Aquaponics Digest - Thu 01/28/99
Message 1: biogas training course
from doelle
Message 2: Re: aquaponic swimming pool
from jilli and lars
Message 3: Re: Aerobic Compost as Aquaponics Heaters
from jilli and lars
Message 4: Re: Pacu (was Breeding tilapia)
from Chris Hedemark
Message 5: Re: Breeding Tilapia (Was Model rocketry)
from Adriana Gutierrez
Message 6: Re: Breeding Tilapia (Was Model rocketry)
from NCHWANG
Message 7: Re: aquaponic swimming pool
from John Shannonhouse
Message 8: Re: aquaponic swimming pool
from John Shannonhouse
Message 9: Re: aquaponic swimming pool
from Michael Strates
Message 10: Re: aquaponic swimming pool
from "Marc S. Nameth"
Message 11: Re: aquaponic swimming pool
from Michael Strates
Message 12: Re: aquaponic swimming pool
from Michael Strates
Message 13: Re: aquaponic swimming pool
from Michael Strates
Message 14: Fwd. - E-Conference on Farmers' Organisations and Globalisation
from S & S Aqua Farm
Message 15: Hot tub aquaculture
from Jim Sealy Jr
Message 16: FWd. March 1999 Small Farm Conference
from S & S Aqua Farm
Message 17: Re: aquaponic swimming pool
from "Marc S. Nameth"
Message 18: Re: compost water heater
from Vivienne Hallman
Message 19: solar-powered pumps, siphons, and s-worms
from jilli and lars
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| Message 1 |
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Subject: biogas training course
From: doelle
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 18:27:19 +1100
Dear Listmembers,
I had so many enquiries about biogas digesters, small and large, etc etc
that I would like to draw the attention to all those concerned [everybody
else can toss it into trash]:
The 22nd Internation Training Course on Biogas Technology will be held in
Asia-Pacific Biogas Research and Training Centre (BRTC), CHENGDU, China from
June 14-27, 1999. The training itinary will be:
1. Class study where trainees will be briefed on the biogas status covering
its design, construction, purpose use of biogas and slurry etc.
2. Practical study will deal with the process of construction and operation
of rural household digesters,
3. Communication session where participants will form a biogas forum to
exchange information from respective countries,
4. Study tour to rural household digesters and biogas setic tanks,
large-sized biogas plants,
For further information please contact:
Hu Rongdu, Chief of the Training Department, BRTC, 4-13 Renmin Nan Road,
Chengdu 610041, PR China. Email: < or FAX:
+86-28-5227610
This is certainly one area where SEAsia, in particular China is leading. It
is also an answer to those who try to tell me that biogas digesters in China
do not work. Go and see for yourself. I have seen them work very
successfully, even on a continuous, completely automated basis.
Horst Doelle
Horst W.Doelle, D.Sc., D.Sc. [h.c.]
Chairman, IOBB
Director, MIRCEN-Biotechnology
FAX: +617-38783230
Email: doelle@ozemail.com.au
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Subject: Re: aquaponic swimming pool
From: jilli and lars
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 00:17:34 -0800
Michael Strates wrote:
> How about a salt water pool with salt water fish, and then have a salt
> filter (reverse osmosis type; costs about $40 for a small one) that goes
> to your plants and delivers fresh water.
What is thees theeng you call "Reverse-Osmosis Salt Filter"?
How does it work?
Could a $40 one really process enough water to filter a swimming pool?
Does it require electricity?
Is there any biological process which it mimics (ie. is there a natural
version of it)?
questions questions so many questions....
lars fields (just so y'all know, jilli doesn't take part in any of
this...this insanity is all mine...)
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Subject: Re: Aerobic Compost as Aquaponics Heaters
From: jilli and lars
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 00:31:30 -0800
Michael Strates wrote:
> Pass water into it until it reaches the end, leave it there for about 5-6
> minutes, and you'll end up with quite hot water (enough to shower in).
> Strum about 10 compost bins together, and connect them all in series, and
> you can get enough hot water for a few quick showers.
a hot shower is still hotter than tilapia would like.I don't think it would be
that hard to figure out the right sized compost pile to keep a tilapia pond at
approx the right temp, nor do i think that compost pile would have to be
extraordinarily large...
> jilliandlars> container was located physically higher than the compost pile so
that
> jal> thermosiphoning caused the hot water to go from the pile to the storage
> jal> container (hot water rises, er...cold water sinks) so that _no_ pump was
> jal> needed to circulate the water (passive).
>
> You could do that as well. I perfer active systems because of their added
> efficiency. Beware, if you take too much heat out of the compost, the
> composting cycle will lose its heat, and the composting will simply stop.
But since the compost pile takes so long to heat up the water, I would imagine
that a passive thermosiphoning system would be efficient enough.
And besides, thermosiphoning is so elegant...
Ed found the site i was talking about....
lars fields
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Subject: Re: Pacu (was Breeding tilapia)
From: Chris Hedemark
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 07:55:33 -0500
Gordon Watkins wrote:
> Have you been trying to breed Pacu, or just raise them?
Just raising them. My tank is only 135 gallons (aquarium style). I
just wanna see if they are worth the trouble. I can't exactly go buy a
tilapia filet at the local fish market so I have to raise them up myself
to see if they are any good.
> I've raised a few in my system and I'm pretty excited about them. They
> grow really fast, get BIG, and I like their taste better than tilapia. It has
> more flavor and is buttery without being greasy.. The biggest drawback is the
> floating bones which are impossible to remove when filleting but in a big Pacu
> they're not too objectionable.
The fast growth and thick meaty body are the observations that got me.
I had a half dozen of them growing out and they were all doing great.
Then I had one extended power outage and lost all but two. :-( Since
then I have been kind of lazy about taking care of them and while they
are still growing, it is nowhere near as fast as before.
> My vats are beneath my walkways so I don't have problems with jumping and,
> while I've noticed some flightiness, they calm down quickly if not disturbed
> frequently. I think Pacu have great potential as a cultured food species.
Oh I think they've got many desirable characteristics and as long as
they can be contained, they have a lot of potential. Obviously you've
gotten a bit farther than me in that you've gotten them to the dinner
plate.
By the way, when I had those six pacu, part of the experiment was to see
how well they did in crowded conditions. I had a 20 gallon "high"
aquarium with a Whisper 5 power filter and a 6" air diffuser. 30% water
changes were done daily. I started them out on tiny Hikari koi pellets
and now they are on large Koi pellets. The growth rate even in this
tiny tank was phenomenal. They seemed bigger every day. Commmon sense
told me that I was begging for disaster but I wanted to see how far I
could take it. Each of the fishes got up to about 4 inches in no time.
Then the power went out, and stayed out. Nothing I could do would keep
the O2 level up and in a very short time one after another started
floating. When the power came back on, two were still well and one was
weak and succumbed within an hour of the power coming back on.
After that I got really lazy about their care. I stopped the daily
water changes. Didn't feed them on a regular schedule. Their tank
started looking really badly really quickly. I did some shuffling
around and moved my marine fish from a 135 to a 55 gallon tank (where
they are doing quite well) and the pacus to the 135. Unfortunately the
marine fish took all the filtration with them so the pacus only have a
single Whisper 5. I'd like to get some big fat powerheads running in
there again, and another Whisper 5 filter. Plus a couple of diffusers
scattered throughout the tank.
Now I can't go much farther than that without butting heads with the
state. North Carolina does *not* allow Pacu for aquaculture yet. There
is still an unwarranted phobia that these things could survive if they
ever made it to the wild (yeah until the fall maybe). There is also the
matter of whether or not there is a market for pacu in the U.S. If I do
start producing pacu commercially, where do I sell them?
So are you working with pacu in commercial production numbers yet or
still experimenting? I'd like to hear more about it.
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Subject: Re: Breeding Tilapia (Was Model rocketry)
From: Adriana Gutierrez
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 07:52:35 -0500
Gordon, Your reply was fabulous, exactly what novices need.
Thank you for sharing.
Adriana
Gordon Watkins wrote:
> I've been breeding tilapia for a couple of years now. Here's how I do it:
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Subject: Re: Breeding Tilapia (Was Model rocketry)
From: NCHWANG
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 09:48:26 EST
Very interesting description on the tilapia breeding by Gordon. I like the
"eggcrate" idea to prevent the male fish from female. I know people use to
trim the upper lip of the male to prevent them attack the female. Here is a
suggestion for filter device for the fry tank outlet, to prevent fish fry
sucked in by the drain. Please see the attached diagram. Good luck.
Norman Chwang
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Subject: Re: aquaponic swimming pool
From: John Shannonhouse
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 10:15:02 -0600
Hello,
A reverse osmosis filter would not let ions across, including
nitrate, phosphate, potssium, calcium, etc. My guess is that it would
become clogged by fish wastes.
John Shannonhouse
Department of Genetics
University of Wisconsin-Madison
jlshanno@students.wisc.edu
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Subject: Re: aquaponic swimming pool
From: John Shannonhouse
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 10:29:46 -0600
Hello,
I accidently hit my send before I was ready on my last message.
A reverse osmosis filter uses a semi-permeable membrane. The
membrane lets small, polar molecules across fairly easily (like water),
nonpolar molecules get across very easily and charged particles (like
sodium and chloride) do not move across. The ions in water "tie up" the
water molecules around them (I'm not going to explain the chemistry here,
but they hold the water in a sort of lattice work around them). These
hydrated ions do not let their water molecules across the membrane. Only
the free water can pass across. Fresh water is all free water. In salt
water, the hydrated ions interfere with water flowing through. The Second
Law of Thermodynamics wants to equalize the salt concentration on either
side of the membrane and also drives this flow. As a result, if fresh water
and salt water are on either side of a membrane, the water will flow from
the fresh water side to the salt water side until the pressure builds up
(from the salt water getting filled higher than the fresh water or getting
squeezed into too small a container to hold it) enough that water is
flowing at equal rates in both directions. This process is called osmosis
and the pressure needed to equalize the flow in both directions is called
osmotic pressure. It is what causes a carrot to shrivel up in salt water.
Reverse osmosis forces the water to flow in the opposite direction
than it would at equal pressure. If the pressure builds up high enough on
the salt water side, water will flow in the reverse direction (from salt to
fresh). Reverse osmosis uses a pump of a high column of water to make a
pressure difference large enough to force the water out of salt water.
John Shannonhouse
Department of Genetics
University of Wisconsin-Madison
jlshanno@students.wisc.edu
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Subject: Re: aquaponic swimming pool
From: Michael Strates
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 17:29:15 +1100 (EST)
On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, John Shannonhouse wrote:
JS> A reverse osmosis filter would not let ions across, including
JS> nitrate, phosphate, potssium, calcium, etc. My guess is that it would
You could probably put a tiny sieve style filter (tiny plastic holes)
inline before the RO desalinizer, and after a week pour the filter gunk
over to the other side of the RO machine... just a thought.
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Subject: Re: aquaponic swimming pool
From: "Marc S. Nameth"
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 00:53:44 -0700
What is thees theeng you call "Reverse Osmosis Salt
Filter"?>
The process of plant roots taking minerals into the plant
from the surrounding soil is an "osmosis" process so if you
somehow pressurized your plant with the water you wanted to
purify (not recommended) it theoretically should cause
water purification as liquid is forced out of the roots.
(Maybe the GE guys could work on this one:>)
Anything your plants take out of the water duplicates the
RO removing things.
See:
http://www.wqa.org/Technical/What-is-RO.html
I seriously doubt it unless it was a good sized surplus
unit bought for pennies on the dollar.
The most important step is to know the contents of your
water so you can compare against the "NORMAL" specifications
on the box or data sheet that came with the RO you bought.
Rules of Thumb for RO Water Production:
1. Higher water temperatures than "NORMAL" will increase RO
system output water but decrease purity.
2. Lower water temperatures than "NORMAL" will decrease RO
system output water but increase purity.
3. Higher TDS than "NORMAL" will decrease RO system output
water.
4. Lower TDS than "NORMAL" will increase RO system output
water.
5. Higher water pressures than "NORMAL" will increase RO
system output water.
6. Lower water pressures than "NORMAL" will decrease RO
system output water.
7. Anything in your water can clog up an RO membrane,
prefilters are a reeaallly good idea.
8. This ones the killer! For maximum membrane life and
minimum system complexity
you will have waste water production in excess of your pure
water production.
Does it require electricity?
RO membranes require at least city water pressure. This
usually means a pump.
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Subject: Re: aquaponic swimming pool
From: Michael Strates
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 18:05:19 +1100 (EST)
On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Marc S. Nameth wrote:
MSN> The process of plant roots taking minerals into the plant
MSN> from the surrounding soil is an "osmosis" process so if you
MSN> somehow pressurized your plant with the water you wanted to
MSN> purify (not recommended) it theoretically should cause
MSN> water purification as liquid is forced out of the roots.
What about just chucking a bag over the top of them :-)
MSN> RO membranes require at least city water pressure. This
MSN> usually means a pump.
I have a handheld RO machine, which you pump up yourself. It can produce a
glass of water after about 20 seconds of pumping it.
An interesting thing I saw as a chlorine filter which only allows pure
water through, and no chlorine (like the salt RO) -- you can fill your
water storage tanks up with a very strong solution of sodium hypochlorite
to minimize any chance of infection for a very long time, and as you use
it the chlorine is removed.
--
e-mail: mstrates@croftj.net www: http://www.croftj.net/~mstrates
See keyservers for PGP info. Linux! The OS of my Choice!
"Once you have flown, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned
skyward, for there you have been, and there you long to return."
- Leonardo da Vinci, and below an extract from John Forgety's song:
Hey, Tonight - Gonna be tonight- Don't you know I'm flyin'- Tonight
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Subject: Re: aquaponic swimming pool
From: Michael Strates
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 18:20:21 +1100 (EST)
On Tue, 26 Jan 1999, jilli and lars wrote:
jal> chlorine, but obviously not as dangerous to _all_ living things.
jal> I've been thinking about integrating salt water into a larger
Stupid question.. Why not just use stabilized aerobic oxygen in the
aquaponic swimming pool? Kills anerobes, leaves aerobes. Stays
stable up to around 80F. Sounds perfect.
--
e-mail: mstrates@croftj.net www: http://www.croftj.net/~mstrates
See keyservers for PGP info. Linux! The OS of my Choice!
"Once you have flown, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned
skyward, for there you have been, and there you long to return."
- Leonardo da Vinci, and below an extract from John Forgety's song:
Hey, Tonight - Gonna be tonight- Don't you know I'm flyin'- Tonight
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Subject: Re: aquaponic swimming pool
From: Michael Strates
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 18:49:39 +1100 (EST)
On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Michael Strates wrote:
MS> aquaponic swimming pool? Kills anerobes, leaves aerobes. Stays
MS> stable up to around 80F. Sounds perfect.
80C.. whoops :)
--
e-mail: mstrates@croftj.net www: http://www.croftj.net/~mstrates
See keyservers for PGP info. Linux! The OS of my Choice!
"Once you have flown, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned
skyward, for there you have been, and there you long to return."
- Leonardo da Vinci, and below an extract from John Forgety's song:
Hey, Tonight - Gonna be tonight- Don't you know I'm flyin'- Tonight
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Subject: Fwd. - E-Conference on Farmers' Organisations and Globalisation
From: S & S Aqua Farm
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 17:25:47 -0600
Thought the notice of this conference might be of interest to some of our
members. Paula
------------------------------------------
From: Jacky Foo
Subject: Farmers' Organisations and Globalisation
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 19:51:51 +0100
Electronic Conference on Farmers' Organisations and Globalisation
Date: 15 March - 30 April.
Contact: Julio Berdegue at berdegue@reuna.cl
WWW: http://www.fidamerica.cl/oec.html
Language: Spanish
The International Network of Farming Systems Research Methodology (RIMISP)
is organising an e-conference from 15th of March to 30th of April on
globalisation issues and the development of small farmers' economic
organisations in Latin America and the Caribbean. Main objectives of the
conference are to identify the crucial factors which favour and hamper the
creation, development and performance of small farmer organisations. In
addition, relevant policy measures conducive to the creation and
development
of small farmer organisations will be discussed. Spanish will be the main
working language of the conference.
.
------
to receive announcements of E-conferences, seminars, workshops, etc. join
the list ET-CONF. E-mail listserv@segate.sunet.se and use the subscription
command:
SUB ET-CONF yourfirstname yourlastname
or check out http://segate.sunet.se/archives/et-conf.html
S&S Aqua Farm, 8386 County Road 8820, West Plains, MO 65775 417-256-5124
Web page http://www.townsqr.com/snsaqua/
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Subject: Hot tub aquaculture
From: Jim Sealy Jr
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 17:58:39 -0600
Jean,
I'm so glad you made your remark about hot tubs. It just occurred to me
we have a manufacturer near here who builds them and I've seen
fiberglass seconds (defective fit or finish) piled out back. These look
like ready made fish tanks for cheap money.
Jim
MS JEAN R SHAFFER wrote:
>
> Also does anyone have experience using the Chofu heater (wood burning
> for hot tubs) advertised in the Real Goods Solar Living Source book,
> as a emergency backup aquaculture tank heater? Or any other wood
> burning water heaters? I have a 1000 gal tank and the ad says it
> will heat a 250 gal hot tub to over a 100 F in 2 1/2 hrs. And I just
> want to go to 77 F for tilapia.
> ??? Jean
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Subject: FWd. March 1999 Small Farm Conference
From: S & S Aqua Farm
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 18:39:28 -0600
Saw the notice of this conference and thought it might interest some of you.
I have the full notice, or you can view it at the web site below. Paula
>Cultivating the Harvest:
>Inland Northwest Small Acreage Farming Conference
>March 4-7, 1999
>Moscow, Idaho
>
>The Inland Northwest Community Food Systems Task Force is coordinating a
>regional conference geared toward small acreage farmers. Cultivating the
>Harvest: Inland Northwest Small Acreage Farming Conference will take place
>Thursday, March 4 through Sunday, March 7, 1999 at the University of
>Idaho's Student Union Building. Cultivating the Harvest is sponsored by the
>University of Idaho Cooperative Extension, the Palouse-Clearwater
>Environmental Institute, and Washington State University's Center for
>Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources.
>
>Cultivating the Harvest has financial support from Patagonia, Inc., Jessie
>Smith Noyes Foundation and USDA CSREES Risk Management Education
>Initiative/WSU Cooperative Extension. For more information on this
>conference or the INWCFS Task Force, contact Peggy Adams at 208-885-4636 or
>(peggy931@uidaho.edu) or check
>http://www.uidaho.edu/ag/environment/sustain/inwcfs/conference.html.
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Subject: Re: aquaponic swimming pool
From: "Marc S. Nameth"
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 05:52:32 -0700
Those are a great invention :-) At the risk of sounding like
a voice of doom (Repent ye...!) We have credible reports of
handheld RO failures and have found many manufacturers will
only certify their units are microbiologically safe when fed
microbiologically safe water from approved municipal water
taps.
We have found misrepresented units where the "membrane" was
actually a carbon filter or a ceramic filter.
A note of interest is that CA or CTA membranes tend to be
designed to live with chlorine/hypochlorites applied to
them.
The thin film, TFM TF, membranes tend to die with
chlorine/hypochlorites applied. Some newer designs are rated
to withstand low levels but you still have to be careful.
I usually use a carbon filter. Is it based on another
technology. REDOX perhaps?
<... you can fill your water storage tanks up with a very
strong solution of sodium hypochlorite to minimize any
chance of infection for a very long time, and as you use
it the chlorine is removed.>
This is what my wife does for disaster preparedness (it
doesn't help her with my messes) but we are careful to keep
in mind the corrosiveness of hypochlorites and use the
minimum of bleach and appropriate container materials.
Old water softeners an be used for carbon or other filters.
You just empty out the softening medium and fill it around
2/3'rds full of activated carbon, sand or whatever. (I use
potable water grade). You can set the backwash for once a
week or so and if a more vigorous agitiation of the carbon,
sand or whatever is needed you change the backwash
orifice and it's good for years removing sodium and calcium
hypochlorite with carbon medium. I saw several in the local
second hand
plumbing supply yard for $15 to $20 US.
A bit of corporate literature about hypochlorite(s):
http://www.clorox.com/health/blchfact.html
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Subject: Re: compost water heater
From: Vivienne Hallman
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 12:24:50 +1000
Edward J. Sommers wrote:
> > You said:"I remember seeing a personal web site (which i can probably find
> > again if you are really interested) put up by a family in portland oregon
> > who ran a hot water heater off of an aerobic compost heap."
> > __________________________________________________________________________
> > Lars: Many years ago we toured an autonomous solar greenhouse in Circle
> > Montana in which three compost piles provided all backup (air) heating
> > beyond conservation and passive solar. A wind gnerator provided
> > electricity. Could you kindly tell us the web site for your quote above
> > please? Jorg Ostrowski
> >
>
> It's at http://www.rdrop.com/users/krishna/
>
> Ed
Ed
This is a really interesting site, many thanks.
Vivienne
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Subject: solar-powered pumps, siphons, and s-worms
From: jilli and lars
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 18:41:37 -0800
hey all -
some notes on my recent tinkerings:
I recently added a solar powered water pump for recirculation.
It's small
- only rated at 3 gallons per minute at 12 volts. I'm very happy with
the
results so far - the hydroponics only get water/nutrients when the sun
is out,
which is when they can use it. And of course the amount of water that is
pumped
is competely variable depending on the intensity of the sun. This
creates pulses
in the system, especially on partially cloudy days, which i suspect is
advantageous.
Right now my main fauna is snails - not very glamourous, i know.
I originally only used snails as i didn't want to kill any
'higher' lifeform
with my experiments - i wasn't sure if i could make a system work, and
i
knew i'd be stressing everything in the system when i pushed input
limits. I
actually discovered that snails are suprisingly intelligent - there's no
such thing
as a higher lifeform, really.
Right now my main tank is only 10 gallons. I felt this was
kinda small for
fish. Plus, this tank is now very well populated with all kinds of tiny
invertebrates that i
accidentally aquired when i seeded it with water samples/plants from
various
ponds and puddles around the city - planaria, hydras, daphnia, cyclops,
and
several other worms and crustaceans. If i added a fish to this tank, all
these
critters would be eaten in no time. Vertebrates ain't all that, after
all.
I did recently find a 50 gallon tank (someone was actually
throwing it
away! boy i love living in a wasteful culture) which I am planning on
putting clown
loaches into. Clown loaches eat snails, amongst other things, so i
thought that
would balance things nicely. It has recently been discovered how to
breed them
in captivity, so i was thinking of giving it a try.
By the way, does anyone know the name of those small (3/4 inch
or so) reddish
worms that stick up out of the substrate and wave back and forth like an
'S'?
I've got a nice 'colony' of those going.
One of the main things i'm trying to achieve with my experiments
is to
have tanks with different water chemistries that are hooked up together.
For
example, snails require hard water that is alkaline and clown loaches
prefer soft
water that is acidic. By playing these different chemistries against
each other,
my system will have various chemical gradients. The theory is that this
will
increase the overall variety of chemical environements, reactions and,
therefore,
bacterial diversity, which means potentially increased biodiversity
overall. Maintaining
different chemistries in linked water systems might not sound possible,
especially on such a small scale, but i've managed to achieve this to a
certain
degree.
For example, I made a system this summer (the precursor to my
current
system) which was basically a ten gallon snail tank with a hydroponic
trough
sitting on top. The pump was in the tank. Most of the flow went simply
from the
tank to the trough and drip-drained back into the tank again. In the
trough were tomato
plants, basil and several others.
Additionally, I had a large restaurant-style plastic bin next to
the tank
which was connected to it via a small (1 inch) "u-tube" siphon. By
connecting
them this way (ie. with the siphon), both the tank and the bin would
maintain the
same water level, which effectively linked the two together. However, no
water
would really flow through the u-tube as long as the water levels in
either
remained the same. This plastic bin was my "swamp" - in it were plants
that
enjoyed "wet feet" - irises, horsetails, taro, etc. This was where i
would add my
greywater.
The pump was on a timer which turned on for 15 minutes then off
again
for 15, pulsing water through the system (only during daylight). When
the pump
activated and pumped water from the tank up into the hydroponic trough,
the water
level in the tank would drop about an inch or so, as some of it's water
would be
in the trough. This means that some of the water from the plastic bin
(ie. the
"swamp") would flow into the tank, as the siphon would cause the two
water levels
to maintain the same level. Once enough water had flowed into the tank
for the
two to be at the same level, the flow would stop. When the timer turned
off and
the pump stopped working then the water level in the tank would rise
which would
then cause some water to flow back into the swamp bin from the tank.
( a word of warning - siphons can be a little dangerous to play
with - in
terms of serious spills, that is. An unattended siphon system can really
cause
problems if it gets clogged or fails for some reason. It all depends on
how you
have your system set up. I usually only run a new system when i'm around
in case
of unforseen problems, etc. I also try to set up a system so that if a
siphon
fails the pump won't be able to continue to pump all the water onto the
floor.)
So the two systems were basically seperate environments but with
limited
exchange of liquids. The chemistries in the two were drastically
different. For
example, eventually i added some minnows to the snail tank, where they
did fine.
When a mosquito larva infestation in the "swamp" got to be a big bother
i
transfered some of these minnows to it, which promptly died.
Additionally,
siphons aren't necessary, it's just easier than drilling through glass.
Overall, the system wasn't a complete success, but then again it
wasn't
intended to be. I just wanted to play around with stuff. I completely
overloaded
it - my tomatoes plants grew really well, though they were obviously
getting too
many nutrients. I never quite solved the mosquito problem. However, what
really
surprised me was how fast this system would break down waste water. I
added
heavily starchy water, soapy water - even pickle juice. The system would
smell
for a day or so and then it would clear up. Even a quart of urine at a
time
didn't seem to have any adverse effects. I didn't have many chemical
tests at the
time, but i'm slowly building up my collection of them so I can monitor
things
more accurately now.
lars fields
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