Aquaponics - Duckweed - direct composter

Having dried some duckweed by spreading it out on some concrete for a few days, the next stage in creating my direct composter is using my cheese press to bring it all together. My PVC cheese press has seen a few different purposes in it's lifetime, but this one looks like it might be the one it retires to.

The duckweed shrunk down to a quarter of it's former live self.

I found my PVC pipe with holes that was formerly a cheese press, and rinsed it thoroughly.

I filled it with the dry duckweed, and planted it into the growbed.











The day after tomorrow, I'm off on an adventure to the other side of the continent, but tomorrow, which is really the day after tomorrow a far as this experiment goes, I'll check to see if the worms like their new feeder. But really I'll be somewhere else.




120 Things in 20 years is wondering if anyone is actually following this convoluted narrative.







120 Things in 20 years thinks that as far as it can tell, it's made a worm motel.

Aquaponics - Direct composter - duckweed drying

My system has only one fish, and I'm getting a little worried about my growbed's worm population. I'm not confident there's enough fish waste going into the system to feed them all.

What I thought I might try is creating a small compost bin directly in my growbed to make sure the worms have enough to eat.

I have a lot of duckweed growing in my system, and that one fish has to power the new bigger growbed, and the duckweed.

Duckweed uses quite a bit of useful nutrient so I thought I should remove some, and add it back into the system via the composter.

 I pulled out a quarter of a bucket or so of my duckweed from the system, and dumped it on some dry, sheltered concrete to dry.










I need to dry it first to kill it, because the direct composter will be a small container full of holes, sitting directly in my growbed. That means it will be damp, and the duckweed might just stay alive.

As I understand it, worms feed on the stuff that feeds on rotting vegetation so live duckweed wouldn't work so well.


120 Things in 20 years seems to be growing plants for feed to grow other plants. I think I finally developed a way to make growing vegetables as inefficient as growing beef.

Aquaponics - New system at two months

In a couple of days my new system will be two months old.

I wasn't sure how it would go being on the wrong side of the house and in shade for all but a couple of hours a day, but it looks like it might be ok.

This is the original empty growbed two months ago.

And now it looks like this.

The lettuce in the foreground went in as store bought seedlings, and the rest was from seed, but I wasted a lot of time before I actually sowed them.

We have started harvesting leaves from the lettuce and within a week or two we should be picking rocket as well.





The growbed is around two metres long and a little over a metre wide, so it should keep us in salad greens with ease.

I've also planted a few sugar snap peas at the back because I like to eat them when I'm doing anything with the garden. There's not enough to harvest but I enjoy picking something and eating it at the growbed.

Also at the back I've planted quite a bit of basil, some coriander (cilantro), and a few other herbs.

That's all. Just a quick update.

Aquaponics - Venturi adjustment

I thought I'd make a little adjustment to my venturi as suggested by Mike Creuzer in a comment on this post on my Venturi air thing.

He thought I should have some extra bubbles breaking the surface, and it turns out it's a bit of a hot topic in great debate all over the place, but I noticed a very slight oil slick on the surface of the water. I guess lots of things case very slight oil slicks. Eucalyptus leaves for one. Uneaten fish food probably would. I suspect an oil slick - and I'm talking an almost invisible one - would have some effect on gaseous exchange between the atmosphere, and my fish tank's water.

I have no idea if that's true, but I figure it couldn't hurt to stir the surface a little.

So I trimmed the pipe carrying water and bubbles down to the bottom by an inch or so and now lots more bubbles exit.

A 1/4 second exposure shows how much extra water movement on the surface is actually going on.










After only a few seconds there was no more sign of the oil slick.

Auqaponics - Baby spinach

Normal people buy seedlings from plant stores.

Normal people type on normal keyboards.

i'm typng this on tisflexible waterproofkeyborthat my mumbughtfor me for my boatt trip becausei spilt scotch ndcoke nto my old keyboard.

t's ok .

tat'th best cnsay for it.

From this oinon I'll do some proof reaing,nd tryto edit it so it's actually readable.

I bought some baby spinach from my local supermarket today, and thought I'd plant it out rather than just eat it.

It looked a little sad so it only cost a few cents.

But There was a decent root mass so I thought it might be viable.

I trimmed all the sick looking leaves and think I now have some baby spinach plants.

I'll post  an update in a few days after cutting off all the leaves that will inevitably die, but I  think the plants will survive.







10htings in20 years reallyneeds tobuya new keyboard

Thinking - Moons

According to my blog's stats for today, I've had a few hits from the moon, and also from Jupiter's moon Europa.

Which is nice.

They even clicked on a few adds and earned me a few Earth cents.

Which is also nice.

Thanks for the support moon people.




120 Things in 20 years thinks it might be April 1st.

Aquaponics - Silver perch feast

I cant remember if I even mentioned this because I was probably in some kind of deranged pain killer broken rib induced state when it happened, but I may have forgotten to mention I ate one of my big silver perch.

It looked like this.

The South Australian Fisheries people suggest the most humane way (and best way to protect it's eating qualities) to dispatch a fish is to plunge it into an ice water slurry, and leave it there.

A few hours later I scaled and cleaned it, and lightly salted it inside and out.




I wrapped it in whatever you call thin plastic kitchen wrap where you live, and left it in the fridge for twelve hours, then cooked it whole.

It was one of the nicest fish I have ever eaten.

Crazy fat.

You cant really tell from this angle, but it was in very fat condition. Looking down from the top, it had that thick section just before it's tail like a dolphin.

Most wild caught fish don't seem to have that.

I'm guessing it's because life is a little tougher in the wild when you don't have an unlimited amount of feed available.

Anyway...

This fish was in very good condition and had excellent fat content.

Apparently silver perch fat is high in Omega 3, but it was mostly delicious.

It weighed 1.08kg gutted and scaled and was 33 cm long.

I wish I had built a much bigger system ages ago so I could have a lot more.

Successfully farming your own protein in only a couple of cubic meters or space is an amazing thing to be able to do in suburbia.

I totally recommend it.



120 Things in 20 years totally recommends it.