% of that food would be eaten. By the afternoon there would be poop everywhere in the water. Spoilt feed, I dont think so. I like to always spend a bit of time in the tank doorway before, during, and after feeding. The same when we are cleaning the tank. It gives us a chance to look over the stock to check their condition. Inspecting the tank also gives me an idea of how much to feed them as they are growing. If the food disappears too quickly I tend to increase the amount, if food is left over in the morning (rarely) I reduce. Normally they clear up all the food in the water and on the (dry) island within a couple of hours. Sometimes there is some food left over on the shelter roof (Qcon blocks) because there are only a few frogs that go up there, but it is dry so not rotten thus little smell. Dry food smells a bit like blood and bone. There may be a small amount of food that gets lost among the plants but I have never noticed any...unless it dissolves and looks the same as the frog faeces,

No the smell is definitely from the faeces (not sure if I can say shit here hahaha!). As mentioned in previous post, I have questions regarding how many times to feed a day. I have now changed to feeding them only once a day, so half the amount per day. Since this reduction, starting three days ago, the smell has actually reduced. I think it is now a more manageable amount for the EM. The frogs dont smell, the plants are ok, but the rocks have a slight algae or green water type smell. The main smell to me is definitely a poop smell.

I think your frog pond could be out of balance in terms of C:N ratio. If you have an ammonia like smell then you have way to much nitrogen and probably little carbon at all since you are exchanging the water. Micro-organisms need carbon to build their cells as does all life forms.

Perhaps you should try adding a carbon source to the water and see if the smell diminishes. Tie a handful of straw into a bundle and stand it in the pond.

Thanks IsaanAussie. We do have quite a few plants (water hyacinth) for shelter in the tank which I imagine would be consuming some of the nitrogen, especially considering the are a rich green in colour and flourishing. But carbon, yes that is a good idea. The water in the tank is only about 6 cm deep, do you consider this sufficient to stand the bundle?

I am attaching a photo of the frog tank (after cleaning haha) so you get a better idea. This was taken apprx 1 month ago so the frogs are bigger now. The other pic is of the frog and catfish tanks side by side.

Pla Duk (catfish) I have been noticing about 24 hours after each time I have dosed the tank with EM after a 50% water change, there have appeared floating on the surface quite a few spirals or coils of a kind of hard almost clear mucous. Hard to describe but looks to me like some sort of discharge....suggesting to me an affect on their digestive system?? Maybe a good thing, maybe bad. As the fish have been healthy, very active, growing, and eating well with no losses for months I have decided to fall back on the old Russian saying...."if somethings not broken- dont repair it". So I have stopped dosing with EM for the present. There are other reasons too and the main one is that at the moment were are suffering from a serious shortage of water. Both of my supplies have dwindled to only having water for a couple of hours each morning and afternoon and even then it is down to a mere trickle. We barely get enough to keep the gardens going apart from showering and laundary etc. So water changes have been out of the question. The pla duk however are very hardy and will survive in almost any water conditions. This leads me to IsaanAussies informative post re nutrients and oxygen. While I am sure the tank is very rich in nutrients considering the number of fish per litre plus the fact that water changes now are not happening, pla duk merely swim to the surface and gulp air normally. I believe they can also breathe air from the surface through their whiskers. I think if they were short of oxygen they would be spending a lot more time at the surface, which they are not.

Gop (bullfrogs) As the quantity of water in the frog tank is quite small (apprx 150 litres) I have been able to continue my twice a week water changes along with EM dosing. Each time I have increased the dosage with the last being apprx 600 ml of EMA to 150 lt of water. Still doesnt seem to have lessened the smell but I can live with that. Considering there are apprx 300+ bullfrogs of 3/4 full size pooping in 150 litres of water for 3 days, and in this heat, I think the EM is hard pressed to take over completely. My main reason for dosing them with EM, apart from their general health, is that they sometimes bite each other. Their sight is tuned to movement so when they are feeding they will sometimes strike at a nearby frog that happens to move, irregardless of their target's size. Mostly their is no problem with this but sometimes they break the skin, even slightly, and once that happens they seem to get sick, dont eat and slowly fade away. I was hoping the EM may be a benefit in their recovery in those cases. Our losses however are very small with about only 2 frogs being lost per month. Sometimes there are cases where EM could never help, such as today when we had to remove one of our largest frogs because it had been completely disemboweled! As the rest of the frogs are healthy, eating well, growing and noisy before feeding time haha I will continue with the EM.

Feeding catfish and bullfrogs I have a question re feeding which maybe Foreverford (or others) could help as I believe he has some expertise in this field. From day one I have been feeding the catfish and bullfrogs twice a day and increasing the amount as they grow. The catfish I have fed, mid morning and late afternoon, the amount they can eat in 10 minutes, which is usually when they lose interest in any case. The bullfrogs I feed at the same time and the quantity I judge by what is left over from the last feed. Last week my wife, who has no experience with either, apart from chatting with others in the village, informs me that I am overfeeding, that once a day now is sufficient. The frogs are 3/4 grown and the catfish average approx 20cm in length (I dont as yet have any scales to weigh). Anybody have any info here?

Ants I am very pleased to announce that my ant problems have abated at present. The borax, sometimes with sugar and water, sometimes with chicken soup, has cleared the verandah of 90% of the ants and the house is completely free.

I once made the mistake of "lending" some money to my first Thai gf..... Lesson learned - fortunately not a very expensive one, but bad enough. I had far more hassle with a loan to a farang ex-friend. Getting that money back cost me a friendship - but it was well worth it to be rid of the loser.

OP, tell your wife's "friend" that it's your money and the answer is no and that it's your decision, not your wife's. No money now, none tomorrow and none any day thereafter. It might cause a short blow-up, but it will be well worth it in the end.

Failing that, buy her a one-way bus ticket to Pattaya and let her earn it there.

Yep, I will second that. I have had more problems with farang "friends", one in particular. Found out too late he made a business of it owing everybody around town. Never got that money back and was reluctant to force it because the loser had a lovely wife and two brow beaten sons, and he used both of them to his selfish ends. If I had tried to force the issue I know they would have only suffered. He gets around calling himself ulra-positive haha...I guess you would have to rather than look in the mirror!

You know, growing up in Australia the heat isnt all that a big deal in Thailand

Others mentioned trying to escape to a supposed paradise as a quick fix for mental issues

But there have also been some pretty ridiculous temperatures in Thailand recently for winter

Or a couple things combined

Does just the heat alone send some that come from colder climates mad, or madder if already mad

Depends where you live in Australia....In Darwin it is often heard of where someone goes "troppo" with the heat and humidity and then run amuck.

let me specify

PHUKET will not issue u a rc on a tourist visa :-)

note those 2 year licenses are TEMP licenses and can not be used outside Thiand

a 5 year one is valid around the world

why would u get 3 temp licenses and not change them to a 5 year license? could it be cause ur not on a long term visa??

I have held a 5 year license since the early 90's

I have had two temp lic's because of my lic being due same time as my 1 yr visa extension renewal. When they look at my passport and see I only have a 30 day "under consideration" stamp they refuse to give me more than the temp. Next time I will go well before lic renewal date and see if that works. Main hurdle is I live in Kalasin, no Imm Office so we have to go to Sakon, a 3 hour 1 way trip. I would like to renew lic closer, say Udon, coz only 1 hour away but am told you have to go to original lic centre?

Believe me I would much prefer a 5 year lic, if they'd give me one, instead of all the running around!

http://tielandtothailand.com/certificate-residency/

"I believe I've heard" ... that's handy!

I searched the forums, obviously, before going through the trouble of posting a whole new thread. Because, other threads say, no residence paper without 90 day reporting in Bangkok.

Would be awesome to catch someone who happens across this thread, with actionable advice!

Mmmmm ok keep your shirt on. First Google search result was:

http://tielandtothailand.com/certificate-residency/

4th Google result was:

http://donslifeinthailand.com/Thai-Drivers-License-2.html

All I did was Google "residency certificate thailand with tourist visa" Not difficult at all. However one word of warning, some Immigration offices, licensing centres have different rules/requirements. I note that the first two results of my 5 second search saying a Tourist Visa was acceptable were from Chiang Mai.

Good luck.....again!

I believe I have heard of people getting a residency cert/drivers lic on a tourist visa. Think you just need a lease agreement or letter from hotel etc to confirm where you are staying. Try a google search or search this forum,there is plenty of up to date info. Good luck!

get yourself a yellow book from local ampur no need for embassy 2000 bht or immigration poss 600 bht

50 bht and finish

Many thanks will look at both options.

Can you tell me what is required in order to get a yellow book?? I enquired last year at our local amphur, they were very pleasant and helpful but told me that, among other things, I would have to get my passport translated into Thai and the translation certified?? Thats not so easy when you live in the sticks so I dropped the idea...but am still interested if you can shed some light??

Another reason is that the US is in so much debt to other countries. China wanted to bring in a new separate yuan reserved for international trade to compete with the US$. However they realised they would be hurting themselves more in doing so because the dollar would immediately fall and in turn China would lose heaps because the US owes them trillions of dollars.

,

Yes that must be it. Thanks for pointing that out...you are clearly on top of world economic affairs.

Sometimes it is better to think first than to write it down immediately. Open mind and critical thinking ...its not too late I hope for you.

Yes you are correct: "Open mind and critical thinking....." plus reading widely.

An old friend of mine went to renew his drivers lic in Bangkok today and was told he must have a letter from his embassy proving address?? He contacted the British Embassy who told him to make an appointment online, wait about a month and then pay nearly 5,000 baht for the letter?? Do they no longer accept cert of residency from Immigration or local police station??

From what I understand all trailers in Thailand must have brakes with hydraulic system connected to towing vehicle system.

Most of the world isn't American .... where money is all that counts.

In the rest of the world, class is based on,

Breeding, education and occupation.

Anyone who labours is automatically low class.

Those who use their minds for their work are middle class.

High class can only be gained from parentage.

...

Well, if you are happy with a system where your standing in society is based on an accident of birth, more power to you. Fortunately that is not true everywhere and the rest of the world knows where it's not true.

TH

"Breeding, education and occupation". Literacy is probably the most important part of education, followed by an open mind and tolerance.

...."where the money is all that counts"

Yes and that's why the world's reserve currency is the US Dollar and not the British pound...

The US dollar is the 'world's reserve currency' because the US murder anybody who tries to change it. Saddam tried to change it and he was murdered, Gaddafi tried to change it to gold and he was likewise murdered. The US has murdered more of their own leaders than any other country, do you think they would hesitate for one minute to murder others?

Another reason is that the US is in so much debt to other countries. China wanted to bring in a new separate yuan reserved for international trade to compete with the US$. However they realised they would be hurting themselves more in doing so because the dollar would immediately fall and in turn China would lose heaps because the US owes them trillions of dollars.

,

And BTW in the USA a locksmith, postman, baker and a few others are middle classed as far as income goes ...says nothing for their mannerisms of course.

Most of the world isn't American .... where money is all that counts.

In the rest of the world, class is based on,

Breeding, education and occupation.

Anyone who labours is automatically low class.

Those who use their minds for their work are middle class.

High class can only be gained from parentage.

Bakers in the US aren't low class ...... that's minimum wage work the world over, same as all factory/serving/shop/restaurant staff.

(unless it's your own business, and you have many employees)

I didn't realize we were still working on the feudal system...you Brits are a hoot.

You USA basher said constantly amaze me with your ignorance, you have no idea of American society, if you ever managed to scrape up enough money to afford a cheap package holiday in Florida this does not make you an expert, the US is bigger than Europe though of course we are more united. You Brits are only alive today because we bailed your ass out in WW 11, with American blood, try getting educated before you post your trite on a public forum.

Yeah and the US was triumphant in Korea and Vietnam too eh?? Try an education a bit broader than John Wayne movies

Oh yeah, ants!

Try dusting with cinnamon powder, amazing stuff. You can use it on plant stems or around the house and the ants will be gone. I am told it also helps with damping off of seedlings and as a rooting powder for cuttings.

Give it a crack.

Cinnamon powder eh. I have to make a trip to Udon next week or so and will look at for it....maybe Makro stock it as I dont think its a normal Thai thing to find in Tesco or Big C etc?

Bloody ants decided to take up residence this morning in a pedistal fan we use on the verandah against mosquito invasion. Fan wont work now so imagine they have gummed up the contacts in the speed selector....same thing happened 6 months ago when they got into the kettle switch....they must get some kind of buzz out of being near electricity

I knew an old guy back home who always sprinkled lime along the edges of his garden paths to stop the ants undermining it and swore by it. Dont fancy sprinkling lime on my nice verandah tiles though!

Incidently I have been using EM instead of salt last two water changes in my catfish tanks and so far no problems...they are thriving and no signs of the bacterial infections making a comeback. I have also been adding EM in my bullfrog (gop) tanks each water change but doesnt seem to be lessening the smell.

Hi Felix,

No arguments about the 'natural' thing. Just highlighting that it is sometimes our actions/fears which cause the out of balance situation and with a little different planning can save more work.

From the post you said earlier I thought you were putting borax in the garden which wouldn't really help your beneficial bacteria/fungi or EM formula. It might work slowly still though. Is your water from the tap? The heavily chlorinated kind or just well water that's been UVed? Soil/plants will survive on that water but might not thrive on it.

Your house is a different space (unless you grow your veggies in there...lol) and even though I am quite happy to sit and watch swarms of ants migrate from one side of the house to inside/under the house just before a big rainstorm and then take all their eggs back out again a few days/weeks later I do not expect anyone else to do that. Anyway, ants in the house is a little off-topic. I do feel they fill the gap of the lack of earthworms where I live, so I let them be. For me this is part of my ecosystem that involves the EM mixture I apply.

I don't feed my fish, but that's not because I try to be 'natural', it's part of the system that has grown around me and it doesn't interfere with me so I leave it alone, apart from taking a few biguns out(for the sake of the little ones of course ). I still don't get the living in caves thing? So sorry I can't comment on that. I have heard of a few people who do, but I don't think that has anything to do with an ecosystem for growing/supporting soil/plants, I think some people just like to do that.

Generally I don't think that fresh water watering, manuring and growing the right kind of plants in abundance would create an ant problem that lasted too long, but I may be wrong.

I'm not saying you have to do any of the things I do, just giving you some different perspective so you can make better decisions. Don't worry if you don't agree with what I do, I am used to a lot of people not understanding where I am coming from. Hope that helps

No, definitely no arguments here....maybe debate would be a better choice of words. While we all may not agree with each other...we all learn something from each other and yes you are correct about "it is sometimes our actions/fears which cause the out of balance situation"...I am too often guilty of this and often need to remind myself to stop being so pedantic and just leave things be.

Water. We have a choice of two different water supplies here. The water in our moo ban comes from a dam fed by a stream but is chlorinated, dusty and unreliable. However, as we live on the border with the adjoining moo ban we were lucky enough to also hook into their supply which comes from a 90 meter well/bore. This water is heavy in minerals of some kind, as shown by the build up of salts on the bathroom tiles, taps, etc but is not treated in any way I have been

assured. We only use the chlorinated water in emergencies such as pump failure etc but never in the fish pond or frog/catfish tanks. For making up my EM I only use rainwater from a small tank off the workshop roof.

Earthworms. We too lack earthworms in our soil and was hoping the addittion of EM and lots of compost to the soil may rectify this. We have a few rai with rubber trees a few kilometers out of town with what appears to be the same clayish soil but is riddled with earthworms. I cant actually say I have seen the worms but the rubber tree groves are littered with pinnacles of worm castings, some over 20 cm high. This I can only put down to years of leaf buildup in the soil. We collect and use these in the garden as well. I am contemplating starting a worm farm and slowly introducing the earthworms into the better composted areas.

Living in a cave hahaha What I was getting at here was an exaggeration of going totally natural. In other words giving up everything in order to have no impact on the environment in which we live. Maybe this time its me where no-one understands where I am coming from

I'll write a full response t tomorrow. But in short, UV filters are to kill bacteria. Why would you want to do that and use also bacteria to treat the water? One or the other. Swimming pool for people or pond for fish and a natural ecosystem. The waterfall is great for aeration.

Yes my bad! I didnt even think about bacteria when I installed the UV filters, I was just hoping to keep the green algae down a bit until I put tup tim in the pond....especially considering it gets so much sun. My intention was to turn them off a few days before adding the fish because algae is part of their diet. However I have been slowly adding EM over the last week at a rate of 400ml per day via the bio filter with the UV filters still on. The pond volume is a total of 9,000 litres. An inspection of the bio filter today indicated a greater build up of microbes on the bio balls. The water lillies have taken off as have the few plants in the bog filter. I have also noticed an increase in the number of water insects in the pond such as dragon fly nymphs etc. I think these are all good indicators but I will think seriously about your advice thanks IsaanAussie.

ThaiFelix,

I have often seen posts advocating mixing borax with sugar to eliminate ants. In my experience, very few ants in Thailand are attracted to sugar. A soup made with catfish heads(10 Baht/bag in the local market), sticky rice or bone marrow is much more effective.

Yes Loong, that is what I have found. Some go for it and some dont. And if they do go for it they bury it after a couple of days as though they have sussed out it is poisonous. That is why I am going to try out the high protein fish food in place of sugar. I have already got the pellets soaking so will try that first but if that doesnt give the desired results I will take up your suggested alternatives, thanks.

ThaiFelix

Over the last couple of days I have tried all sorts of things, fish pood, molasses, fish soup, chicken bone soup, and sticky rice to no avail......they just sniiffed at it, back-tracked a few steps and then the trail took a wide berth around the baits. It was then that I noticed hordes of ants coming over the wall from my father in laws house (I'll blame him haha) seeking out the blossoms from one of our flowering shrubs next to the boundary wall. This prompted me to go back to the sugar mix and it worked this time.....my bait traps were swarming with ants. So far after two days they are still going for it and not trying to bury it. Fingers crossed.

After a bit of reading up last couple of days some people have the opinion that ants seek out different things at different times depending on their needs....some days water, sometimes protein and others they may seek sugar.

Sorry for short sentences but trying not to ramble on too much.

I love all the ants on my farm. They help me to look after the plants. I wouldn't want to kill them. I rarely get bitten by them now.

Now back to my main worry.

Why are you using borax? It is a fungicide and a herbicide and you're trying to improve your soil/compost?

Your EM bacteria will be trying to get it on with all the good fungi and find there's nothing there to party with.

Loongs advice about the catfish heads sounds better, without the borax I see it like being a peace offering to any angry ants. Without going into microbiology too deeply, your plants need these fungi to grow stronger. If you're sticking it around your garden/farm to kill ants you're killing your bacteria/fungi relationship.

One of my ponds is a big hole in ground (20m x 40m), no treatment, tons of fish, every rains season we get a whole load of new ones. It doesn't smell and the fish are there all year round, not crystal clear, but if it was I think all the kingfishers and others I get hanging around would have cleaned it out by now. I keep meaning to get some aeration but never had the time, I just keep a 'good' bacteria balance and no chemicals on the farm. Try to 'read' your garden/farm a bit any extra insect activity or unwanted results is normally down to something you could manage better. Sometimes swells of a kind of insect are quickly dealt with by another and then if they swell, there will be natural predators all the way up. It kind of starts with your EM helping the organisms you want and then upwards to other more useful ones as they start to take over 'the yard' so to speak.

Oh yeah now I'm sure none of you care about this, but, those big mot daeng (Fire ants?) that dig their mandibles into you and squirm up and down as they try to bite/squirt you (or whatever they do to cause pain). If you pinch them gently on the gastor they let go and you can drop them somewhere else to go about their life. A little bit hard when there's tens of them doing it when you're near a nest, but the rest of the time it's easy...lol

Thank you very much for the reply Chenposeb.

Borax/ants: I could argue that Borax (sodium borate) is a naturally occurring element present in the four corners of the earth. You could argue that its a fungicide and a herbicide. However either argument really has no legs if we have not discussed or revealed the quantities per whatever used. Likewise you could argue that ants are beneficial to the garden. Sure, you are 100% correct if we lived in a natural environment....but we dont....there is too much water under the bridge for us to return to living in caves. I try to keep things here as natural as possible....I try to only use animal manures and compost rather than man-made fertilizer. I refuse to use any pesticides or herbicides. But I water my garden instead of waiting for the rain.....so that is unnatural. I grow lettuce and tomatoes etc....thats unnatural because without me giving water and manure they wouldnt survive right now. Its a matter of compromising.

Back to the ants. We have a lot of ants here that annoy our daily life. Because we grow a lot of plants and vegetables, and thus do a lot of watering, we have an unnatural balance. Because I refused to have the ground under the house treated/sprayed with chemicals we have a lot of ants that enter our house. I draw the line when I cant sleep because I have ants crawling all over me or like the other day after taking a shower I started to burn all over because hundreds of ants had covered my towel seeking out who knows what....water, dead skin cells??? Three days later I was still scratching from the bites (or formic acid squirts for the pedantic who seemed to miss the actual post topics/questions) all over my body. I cant even put a cup of coffee down without it being swarming with tiny ants. So I try to use as natural a product as I can to put these little creatures back to a natural balance,,,ie Borax. Now I am not talking about truck loads, I am not talking about kilos......I am talking about half a teaspoon of borax mixed with 6 teaspoons of sugar and a little water to make a syrup. This syrup is then distributed amongst 6 small bottle tops placed around the house (not in the garden) where the ants enter the house.....usually gaps in the flyscreens.

In the garden they sometimes cause problems because they are in unnatural numbers due to us creating an unnatural environment through watering,manuring, and growing plants in unnatural numbers. While they are beneficial because they aerate the soil, I have lost lots plants because they aerate the soil too much or carry in too many aphids because they are in unnatural numbers. In the garden I will merely put a slow running hose on their most concentrated area for a while to make life uncomfortable for them and they move on to somewhere they are tolerated. I cant do that in my bed or in the house hahaha!

Please dont take this post as any kind of criticism,,,,it is certainly not! I guess I am trying to point out that if humans are present it is not a natural environment and we cannot now live in a totally natural environment unless we all go back to living in caves. Take your ponds for example, if you are providing any food for the fish then its unnatural. But as my mother used to say "everything in moderation" and "dont post anything if you have had a few drinks" lol!

Thank you again

ThaiFelix

Ants don't bite, they squirt formic acid!

Yeah my wife says they "pee pee on you and it hurts" haha!

Issan Aussie is the wizard for this and he could write an encyclopedia in regards to the many different types of EM he has used and nurtured. His soils and farm operations were tops in Thailand due to primarily the use of EM in his entire process.

I believe I might have been the one to turn him onto this almost a decade ago as I was knowledgeable that it stopped the smell of hogs when you used it in their water. IA took it to a level that may never be approached again as he bathed his hogs and pens and manure and compost and soils in the solution in many and different varying forms. I purchased some of his composts and they were amazing.

Okay I don't care who says what I would never mix anything off the shelf unless it came from the creator himself in Japan at any other ratio than the previous mentioned 1:1:18. My wife brewed her own EM in a 55 gallon (200 liter) drum but it was a long and ridiculous process as far as I was concerned as we would buy ten liters of EM and of molasses and in a few days could have 200 liters of perfect product. I was shocked once when I went to disc in a bunch of heavy rice straw and the assorted cut stubble and weeds and after the first couple of passes with the old Ford i was looking at what I was doing and there wasn't a trace of straw or stubble to be seen on the extremely sanitary soil. I then remembered we had dumped about 100 liters into our klong that surrounds the farm and had pumped it down with our three inch pump to a couple water canons to get the soil wet to turn and prepare for a planting of pah tueng (sunn hemp). the microbes had done their trick as that nasty straw became luscious soil. This year the wife went out and sprayed with a backpack sprayer a 30% solution over the entire rice field after harvest and before tractor work and again great results. the stuff is better than magic and our ponds always are getting assorted non scientific doses of EM and the catfish just get bigger and water stays scum free.

Use a 2% solution in a sprayer and topically spray any and all plants as much as once weekly. I have used it where dogs are confined to small areas and there feces and urine is a 365 a day problem of neglect and the smells are foul ofrom much too crowded dogs. I used 10% solution and in a day all odor is gone. IA's pig sties smelled as if you were in a medical clinic as one day i was in the middle of them and I said to him you I can not smell one bit of hog odor at all. Everyone knows going down the road when you are a few kilometers downwind of hog farm you know you are a few kilometers downwind of a hog farm as you don't need to ever see them as the smell will tell.

I could go on and on in regards to the benefits of using it but again if someone tells you to mix EM any different than we have said go buy it somewhere else or don't listen to them. EM-1 and use 1:1:18 and use as much as you can all the time for any and everything; ground sprays can have much higher %'s than topical though be careful if you have new young plants that you don't have too high %. if my ford was so inclined I'd like to give it some to drink in the radiator but it seems to fine on the diet I have been feeding it so will let well enough alone on that and as the sun sets i say happy trails to you with Fords Foreverrrrr

Hey sorry Foreverford, I missed the Quicksilver clip the first read, I thought it was one of those Thaivisa adverts they keep jamming the site up with.

One question I forgot previously was with regard to EM and salt. When we first got this batch of pla duk I not long discovered they were infected with some bacterial infection that reminded me of Ebola...just seemed to eat away at the flesh. Now when a do a 20 - 50% water change twice a week I add a couple of handfulls of salt with the new water. We have not lost a single fish since. Now and again you get a couple that must spike each other when in a feeding frenzy but they heal quite quickly. Not sure about adding both salt and EM so I am contemplating doing away with the salt once I start dosing with EM and just watching them closely.

ThaiFelix,

I have often seen posts advocating mixing borax with sugar to eliminate ants. In my experience, very few ants in Thailand are attracted to sugar. A soup made with catfish heads(10 Baht/bag in the local market), sticky rice or bone marrow is much more effective.

Yes Loong, that is what I have found. Some go for it and some dont. And if they do go for it they bury it after a couple of days as though they have sussed out it is poisonous. That is why I am going to try out the high protein fish food in place of sugar. I have already got the pellets soaking so will try that first but if that doesnt give the desired results I will take up your suggested alternatives, thanks.

ThaiFelix