Making my own shrimp/prawn meal for my soil mix

[420SA]

Shrimp meal is a great fertilizer for a living soil. It's rich in nitrogen, phosphorous and calcium. Plus it contains chitin. This post sums up chitin pretty well http://www.rollitup.org/t/chitin-chitoson-and-chitinase.604708/ have a read

 

The only problem is that we don't get shrimp or crustacean meal in SA.... no problem though cause it's actually really easy to make at home. You just have to get hold of some prawn shells or crab shells, bake them and then ground them up.

 

Before I go further, let me just warn that you better be prepared for the stench of baking prawn shell to linger in your house a bit...

 

So what I did was use some prawn shells left over from a meal. I had 15 queen prawn shells to work with and my goal was to get at least a cup of shrimp meal

 

I first rinsed off the shells under a warm tap to wash off most of the oils, sauces and and any extra flesh that was left on the shells. I then soaked them in hot water for an hour, drained the water and let them sit for a while

 

I then pre-heated the oven to 200. Put the prawns into an oven dish

 

 

And baked the shells in the oven for 1h30min

 

 

Some baked prawn shell anyone?

 

 

The shells are now very light and crumble very easily and are ready to be ground up into a "meal". I put the shells in a blender and ground them up for about 10 minutes. In the attempt that I made on this post I used a shitty blender which is why my end product didn't come out as finely ground as I would have liked but apparently shrimp meal breaks down rapidly so I should be alright. I'd suggest you use a coffee grinder or something to that effect.

 

Here's what I ended up with, about 3/5 of a cup of shrimp meal. Not what I was gunning for but I got some at least

 

 

Sprinkle it onto your soil mix and mix it in thoroughly

 

 

There we go... hopefully as time goes by we can refine this method if it needs it. Try your luck with your local seafood restaurant, they might do you a solid one and keep their prawn or crab shells for you. As you can see you need a lot of shells. I would say at least 30 average sized prawns if possible. If you can get crab shell you might be able to make up the required quantity easier. Give it a go, would love to see someone else's results.

 

[Surv0]

This is fantastic! Thanks for the idea. I eat a ton of prawns but never thought to make meal from it.

 

Definitely going to do this next time I eat them.

 

Looking at the nutrients of prawn shells:

 

36 grams of protein.

66mg of calcium.

14% of the DV of magnesium.

24% of the DV of phosphorus.

18% of the DV of zinc.

22% of the DV of niacin.

10% of the DV of vitamin B6.

42% of the DV of vitamin B12.

 

Decent amendment.

[SoilSamurai]

I collect ghost crabs once a year about half a sack. I smash up the crabs and then boil all the meat off. I bury this with activated labs and kashi in my compost heap. The shell I sun dry then I toast the shell with a gas torch(faster and cheaper than the stove) I then put the toasted shell into pure water with a fermented vinegar for a couple days. Again I sun dry and then crush to a powder. The finer the shell is crushed the easier the microbes in the soil can break it down(faster)

 

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