So, my brother recently sold and gave away most of his worldly posessions and moved to Africa with his wife. They're working in rural Ugandan medical clinic for a year and a half. Among the dishes, towels and motorcycles they left me were a few living beings that I am now the owner... (owner sems such a strong word when talking bout a living thing...) lets say, "caretaker" of.
Embwa, a swahilii word meaning dog, is a 70 pound mutt full of energy and love. Joe searched for a good home for him in peoria, but it was not looking good for the "little" guy so I just told Joe that I wanted him. I've never really wanted to keep a dog, but I have known Embwa for at least a couple of years already and couldn't stand the idea of him going back to the pound.
I live real close to the city and my back yard is cement. I live alone and work five days a week. On top of that, I'm the sort of person that always has to be doing something. I'm in a band; I'm in a community college guitar ensemble; and I'm always making up crazy random tech projects for myself.
It's been about a month or two, and I think me and the dog have worked out a good routine and a few understandings that help us exist with each other. I'm glad to have his company and think I may be turning into a dog person. I have not gotten to the point yet that I enjoy picking up warm dog feces.
I am also the caretaker of a dozen goldfish and a young koi that are part of a simulated ecosystem. This aquaponics system was moved from Peoria, IL in August to Chicagoland -- gravel, plants, fish, and all. I only wonder if any of my neighbors saw Kathy, Joe and I with flashlights in my backyard all night constructing the system until the early morning light. They had to wonder.
The system consisted of two large Plastic containers. One Above, full of gravel, and one below, full of water and fish. A water pump was running constantly carrying water from the fish tank, up to the grow bed and into a series of smaller "feeder" tubes that directed the water to where each of the plants were situated. The water would then, after running through the gravel and across the bottom of the basin, drain back into the tank below.
This "Drip and Immediate Drain" system was hard to maintain. Plants needed to be sitated in the grow bed directly under a drip feed or they wouldn't neccesarily be getting much of the water. By contrast, in a flood and drain system, since we are filling the entire grow container, any plot in the growbed should receive equal access to nutrients.
Anyway, the aquaponics system existed outside for a while, but it got cold. So I moved the fish indoors for the winter and setup a small ebb and flow system in the south-facing kitchen window. Besides using an autosiphon, this indoor system differs in other ways. First of all, I can see the fish. I like being able to see the fish, they look healty, and I think I am now caretaker of the biggest goldfish I've ever seen. Secondly, and more technically, I'm using hydroton expanded clay pellets as a grow medium. I decided to use them because they're lighter and easier to work with.
The plants don't seem to be growing especially well, and i'm not sure why. There could be a lot of different reasons for this:
Insufficient light.
Insufficient quantity or quality of nutrients.
Poor cuttings.
I'll be performing some information gathering and experimental changes to attempt to discover the causes of lack-luster growth in the system.
Embwa, a swahilii word meaning dog, is a 70 pound mutt full of energy and love. Joe searched for a good home for him in peoria, but it was not looking good for the "little" guy so I just told Joe that I wanted him. I've never really wanted to keep a dog, but I have known Embwa for at least a couple of years already and couldn't stand the idea of him going back to the pound.
I live real close to the city and my back yard is cement. I live alone and work five days a week. On top of that, I'm the sort of person that always has to be doing something. I'm in a band; I'm in a community college guitar ensemble; and I'm always making up crazy random tech projects for myself.
It's been about a month or two, and I think me and the dog have worked out a good routine and a few understandings that help us exist with each other. I'm glad to have his company and think I may be turning into a dog person. I have not gotten to the point yet that I enjoy picking up warm dog feces.
I am also the caretaker of a dozen goldfish and a young koi that are part of a simulated ecosystem. This aquaponics system was moved from Peoria, IL in August to Chicagoland -- gravel, plants, fish, and all. I only wonder if any of my neighbors saw Kathy, Joe and I with flashlights in my backyard all night constructing the system until the early morning light. They had to wonder.
The system consisted of two large Plastic containers. One Above, full of gravel, and one below, full of water and fish. A water pump was running constantly carrying water from the fish tank, up to the grow bed and into a series of smaller "feeder" tubes that directed the water to where each of the plants were situated. The water would then, after running through the gravel and across the bottom of the basin, drain back into the tank below.
This "Drip and Immediate Drain" system was hard to maintain. Plants needed to be sitated in the grow bed directly under a drip feed or they wouldn't neccesarily be getting much of the water. By contrast, in a flood and drain system, since we are filling the entire grow container, any plot in the growbed should receive equal access to nutrients.
The plants don't seem to be growing especially well, and i'm not sure why. There could be a lot of different reasons for this:
Insufficient light.
Insufficient quantity or quality of nutrients.
Poor cuttings.
I'll be performing some information gathering and experimental changes to attempt to discover the causes of lack-luster growth in the system.
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