I was browsing the videos posted at Tricycle Gardens media library and came across this 48 minute documentary by Rebeca Hosking, a wildlife photographer who grew up on a farm in Devon, England.
Its a visually lovely and compelling look at the predicted peaking of the fossil fuel boom, and the effect of declining availability of fossil fuel on current methods of farming. The idea is that we will transition from fuel surplus to fuel shortage sometime in the next 2-10 years, with the fossil fuel age slowly declining over the next 100 years, about the period of time over which weve enjoyed the burgeoning of the fossil fuel age up to now.
I enjoyed the early bit where Rebecca looks at a sandwich, the kind you buy for a couple of bucks at a convenience store. She explains how fossil fuel is necessary to production and shipping of each bit of that sandwich, and doesnt even point out the fundamental petroleum origin of the plastic packaging.
This brings me back to the reason why I want to figure out a system that almost anyone could set up - to make it possible for millions of folks (specifically Americans) to create millenial "victory gardens" from readily-available materials.
As for supplying the needs for fuel for vehicles, I enjoyed this video on production of algae, which in open pond culture can produce an astounding 20,000 gallons of oil per acre per year (compared to a mere 18 gallons per acre per year for corn). The vertical grow system seems like it could be much more productive than open pond culture:
Culture of algae to be refined into carbon based fuels
I look forward to seeing how all this evolves over the next decade. I predict many will be taken unawares - living at the edge of their finances and relying on modern conveniences to meet the requirements of their lives.
But I doubt there will be world-wide apocalypse as sometimes projected. Personal discomfort, but not collapse of civilization.
I wonder if our current wacky time system has any psychological side effects. If humans think $4.99 is still in the $4 range, then perhaps we think something odd about time.
Perhaps a stopwatch showing 1:50:00 is a bit close to one and a half hours or something. Perhaps thats why I leave it until the last minute to get into the shower before going to a restaurant. Perhaps I still think I have half an hour up my sleeve when really I have only ten minutes.
Its stresses like these that make people drink 1.02110316 × 10^-54 cubic Parsecs of Tequila with a slice of lime and a pinch of salt, over and over until comfortably numb.
Personally, I think we should go with the Parsec for everything. Or...
We could make everything very very simple.
Some time ago, I remember asking mum why we (Australians) were so historically insane as to have once had one Australian Pound be made up of twenty shillings, which were each subdivided into twelve pence.
She thought I was over-reacting.
People often do.
Until you ask them to do some calculations.
Perhaps a currency like that made it a simple task to buy things with the weights they were using at the time... lets see... there were sixteen ounces to the pound, fourteen pounds to the stone, and eight stone to the Hundredweight.
Easy!
If it cost one Pound, eighteen Shillings, and eleven Pence to buy one Hundredweight of paraffin, how much would it cost to buy four Pounds (no, the other Pound) and thirteen ounces. Obviously that would depend on which kind of paraffin. Theres a 2/11th discount on the impure stuff, but not on the pure stuff. So lets make it simple and work it out for the pure stuff.
Mum?
Mum?
I tried to explain why I thought it was insane, by attempting to teach her to count in a way that started in base 12, then rapidly insaned into base 20 for the next digit (or digit like thing), before settling out into base 10 the subsequent digits (I presume).
I got very confused.
Imperial units are funny.
People must have just tried to avoid calculations that involved all the "layers" (ie pounds, shillings, and pence) It seems odd, but I guess people chunked their prices into easy to calculate amounts.
Quarters, halves - that sort of thing.
Im guessing shopkeepers just made up prices as they went along as well. Whos going to check?
For a modern day example for people living in a metric world, without thinking too much, on paper, in your head or with a calculator, try adding ...
11:44:29 hours, minutes and seconds to 03:19:51 PM
Not so difficult, but it hardly trips off the tongue.
It makes me think that perhaps we avoid doing it. Perhaps its just too hard, so we only use the easy chunks of time. Quarters, halves - that sort of thing.
We need a new metric clock.
Our current clock is loopy.
Anything where your first digit is in base ten, then your next isnt, should be shot in the foot.
I dont want to buy this entire aquaponics system in one go.
[Actually, I do, but other people wouldnt like it. And I love them...]
Since we get paid every two weeks, here is my plan for the weeks leading up to January, when I plan to buy the tilapia. Im including stuff I did in the past month as well (I already have a water pump, air pumps, and bubblers).
10/15 - Purchase the Murray Hallam DVDs ($65 via The Aquaponics Source)
10/29 - Purchase the fish tank and grow bed (~$150 from Southern States)
11/12 - Purchase the 2x4 heavy duty shelving (~$80 from Home Depot)
11/26 - Purchase the gravel ($50) and bell siphon bits ($10)
[Start seedlings, focusing on lettuce and herbs]
12/10 - Purchase the grow lights ($128)
12/24 - Purchase bio-activation stuff and accessories ($60)
01/07 - Obtain permits and buy tilapia ($22.50 for permits, $114 for White Brook Farms tilapia fry)
One of the problems I see in the western world is its dependence on reward.
The internet seems a little better than the real world in this respect, but I suspect its because we dont see the takers doing the taking. We just see the givers being generous. The nature of the stuff up for grabs means that if you take more than you give, theres still exactly the same amount left for everyone else. Open source software is a good example.
Ive taken much, much, more from the net than I can ever give, but all the stuff Ive taken is still there.
Which is nice.
But in the real world you take some stuff, and theres not as much left for the next in line. And sometimes there isnt even a line*. Ive been lucky enough to have spent my formative years living in Papua New Guinea. To say anything about Papua New Guinea is to be wrong about most of it, but Ill say some stuff about it anyway.
When I was in Papua New Guinea, I was there at a time when the locals were making the transition from the cultures and lifestyles they had been enjoying for the last few dozen centuries, to one that looks and tastes a little more like you might expect in a western city. One of the problems with shifts like this is the clash between the old economic system and the new. From this point is should be noted that when I talk about some attribute of Papua New Guineas culture, I refer to only the bits I know. There are something like a third of the worlds languages (or something) dont quote me)). and many more cultural ... things... paradigms? Anyway. every few hundred people are different. They talk different, they look different, they believe different, and they think different. Not just different as compared to me, but different from all the other different groups. I knew a fishing net merchant who could easily pick a persons birthplace to within a hundred kilometres or so, just by meeting them over the counter. Often with much greater accuracy to the point where they could name the village. Anyway... One of the most interesting things about the culture clash was the gradual decline in the worth of generosity. Or at least my perception of that decline. There seemed to be some kind of social credit that a person could gain by simply giving stuff away. You might get something back from acts of generosity, but it might not come from the person you gave things to. You still see this in the west in small groups, but once you get to a certain population level, one where everybody can no longer know everyone else, the system breaks down. There comes a point where giving stuff away is no longer useful.
And here I come to my point...
When youre little, you gain respect and trust within your family and friends, you are rewarded with new responsibilities, freedoms, and smiles.
You dont need gold stars gummed to your work.
I think gold stars (or points for Hufflepuff) might be encouraging our kids to seek only monetary reward, or perhaps an Oscar.
I think we should stop it.
120 things in 20 years thinks the best part about not being an academic, is that I have no need to quote sources, and I get to say whatever I want.
*A line has just one characteristic. Its endedness. Two** ends, but just one characteristic. A list of people who can make the most noise from lowest volume to highest could be seen as another line, and often making the most noise gets you first grab at whatevers going. (see baby birds in nests, and political lobbyist)
** a circle is a line with no end. I guess that means I mean a "queue".
floating raft (plants floating with their roots in a constant stream of water)
media-based growbeds (plants growing in some sort of rock/sand/gravel/beads)
Media-based systems are recommended for home hydroponicists because they are simpler and more reliable. Media-based systems are also referred to as flood and drain. The idea is you flood the growbed with the fish water (delivering nutrients and, um, water), then let it drain out (bathing the roots in air/oxygen).
Of the various ways to flood/drain a media-based growbed, the one that is easiest on the checkbook is a bell siphon. All a bell siphon needs are simple plumbing bits available at any hardware store. Oh, and a small pump. I loved the way the folks at ecofilms explain it:
"If the pump is the heart of an aquaponics system, then the auto-siphon are it’s lungs. A vital part of kit. Remember when you were a little kid and the teacher told you about the regular flooding of the Nile river and how fertile the Nile delta was to early farmers. Well think of the auto siphon as a kind of similar concept. It’s main purpose is to flood the grow bed drawing rich oxygen into the depths of the trough, oxygenating the plant roots and turbo charging the bacteria to do their thing."
They created a great animation of how a bell siphon works. A real-life system takes many times longer to fill than the time to drain (my system takes 10 minutes to fill and 1 minute to drain, ignoring the dribbly parts at the beginning and end of the siphon). Also, the pump never turns off. I found the growbed in my system only needs 10 gallons to fill the spaces between the rocks, so the change in the level of the water in the fish tank is only 2-3 inches, about 10%.
Though I love the idea of "constant height of pond" (CHOP), the added complexity and space to achieve CHOP didnt make sense for my 3x5 system. Let me tell you the bits I used to create the system Ive got.
First is the pump - 140 gallon Pondmaster that I got from a local hardware store for under $40. It has only one moving part and consumes just 10 watts. Its like having a night light plugged into a wall socket, as far as energy usage is concerned.
Next are the plumbing bits (I presume the kind of handyman attempting this will already have saws and drills, etc.). The plumbing bits are:
1) The outer sheath or media guard. Its the white tube poking up through the gravel in this picture.
This is 3" (ID) pipe roughly 1 long with dozens of 1/4" holes to allow water (but not rocks) to reach the siphon. I drilled down 12 lines, putting a hole every inch and precisely staggered the holes on adjacent lines because Im OCD. But the regular holes also serve as a crude measuring stick, helping me determine critical distances. Turns out a 15.5 oz can fits nicely inside this sheath, to prevent rocks from falling in from above. Plus a can adds iron to your system as it rusts - useful as most fish food lacks the kind of iron levels wed like to have in foods we eat.
Update - Turns out you can simply cut slices in the media guard - slices also work just fine for the base of the bell. FWIW, I use a crochet hook to pull the bell out of the media guard when I want to check the siphon.
2) The bulkhead. I used 3/4" electrical PVC fittings here, because the electrical fittings are dirt cheap and adequate to this low-pressure task. I was inspired by Richard Kinchs post"An Improvised PVC Bulkhead Fitting forLiquid Storage Tanks. I only used the PVC male and female electrical conduit adapters - I didnt need to modify them in any way. This part of my system drove me to 3/4" piping, because the 1" adapters have seams running up through the threads and dont seat nearly as well. As 3/4" is the size of standard bilge pump line, I figured it was large enough for my purposes.
I used a 1" bit to drill the hole through the bottom of my grow bed, and a doorknob hole cutter to drill a hole in the shelf for the drain. You can improve the seal through the grow bed with silicon or you can simply use a #18 o-ring. I used aluminum foil tape to seal the edge of the hole through the shelf just in case there were a leak, to mitigate moisture getting into the wood and turning it soft.
3) The 1" to 3/4" reducer and standpipe. I struggled long and hard on this bit, inspired by Affnans Bell Siphon video:
My problem is that Im in the US, so I cant get the metric bit parts he uses for his system. I settled on a 1" slip to 3/4" male threaded reducer/adapter, followed by a female threaded to female slip coupler.
The two bits together cost about $1. Turns out the 1" female slip adapter has an inner diameter of 1-5/16" (to accommodate the added wall thickness of 1" pipe). A 1-5/16" diameter circle is three times the area of a 3/4" diameter circle - meaning your siphon thinks the pump is putting out 3 times as much flow as it actually is. So 3 times as much water hits your 3/4" pipe to start the siphoning action with the 1" to 3/4" reducer than the pipe would see if it was just a flat cut. This is a good thing. Trust me.
If you like math and physics, you can go read up on Bernoullis principle, which comes into play here. Just dont tell the helpful people at the hardware store you are putting together a plumbing fixture that creates a Bernoulli suction. My limited sample shows consistent brow-furrowing and eyebrow raising.
Youll need a short length of 3/4" pipe to connect the reducer to the bulkhead so the top of the reducer is about 1-2" below the top of your gravel. Since your bed will flood to the top of the reducer and no higher, the 1-2" layer of dry gravel keeps algae from growing on the surface of your gravel. Heres a picture of the assembled upstand (reducer through bulkhead) next to the bell.
4) The Bell. This is a 2" pipe with an end cap.
I cut six 1/2" holes in a ring around the bottom, leaving about 1/4"-1/2" of material between the edge of the holes and the end of the pipe. Then I used a hack saw and 10" miter saw to remove all but three "legs." Just above each leg, I drilled a 1/4" hole, then added a fourth 1/4" hole above these. These four 1/4" holes help break the siphon when the grow bed is drained by allowing air to fill the top of the bell.
Update - Ive found that cutting slices in the bottom of the bell about an inch above the bottom works just fine. Its also quieter than my bell that had the drilled holes.
5) The gravity run. This is the part that I fiddled with the most. If the gravity run has no kink, its possible that water will just sheet down the sides of the pipe, leaving a tube of air straight from the bottom of the run to the top of the bell that will prevent the siphon from ever forming. If the gravity run has too much kink, youll never get enough air to the top of the bell to break the siphon. Below is the gravity run that has worked best for me so far - with a 45 degree kink:
Update - the 45-degree angle is great. You do need to insert a bit of pipe in the bottom, even if its only 1/2-inch long, because the upper edge of the lower pipe is part of what kicks the water and creates the siphon. Heres another picture, showing a siphon drain in my constant-height-of-pond system. Ive got the exit coming out at or below water level, so the slices in the lower tube allow air in to break the siphon when the growbed has drained completely.
Im creating a pdf of instructions with photos for the whole assembly, and will update this post with a link when Ive got it done.
Ive been thinking about adding a viewing window to my fishtank because Im part way through moving and expanding my little system, and now would be a good time.
The new system is going to be a simple CHIFT PIST* with fewer points to go wrong compared to my current system.
The problem with adding a window is that its another point that could fail. The side of the IBC fishtank is flexible, and the glass window is rigid, and that never ends well.
So I thought Id run it through the invention engine and see if there was a safer way.
It came up with something it likes to call the "No Holes Fishtank Window".
Which is nice.
So, it turns out you could probably force an aquarium partially under water from the surface to make an interesting inside-out aquarium.
Its a little reminiscent of Woncos house, "Outside of the asylum".
A better viewing angle would be made from a wedge shaped aquarium made from two squares of glass, and two triangles for sides. One square sits flat against the side of the fish tank (the side you would be leaning against when viewing), and the other sits at an angle of 45 degrees, so that it meets the other square 40cm underwater.
The entire device is mounted on a bracket that keeps it underwater. The bracket is an inverted U shaped bar of stainless steel (stainless steel, so the fishies dont get all dead). One bit of the U is siliconed onto the side of the window, the other end has a locknut to attach it to the frame of your IBC.
It could be easily removed to clean, or to simply add to land fill.
It will probably work, and might look a bit like this...
I wanted to snap a picture of my progress with the greenhouse, but the camera needs batteries. So well talk minnows instead.
The fathead minnow is a cool little fish. They are great for live bait, and theyre hardy. An eHow article on fathead minnows explains:
"It can tolerate low oxygen levels, muddy water and a wide range of pH levels, even those inhospitable to other fish. Due to its hardiness and ease of breeding, the fathead minnow is the preferred fish for toxicity testing under U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines."
Most of the minnows I bought last month are still with us. Its fun to see them zipping around the tank, schooling together.
The bluegill and redear that have survived are a stolid bunch. They are slow and stealthy, hiding in the recesses of the tank. I wish the tank was lighter, because its quite hard to see these larger fishes, lurking as they do in the depths of the tank.
Sunday the low was a nippy 29 degrees F. But as I look at the forecast and averages from here out, it looks like freezing temperatures have departed the pattern until next fall. Im excited to see how the fish do as it starts to be consistently warmer!
A while ago... What I think is a year in Bullwinklle time... I decided Id not use the invention engine for a year to see if it made any difference to the quality of the stuff I create. I have no real idea if it it has, but Im now officially giving up on the experiment.
It feels a little like Ive had one hemisphere tied behind my back.
So now Ive decided to set two tasks allowing full access to the invention engine process.
1. Get sticking rich. 2. Contribute something to my garden that might be useful to someone else.
The two are in no way connected, and because I have no idea how to get sticking rich, I thought Id start with the aquaponics system, and leave the wealth part for another day.
I suspect leaving getting sticking rich for another day might be a theme in my life.
anyway ...
Ive been playing around with the idea of making a farm to grow escargo for many years. I figured this might by the thing I could put some research into and come up with an idea or two. My ideas put to the engine have all been based around using a bell siphon to flush a grow bed of snail solids by drowning the entire farm...say... once a day, by completely submerging the grazing feed (lettuce etc) in 30cm deep of water to wash away the snails solid waste.
The plan looked something like this...
Picture a 30cm deep BYAP grow bed with 15cm of media, and a 1cm wire mesh stretched across the top. The escargo would live in a cage on top of this grow bed. Planted in the growbed would be green leafy plants that snails liked, and that could survive being eaten from the top once they reached a height of 15cm. Lettuce etc. The plants would grow to 15cm height, then they would be grazed by the snails that would be housed in a cage that sat on top of the lettuce cage.The lettuce would continue to grow, and via some magic that I would figure out with the invention engine, the solids would be rinsed every so often with the rising tide of an auto siphon (or something)
Got it?
It doesnt matter, because thats not what Im going to do.
It turns out that if you read through own threads on forums, you find you made some other promise to make an aquaponics system that removes solids automatically.
Oh well.
Unfortunately for me I think I might have a go at this as a project.
I would like to state at this stage that I think this is an entirely pointless thing to do. I really like the way aquaponics works as an almost closed loop (if you invite your fish food manufacturer into your loop).
The balance is what makes it so appealing.
But that is also what makes it appealing as a task to set the invention engine.
Sorry universe.
So thats it...
How do I make an aquaponics system that removes solids?
Eughhh! (with shaking head)
Ok...
How do I make an aquaponics system, that I dont hate, that removes solids?
I already have some stuff that might be relevant from when I made a swirl filter (somebody eless invention), but made it with a built in autosiphon. The problem with that is it triggers all the time and dumps a lot of water with the solids.
Now that I think of it, I might have already come up with some other useful stuff as well.
Perhaps this test of the invention engine will just prove that I should have paid attention the first time around.
And now I remember the deer scarer.
Perhaps Ive already collected all the bits I need.
120ThingsIn20Years thinks this might be a bad way to come out of semi-retirement (Eughhh!)
Today I added the remaining 22 fish into the 800 gallon aquaponic fish tank. They were very happy to see their old friends and a good time was had by all.
I built a light fixture today with 16 CFL bulbs in a straight line 8 feet long. Its a lot of light, but I may need two.
Costco has a good price on 23W 1600 lumen CFLs (about $8.00), but there were some rebates that knocked another $2.00 off the price. So each box of 4 costs $5.99 right now. I was going to use T5 bulbs, but I saw that, and did the math. Im waiting for a response from the manufacture for more information about the light spectrum. All I have been able to find so far is that they are "Full Spectrum". Im hoping this will work for me, if not Costco will take them back.
Ill post a picture of my finished grow lamp after its painted, and the specs if I hear back from Feit Electric.
Here are the specs on the CFLs that Devin Duhaime is using very successfully.
Philips 41409-4 - 26 Watt - CFL 100 W Equal - 5000K Full Spectrum - 82 CRI - 114 Lumens per Watt - 15 Month Warranty
Tomorrow, September 1, we celebebrate World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. Join us in solidarity with with others around the world, including The Philippines to pray for our good stewardship of God’s gift of creation! The video above, recommended by Catholics Confront Global Poverty, comes via Catholic Relief Services. And here is a list of resources from Jesuits Northeast Province. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) recommends the follow prayer from St. Francis of Asissi
Canticle of the Sun O most High, almighty, good Lord God, to you belong praise, glory, honor, and all blessing! Praised be my Lord God with all creatures; and especially our brother the sun, which brings us the day, and the light; fair is he, and shining with a very great splendor: O Lord, he signifies you to us! Praised be my Lord for our sister the moon, and for the stars, which God has set clear and lovely in heaven. Praised be my Lord for our brother the wind, and for air and cloud, calms and all weather, by which you uphold in life all creatures. Praised be my Lord for our sister water, which is very serviceable to us, and humble, and precious, and clean. Praised be my Lord for brother fire, through which you give us light in the darkness: and he is bright, and pleasant, and very mighty, and strong. Praised be my Lord for our mother the Earth, which sustains us and keeps us, and yields divers fruits, and flowers of many colors, and grass. Praised be my Lord for all those who pardon one another for Gods loves sake, and who endure weakness and tribulation; blessed are they who peaceably shall endure, for you, O most High, shall give them a crown! Praised be my Lord for our sister, the death of the body, from which no one escapes. Woe to him who dies in mortal sin! Blessed are they who are found walking by your most holy will, for the second death shall have no power to do them harm. Praise you, and bless you the Lord, and give thanks to God, and serve God with great humility.
[In the previous post, an autistic daughter plopped one of her goldfish into the big tank. We despaired for its life.}
Ive been scanning the surface of the tank to see if anything floated to the surface. No luck. Then I tried randomly netting the murky depths in hopes of bagging the fish. Again no luck.
Is there an inverse to spontaneous generation? You know, when something disappears without physical explanation?
Tonight I was looking for an old youtube video of mine, when I remembered:
The first time I set up each aquaponic windowfarm, the fish tank was cloudy.
For a 5 gallon tank, it only took two goldfish a day to clear the water. The fish created waste, the gravel began growing good bacteria that feed on the waste, the water got clear.
The water got clear.
All my goldfish have survived this process at least once before. Maybe, just maybe, the goldfish my daughter dumped into the drink was still OK.
In fact, maybe I could help things along by adding the water/waste from one of the two aquaponics fish tanks. Like the one that stopped flowing in early fall. All the plants were dead before the lack of water was noticed, but the fish had survived without the water-cleaning effect of the plants.
Come to think of it, maybe it wouldnt be a bad thing to add a second goldfish to the big tank, to speed things along.
My autistic daughter was still awake when I decided to take one of the remaining three goldfish. She watched me trying to snag the short-tailed fish - they look ordinary, but speed around and eat like the next meal may never come. Great metabolism, I was thinking.
We dont have a net, so I was trying to catch the fish with a tube my daughter had used the day before. Several attempts later, I was ready to give up.
"Let me," my daughter asked. Reluctant, I handed her the tube.
In one swift move, my daughter had the fish. And it wasnt just luck - she used a very unusual and gentle technique. I was impressed--and humbled.
After taking time to gradually transition the fish to the new water, I released it.
In a minute I saw the fish again. And then I saw the golden glint was two fishes. I watched for far too long, and the pair of fish kept showing up together, linked as though by a chain.
They both seemed healthy and, I dont know, fond of each other. Go figure.
Below are a handful of tweets from "The Francis Factor: How St. Francis & Pope Francis are Changing the World," featuring Richard Rohr, Shane Claiborne, and Ilia Delio
Pope Francis is s.master of symbolic action. Symbol is much more powerful than words -Richard Rohr #FrancisFactor.
— Carlos Navarro (@CNinABQ) August 31, 2015
RT @AKRicky: Richard Rohr to @ShaneClaiborne “You live a fire that I only talk about.” #francisfactor
— Richard Rohr, OFM (@RichardRohrOFM) August 31, 2015
#ShaneClaibornes ministry is very Franciscan. -Richard Rohr #FrancisFactor
— Carlos Navarro (@CNinABQ) August 31, 2015
RT @tasha7wahl: Evangelism is not forcing Gods love on the world, but fascinating the world with Gods love. @ShaneClaiborne #francisfactor
— CAC (@CACRadicalGrace) August 31, 2015
Ilia: The greatest suffering is not the suffering, its the suffering in the suffering. The isolation. The alienation. #francisfactor
— Ron Hofius (@r_hof) August 31, 2015
2. Restorative justice: the greater the wrongdoing the greater the need for love. @RichardRohrOFM #FrancisFactor
— Ed Bacon (@RevEdBacon) August 31, 2015
"Re: protests, "our goal is not to create enemies, but to courageously proclaim the vision of God. #ShaneClaiborne #FrancisFactor
— Carlos Navarro (@CNinABQ) August 31, 2015
"We must dispossess our consumptive patterns to live the virtue of enoughness." -Sr Ilia Delio #francisfactor
— Julie Ann Stevens (@tdastudio) August 31, 2015
"A life of poverty is not to live without things but to live without possessing things." Ilia Delio #francisfactor
— Brie Stoner (@briestonermusic) August 31, 2015
Perhaps vow of poverty is not the right term. We have to promote a "theology of enough." #ShaneClaiborne at #FrancisFactor conference
— Carlos Navarro (@CNinABQ) September 1, 2015
— Mike Morrell (@zoecarnate) August 31, 2015
When our need to be right eclipses our hunger to love, we must let go-"we are all just kids playing in Gods sandbox." Rohr #francisfactor
— Shelley Drake (@Shelley_Drake) August 31, 2015
Every few hundred years the Church needs a rummage sale. Lose the clutter. But you never sell everything. Keep the treasures. #francisfactor
— Ron Hofius (@r_hof) August 31, 2015
The opposite of faith is not doubt, its control -Richard Rohr. #francisfactor
— Carlos Navarro (@CNinABQ) August 30, 2015
The small people build cages for everyone. The sage keeps dropping keys for all the beautiful rowdy prisoners. #francisFactor #Hafiz
— Ed Bacon (@RevEdBacon) August 30, 2015
RT @RevEdBacon: Some of the loudest versions of Christianity havent always been the most beautiful. @ShaneClaiborne #FrancisFactor
— Richard Rohr, OFM (@RichardRohrOFM) August 31, 2015
To avoid misusing power we must embrace our own journeys of powerlessness. Thank you Richard. #francisfactor
— Julie Ann Stevens (@tdastudio) August 30, 2015
We are not punished for our sins. We are punished by our sins. -Richard Rohr. #FrancisFactor
After experiencing what appeared to be an iron deficiency I began adding MircobeLift Iron Cheate60ml at a time. The levels would come up slightly, and then drop out of sight and the plants were not looking any better. When I began to run out of MicrobeLift I shopped locally and found Dr Iron which boasted 8% iron chelate. I had my doubts and so I tested the strength of two iron chelate products. MicrobLift does not specify the percent and I think I know why. Heres the results and my method of conducting the test.
I started with 0.5 ml added 200 ml of distilled water this gives me a dilution of 0.5/(200+1) = 0.00249
then taking my next sample from this dilution, I repeated the procedure resulting in a 0.00000622 dilution. Assuming the product is 8% FE+ as claimed then two dilutions results in 0.5 parts per million which is mid scale on the FE test.
Here are the results of testing equal amounts of both MicrobeLift and Dr. Iron
This first picture shows the Iron and the second shows the Chelate Iron
Dr. Iron = 0.25 ppm
MicrobeLift = 0.0 ppm
Dr. Iron => 1.0 ppm
MicrobeLift = 0.0 ppm
I tested a stronger sample of Microbelift and verified a trace amount of Iron Chelate, but Dr. Iron is less expensive for more product and provides a substantially more concentrated dose of iron chelate . In fact Dr Iron contains over twice as much Iron Chelate as they advertize! But its in the form of EDTA which requires a low pH.
MaxiCrop Seaweed with Iron claims 2% iron chelate and is a favorite among other aquaponic enthusiast, but I did not test that product.
Here are the real world results. In the weeks ahead of switching to Dr Iron I had applied 1-1/2 bottles of MicrobeLift with meager results. Two days after using just a small amount of Dr Iron the plants have begun to show obvious and rapid improvement.
MircobeLift
Dr. Iron 2012-06-23_1731
Dr Iron 2012-06-24_1810
I have continued to add 25ml of Dr Iron to the 1000 gallon system once per day and when I add the iron I pour it directly on the Hydroton as I did with the MicrobeLift.
Update: Today is Tuesday June 26 2012. This mornings test showed that the level of chelated iron was nearly the same as yesterday! The chelated iron may be normalizing after only three days of dosing with Dr Iron as opposed to MicrobeLift.
While the two beds show a significant difference in growth, the raft system has become healthier and is showing a lot of promise. The foliage has become green and the plants are beginning to grow again.
Dr Iron is a far superior product. Im guessing MicrobeLift is making an effort to sell something that will not change the color the water in an aquarium. But I think they should state the percent in order to be more honest about the product.
Dr Iron has caused my water to take on a brown color, but this is a aquaponic system not an aquarium so to really is not important.
The tomatoes have grown up around the basil since my last photo. The basil on the left is from the raft.
Look at how much the basil in the gravel has grown!
This is the basil in the raft. It has regained most of its color and it doing much better since I switched to Dr Iron
The raft is clearly stunted and anemic, but I have hopes of a full recovery
Dr Iron is great, but it may not be available. So Ill address iron products in general. This is from Green House Grower There are many chelating molecules available, but only three that are commonly used in horticulture: EDTA, DTPA and EDDHA. These abbreviations refer to the chemical structure of the organic molecule. In general, manganese, zinc and copper chelates are only found in the EDTA form. In comparison, there are three forms of iron chelate, FeEDTA, FeDTPA and FeEDDHA, although the most common form is FeEDTA. With iron nutrition, the form of iron is very important. The three common chelated forms (iron-EDDHA, DTPA and EDTA) differ in their ability to hold onto the iron (and therefore keep iron soluble and available to plants) as the media pH increases. Between a media pH of 4.0 to 5.5, any form of iron will work (including iron sulfate) at supplying iron to the plant. However, as the media pH increases above 7.0, only the iron from Iron-EDDHA has high solubility. Research has shown that the ranking of iron forms from most effective to least effective at supplying iron at high media pH is Iron-EDDHA > Iron-DTPA > Iron-EDTA > Iron sulfate. If iron is applied in a form that is not soluble because of high media pH, then most of the nutrient will not be available to plants until media pH is lowered.
In general the best products will say EDDHA because they work over the widest range of pH
This article at deseretnews.com may also help while shopping for an iron product Other less-expensive products are also available. One widely sold product, Ironite, contains iron sulfate. Holt explained Ironite has a "high sulfur content that helps to temporarily acidify the soil around the plants, so work it in around the plant, and then water it in. It works well on turf and on some plants if the soil pH is not too high." "Another product we sell is called Dr. Iron," he said "It is 22 percent iron and 55 percent sulfur. It basically takes iron oxide and covers it with molten sulfur. As the sulfur dissolves, it releases the iron." IronSul Soil Acidifier with Humic Acid is another way to treat chlorosis. It is acidic, so it lowers the pH, making the iron more available. It also has a small amount of zinc to supply that micronutrient. Foliar sprays to the leaves often produce a quick response, but they are inconsistent and temporary.
The average American creates 20 metric tons of carbon emissions per year. These are 20 metric tons above and beyond the kind of necessarily carbon-neutral lifestyle our ancestors lived in the 1800s.
20 metric tons can be offset with a mere $500 investment in green projects. If I earned the US median average income of $60,000, thats less than 1% of my gross income.
Starting now, I will spend 1% of my gross income to eliminate my carbon footprint. Thats an easy thing to do so tomorrows world will be less carbon-reliant.
If you dont feel you can afford 1% of your income to buy carbon neutrality, look into the anatomy of your carbon footprint and see what you can do to directly reduce your carbon emissions.
Below is my investigation into how much my various life activities contribute to my 20 ton carbon footprint. To significantly reduce my footprint, I would have to go radically green, give up my car, and refuse to travel. However, given my current responsibilities at home and work, I cannot realistically give up my car or refuse to travel. So its easier to simply pay. _______________________________
Whats in a Footprint, from December 14, 2010
Our Footprint
I talked about how 69% of all available fresh water gets used to irrigate plants, and how food travels 1300-1500 miles from farm to your plate.
Youd think these factors would make unwise food choices a big issue, when it comes to carbon footprint. I mean, all that water needs to be treated, and the vehicles transporting the food need fuel.
It turns out that if I just ate, with no thought to how far the food travels, whether it is in season or organic, and ate lots of red meat, my carbon footprint would be 1.6 metric tons per year.
It appears the maximum annual amount of carbon dioxide we can emit per individual without incurring climate change is 2.0 metric tons. So wasteful food practices consume 80% of our allowable emissions.
However, we have a much bigger issue than our food practices.
We in America emit 20.0 metric tons per individual per year.
Oops.
A family with two cars each driving the average 12,000 miles per year emits about 10 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. The carbonfootprint.com folks put in a 1.0 ton penalty per car to account for emissions that went into making the car, amortized over the life of the car. If your two cars are Hummers, thats a whopping 16.5 metric tons per year. If your two cars are Priuses, it comes down to 6.5 - still way too high.
If you pay $200 per month for electricity, add another 2.8 tons per year.
If youre a fashion-conscious consumer, add 2.3 tons.
If you take a single round trip plane ride across the country, add 1.0 ton.
Plan to overcome your excesses by recycling? If you composted and recycled everything you use, it would only "save" 0.1 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
Heres what my family might look like (ahem...):
Heres the picture of what contributes to the 20 tons of emissions:
And heres what the emissions look like for someone who only uses public transit, cuts electricity use by 70%, and eats/shops in an eco-conscious manner (we assume they also recycle):
A Lifestraw is a very cool device for personal water filtration. Its guaranteed to deliver 1000 litres of clean safe drinking water from any dodgy water source. The Murray River is one big dodgy water source, so a it fits the bill perfectly.
It looks like this, and weighs almost nothing.
According to the packaging, it does what all the other water treatment methods claim or better.
Apparently, my little Lifestraw removes 99.9999% of waterborne bacteria, 99.9% of waterborne parasites, and provides a minimum of 1000 litres of clean drinking water.
I also bought a PermaNet 2.0 mosquito net that not only claims to keep mosquitoes at a safe distance, but also kills them when they land on it. That means the world health organisation thinks its ok to use me as bait.
Fair enough I guess.
So basically my Lifestraw is a stack of tiny straws crammed into a tube with a sippy cup mouthpiece at one end. You stick the blunt end into a stock trough, or creek you dont quite trust, and drink through the mouthpiece as if it were a gigantic straw, and bam! you keep living.
Making a home made paracord* bungee** to take my new and very small Gerber Dime® multi tool on any epic adventures I may set off on turned out to be pretty worth while. Claiming that it will outlast the polar caps probably isnt saying that much.
Oh well.
I wanted to make it so I could use my new little multi tool while it was still attached to my belt so I couldnt lose it overboard, but didnt want it dangling around my ankles when I let it go without re-clipping it. I figured if I wasnt actively using it, Id clip it to my belt, but when I was using it, I could just it to still be attached. That would mean there was a loop of rope hanging down a foot or so from my belt, and I thought that might be annoying. I have a bungee cord with a hook at each end thats been sitting in water outside in the sun for 3 years and is still in perfect condition, but I have also bought a few dozen that didnt make it 3 months. I have no idea what brand the good one is, but even if I did, its too think for my requirements.
The invention engine said I should make my own.
I started with some paracord and removed all the inner strands. If they are tight, just pull one out at a time until they come out with ease.
The mess should look something like this when complete.
The next step was to cut a length of inner tube into a strip thin enough to fit inside the hollowed out para cord.
I cut a length around 30cm long, and around 2mm wide
Try to avoid any nicks and rough edges as this is where it will break if stretched too far.
But we wont be stretching our too far so it wont matter.
I then threaded a thin wire through the hollow length of paracord, bent a loop, and tied the strip of inner tube to it.
I attached to other end of the wire to my house because it was the only heavy thing I could find.
With the help of some pliers to grip the paracord, it was simple to pull the strip of inner tube back through the empty paracord.
I added a decent quality swivel from my fishing gear as an afterthought, but it would have been a lot neater to incorporate it into the knot so it might lie in a straight line to the DIY paracord bungee.
As it is in this pic, I can stretch it to around twice the relaxed length.
In later experiments, I discovered that if you scrunch the length of paracord bungee into a rough ball, then roll it around between your palms as if you were rolling a ball of dough, it gains extra creases and folds. This allows you to untie it, and shorten the length of inner tube inside, and as a result bunch up the paracord.
So now I can get a stretch of around 3 times the relaxed length.
To get maximum stretch, bunch up the paracord until its still slack when you stretch it. This means the inner tube is the limiting factor. Then let a little paracord slip through your fingers until the inner tube is still fully stretched, but the paracord is also tight.
Tie it off, and you should be set. As long as you didnt stretch the inner tube too much before tying it off, the paracord should take any extreme force thats applied, and your rubber inner should stay intact for the next 25,000 years or so.
All in all this suggestion from the invention engine turned out well.
The short length of very thin and super strong DIY paracord bungee is ideal to suspend my new favorite tool.
120 Things in 20 years - Oh look, a post!
* strong, thin, light, multi strand rope you use to hang from parachutes ** rubbery rope you use to tie things to your roof rack, or tie your ankle to a bridge with when you are about to fling yourself off.
So what to do when the power fails? I guess the recent earthquake and tsunami got me thinking, again, about "preparedness." All things considered, Im on track to be pretty self-reliant in a disaster, with the following items (not even counting the garden):
food storage in cans
manual wheat grinder
water storage
72-hour emergency kits
solar oven
manual washing machine
makings for a loveable loo
A glaring omission in this sea of preparedness is electrical power generation.
I really like the idea of being able to create my own power, particularly now that Ive got dozens of fish who wouldnt survive long if there were a prolonged power outage. (My family would survive, theyd just be irritable...)
Even though Im a physicist, Ive not previously wrapped my head around how one might make a good solar panel. But tonight, I chanced across the following series of videos from the folks at Affordable Solar Frames, down near Mobile, Alabama:
How to make your own 30-year Solar Panels (1 of 3 videos)
After watching these videos, I "get it." As I scope out my greenhouse-enclosed polyculture backyard aquaponics system, Ill be seeing how little power I can get by with.
It would be sweet to be able to run that outdoor system off solar panels!
I should be getting my new AZFlo 2400 pump this week. This will be my pick up tube.
Slots cut in 2" PVC DWV and wrapped with cooler pad.
Hopefully this will keep the mosquito fish from getting sucked up
This is my new grow bed built from a bunk feeder and using the GW Raft system. Maybe I should have followed Giorgios design more closely, but I think this will work. I wanted to be able to lift the rafts independent of the pontoons, so I switched it up a little. Rather than a straight tube, my pontoon is shaped like an 8 and is made of PVC DWV pipe because PVC cellular core is lighter than regular PVC pipe, but not as expensive as ABS which is also cellular and lighter than Sch 40 PVC. Actually PVC DWV is about 40 cents a foot less expensive than Sch 40 or ABS. You may have to go to a real plumbing store rather than and Big Box store to find it. Ive got hundreds of dollars in just the pipe. This is a way to save a lot of money. The holes are cut into FRP board which will be smooth and easy to clean.
GW Raft System
Giorgio did a great job of documenting the construction so here is a copy of his post with a link to the original thread.
Link to Post On January 17 & 18, 2012 Giorgio posted an idea for the GW Raft
Comment by Giorgio on January 17, 2012 at 5:10pm
I’ve been doing backyard aquaponics for almost 4 years now and I was doing mainly the Raft system using the styrofoam boards from HD, (I have no choice, I live in a small Island).
These board get waterlogged rather quickly and working with them is very messy and you have to do so much work with them. Finally I got tired of buying new foam and making new rafts and I figured out a way to make them last longer, I got some FOOD GRADE epoxy and painted the bottoms that touch water and they seem to be doing good so far but still you need to put some sort of aeration in the grow bed for plants to grow better which will required space, time and money (resources).
Finally I came up with a great solution which will create aeration naturally and is pretty cheap and easy to build. I teach a Aquaponics class in the backyard and many of my student were impressed with the new design and after a few crops I feel confident that is a great way to go and I want to share with the AP community.
FYI: I’ve dome my research and I’ve talked to the manufactures of some of these products that I use but you are welcome to double check and share.
I took some pics and I will try to explain how I did it.
The top is called Polywall from HD and I cut it to 2x4 pieces for easy handling u can make them bigger if you wish.
The pontoons are 2" PVC pipe with caps I dont use glue just silicone
I used 1/2 pipe for the frame, you can get all Ts and Elbows anywhere (HD) cheapest.
I used stainless 1/4" screws to sucure the Polly the the frame
and I used zip ties to secure the frame to pontoons.
You dont want to make any holes in the pontoons or it wont float.
These are so easy to make and no need for painting and no mess and the 2" net pot just barely touch the water (which is what we want)
The only thing will be to figure out some sort of clip to secure the raft to the side of the grow bed when plants get big and heavy cause it will sink a bit
Have fun
Giorgio
Comment by Giorgio on January 18, 2012 at 2:02pm
Aloha !
Here are a couple more pics to give you better idea.
The GM Raft System
This design is fricking awesome...Im growing lettuce almost 2x faster than regular foam rafts and cause the only part of the raft that touches water is the 2" pontoon there is lots of aeration underneath the root system (WITHOUT) the need of air stones, valves, siphoning or any other device.
Is very simple concept that works great, Im sure whoever tries it will love it and is less than 1/2 the cost of the foam rafts and about 75% less work without the mess and once you get one going you can make a bunch at a time.
I used 3 screw at the ends and 4 on the sides, make sure to use stainless
