Aquaponics Digest - Tue 03/02/99
Message 1: Re: Organic Aquatic Livestock Recommendations
from "Sam Levy"
Message 2: iodine to kill pathogens/safe for plants & fish?
from "Jorg D. Ostrowski"
Message 3: Organic Aquaculture Standards
from "Ted Ground"
Message 4: Alternative horticulture/hydroponics
from "Jorg D. Ostrowski"
Message 5: Re: iodine to kill pathogens/safe for plants & fish?
from "Ted Ground"
Message 6: Re: Organic Aquaculture Standards
from Gordon Watkins
Message 7: RE: new member--dumb question
from Alejandro Gallardo Valencia
Message 8: Re: Alternative horticulture/hydroponics
from Adriana Gutierrez
Message 9: Re: new member--dumb question
from jilli and lars
Message 10: Re: Organic Aquatic Livestock Recommendations
from Michael Strates
Message 11: Warnings about Iodine
from Michael Strates
Message 12: re: new member-dumb question
from Donald Longenecker
Message 13: RE: new member--dumb question
from "Couvia, Susan"
Message 14: fishless system?
from Michael Strates
Message 15: Mushrooms
from Adriana Gutierrez
Message 16: Re: fishless system?
from "Ted Ground"
Message 17: Mushrooms in the Greenhouse
from "Ted Ground"
Message 18: Re: Chilling tilapia at harvest
from "Sam Levy"
Message 19: Re: Chilling tilapia at harvest
from "Sam Levy"
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| Message 1 |
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Subject: Re: Organic Aquatic Livestock Recommendations
From: "Sam Levy"
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1999 05:38:54 PST
Wendy,
I've used a cold slurry (ice & water mixture) as a method of killing the
fish by thermal shock and chilling them quickly before sorting and
packing on ice. This was very effective for warm water fish such as
Tilapia or temperate fish like hybrid striped bass reared in warm water
(above 25 degreees C). Gradual chilling coupled w/an alternative method
of killing might prevent the appearance of reddened blood vessels under
the skin.
Sa
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Subject: iodine to kill pathogens/safe for plants & fish?
From: "Jorg D. Ostrowski"
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 07:20:53 -0700 (MST)
Ted Ground said:
>You said:"NASA Tech Briefs- (their technology transfer magazine)- describes
>some very remarkable iodine-based water treatment units- very simple, very
> effective, low energy, etc...I think they use them in villages in Mexico
> with great success- another great spin off from the US space program."
__________________________________________________________________________
and in private communications said:
"Try accessing http://www.nasatech.com. I believe I have that right.They
should have a page somewhere in that site on requesting back issues or
searching for specific reports. This (water treatment technology ) was
covered several years ago, but they should be able to help you."
___________________________________________________________________________
If iodine was used to kill pathogens, perhaps it can be used to keep
greywater from becoming anaerobic, while not being harmful to the
hydroponic system or integrated marshes and fish tanks? If someone finds
this article before I do, please let me know. Any constructive comments
are appreciated. Jorg Ostrowski
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Subject: Organic Aquaculture Standards
From: "Ted Ground"
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 08:35:58 -0600
Aquaponikers,
In October 1997, I drew up a set of organic aquaculture standards and set
about to select a review group. I invited Gordon Watkins and Tom and Paula
to be a part of this review group, as well as Cecelia (Cissy) Bowman at the
Organic Farmers Marketing Association. I have been working very closely
with Cissy, (she is also associated with Indiana Certified Organic) to
draft a set of standards, and also to persuade a nationally recognized fish
feed mill to become certified organic...More about that later.
In coordination with her aquaculture contacts there in Indiana, they
submitted our standards to USDA as public input to the proposed national
standards for organic practices and certification. My original document
was an outline of key points and the rationale for each point, whereas the
final form was that of actually rules, with section numbers etc..
Cissy also submitted our work to Leslie McKinnon at the Organic
Certification Office of the Texas Department of Agriculture, so now both
Texas and the USDA have our input as to what organic standards for
aquaculture might look like. I have received no feedback in probably a
year or so, but I know Cissy keeps her pulse on such things more often than
I have the time or inclination for, so I have contacted her and hopefully
she will be able to give me an update which I can forward to y'all.
(As an aside, I referred to this in my article "Developments in Organic
Aquaculture" which appeared in the first anniversary issue of the
Aquaponics Journal, published by Rebecca Nelson of Nelson/Pade Multimedia.
I highly recommend that those interested in aquaponics subscribe to this
publication, as you can benefit from good articles by Gordon Creaser, Jim
Rakocy, and others. Back issues are $10 each and can be ordered by calling
209-742-6869. You can also find them at http://www.aquaponics.com)
Back to the point. I would like to broaden the review group now, and just
let this thing either take a life of it's own, or, do the ashes to ashes
thing. Rather than burden the entire group with a big email file with text
attachments, I propose that those of you who are interested in reviewing
the draft documents- please contact me and I will send out copies to you
individually via email. These will be in Microsoft Word format. I would
only ask that if you are going to want these files, please review and
provide a comment- even if it is "no comment" or "no problems with this".
If you do have criticisms, please elaborate why, how, etc. I will try to
condense those comments into a single document and forward them to Cissy
Bowman, who will, hopefully, be able to submit yet another input to the
USDA. On second thought, maybe it would be better to post them on a web
site somewhere, say OFMAs, or somebodies web site from among our group, and
that way anybody who wants to can go there, download it, or just read it,
and then send comments back if they want to. Before we do, this, we should
have a plan and I am willing to hear suggestions from the group.
How does that sound to y'all?
Ted.
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Subject: Alternative horticulture/hydroponics
From: "Jorg D. Ostrowski"
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 07:36:06 -0700 (MST)
Russ: From your brief of below, I am interested in some practical
applications of what I have read. I would like to try something in my
small multi-experimental pasive solar greenhouse that is currently being
use for treating greywater (3 systems), food production and plants for
cleaning air. Where can we find more information on application of the
below noted ideas? Please forward to any interested party. Jorg ostrowski
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Subject: Re: iodine to kill pathogens/safe for plants & fish?
From: "Ted Ground"
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 09:33:47 -0600
Jorg,
Your system is going anaerobic because of the relative amounts of
decomposing organic material, the bacterial population, and the available
oxygen. Under such anaerobic conditions, a anoxic "reducing" environment
develops, in which most of the materials are in a reduced state, as opposed
to an oxidizing environment, in which organic materials can be readily
oxidized. Sterilization of the material does not ensure that hydrogen
sulfide will not be generated. The terms biochemical oxygen demand (BOD),
and chemical oxygen demand (COD) are related but they are not identical.
BOD refers to the sum total of biological respiration, biochemical
oxidation, and chemical oxidation which can consume a given amount of
oxygen in a solution or suspension of a sample of the the materials in
question- in this case, your graywater going into your system. COD refers
to just the chemical oxidation processes that would take place from that
material.
Anaerobic decomposition of materials are certainly enhanced and mediated by
bacteria, but it is possible for sulfur containing materials to decompose
into hydrogen sulfide in a chemically reducing environment, without the aid
of such microorganisms. In nature, there are always microorganisms present
to catalyst or mediate these reactions, so it is nearly impossible to find
an environment in which our good buddies, the bacteria, are not performing
their functions in decomposition, H2S generation, or what have you.
Nevertheless, COD still has it's role in the big picture, if you see what I
mean.
In my opinion, the key to avoiding anoxic conditions in your graywater
system, and thus avoiding hydrogen sulfide generation, is not to killing
the bacteria or replacing one bacterial community with another, but to
provide more oxygen to elevate the oxidation/reduction potential (ORP) such
that you have oxidizing conditions in the water or the slurry, or what have
you...The bacterial community that will eventually establish itself will
take place on it's own for the most part, and you should not have to worry
about killing some or bringing in others, I should think. In wastewater
treatment plants, much of the BOD from the influent is "removed", that is,
the solids are oxidized at the plant before they reach the point of
discharge, by a process of intensive aeration of waste activated sludge,
where the solids, the bacterial biomass, water and air are vigorously
agitated mechanically and constantly aerated.
Perhaps a trickle filter over a packed column of rocks, or a simple
airstone manifold connected to a blower, or some kind of cascading steam or
similar recirculating system that brings the liquid into maximum contact
with the air will help break the organic matter down at such a rate that
you always have moderate to high levels of dissolved oxygen in your system?
Just a suggestion, since I don't know all the details about your system.
Good Luck.
Ted.
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Subject: Re: Organic Aquaculture Standards
From: Gordon Watkins
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1999 10:17:53 -0600
Ted,
I think your suggestion to post your proposal on the OFMA website is an
excellent one as OFMA is sort of "control central" for following the progress
of and generating response to the Proposed Rule.
Gordon
Ted Ground wrote:
> On second thought, maybe it would be better to post them on a web
> site somewhere, say OFMAs, or somebodies web site from among our group, and
> that way anybody who wants to can go there, download it, or just read it,
> and then send comments back if they want to. Before we do, this, we should
> have a plan and I am willing to hear suggestions from the group.
>
> How does that sound to y'all?
>
> Ted.
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Subject: RE: new member--dumb question
From: Alejandro Gallardo Valencia
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 10:47:51 -0600
Marshall:
That sounds interesting, keep me posted.
Best regards.
Alejandro
-----Mensaje original-----
De: mjanes [SMTP:mjanes@compsol.net]
Enviado el: Lunes 1 de Marzo de 1999 9:16 PM
Para: aquaponics@townsqr.com
Asunto: new member--dumb question
Hello everyone
I am new to this group and fairly new to the world of aquaponics. For
several years I have been intriqued with the idea of starting a small scale
aquaculture system to supply my own family and maybe someday expand to a
more commercial scale. Time constraints of running my own woodworking
business and raising a family have always prevented me from doing any thing
more than dreaming. For the momment work is not demanding quite as much of
my time so I am upgrading my fantasy to the "maybe I could really do it"
stage.
My next problem is where. The building I have my shop in is a large
factory/warehouse with plenty of extra space. I have thought about setting
up some variety of closed system tanks in some of this space but the
required filtering system seems alittle daunting to a novice like myself.
For this reason the idea of a combination fish and hydroponics seems much
more sensible.(for other reasons also) Unfortunately the inside of a
warehouse is a hard place to put a greenhouse.
So now I come to my probably dumb question. In this warehouse is a dark and
chilly basement which no one uses. Has any one ever heard of growing
hydroponic mushrooms? If you could do it would they use the enough of the
right nutrients to work in an aquaponic system? Would there be different
bacteria present at the lower temperatures which mushrooms would require?
I will sit back and wait to hear from all you funcus lovers out there.
Marshall
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Subject: Re: Alternative horticulture/hydroponics
From: Adriana Gutierrez
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1999 12:33:01 -0500
Jorg,
I checked the web site www.finallynourished.com and got an
"unknown host" reply. Are we missing part of the URL?
Adriana
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Subject: Re: new member--dumb question
From: jilli and lars
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1999 09:45:07 -0800
>
hi marshall -
marshall wrote:
>
> For this reason the idea of a combination fish and hydroponics seems much
> more sensible.(for other reasons also) Unfortunately the inside of a
> warehouse is a hard place to put a greenhouse.
Why is your warehouse a diifficult place to put a greenhouse? It would depend
on the contsruction of the warehouse, but since many warehouses are so simply
built, you could remove some of the roof panels and replace them with
corrugated translucent fiberglass or clear polycarbonate panels. If you don't
have access to the roof (like maybe you're on the ground floor of a multi-story
warehouse), then do you have a southern facing wall with windows? I'm in a
warehouse space and though i am using supplemental lighting, that is mainly
because i only have westward window exposure. But Even _with_ these
restrictions, i was able to grow some healthy hydroponic tomatos this summer
_without_ any supplemental lights (and tomatos like a lot of light). I just
grew them right up against the window. Could you tell me what region of the
globe you are on?
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Subject: Re: Organic Aquatic Livestock Recommendations
From: Michael Strates
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 18:01:06 +1100 (EST)
On Tue, 2 Mar 1999, Sam Levy wrote:
SL> I've used a cold slurry (ice & water mixture) as a method of killing the
SL> fish by thermal shock and chilling them quickly before sorting and
SL> packing on ice. This was very effective for warm water fish such as
Hmm.. I remember (before I became more the down to earth, knock em on the
head style fish catcher) I used to use a small cylinder of freon to kill
the fish. You'd grab them in the water, position the jet on their eyes,
press for 1/2 a second and you'd have a dead fish.
--
e-mail: mstrates@croftj.net www: http://www.croftj.net/~mstrates
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Subject: Warnings about Iodine
From: Michael Strates
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 18:05:38 +1100 (EST)
Good Morning,
Whether you use elemental iodine [I2] or any of the tintures or iodine
salts, remember that the chemical you're dealing with sometimes even in
small concentrations could overload our thyroid glands and cause some
pretty nasty effects.
I used to frequently work with a chemical known as potassium iodide (KI),
mixing it with a high strength hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to generate
oxygen to run rocket engines (don't laugh.. its a popular hobby). I've
heard of people ingesting KI (or any other iodine salt) and eventually
having very bad thyroid problems, or even death.
Iodine in your drinking water is fine for short time disinfection, say for
under a month. After a month of consuming all of that (small amounts) of
iodine it is certaintly not going to do you any good. So please think
about this if/when you use iodine for disinfection, and remember the
possible damage you may be doing to groundwater supplies.
My $0.02 cents,
Michael.
--
e-mail: mstrates@croftj.net www: http://www.croftj.net/~mstrates
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Subject: re: new member-dumb question
From: Donald Longenecker
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1999 16:29:31 -0800
Your question is not dumb but this answer is: Since you need to combine
the wood with the water just be sure to use driftwood. just kidding of
course. topspud@voyager.net
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Subject: RE: new member--dumb question
From: "Couvia, Susan"
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 13:45:26 -0700
Marshall wrote...
So now I come to my probably dumb question. In this warehouse is a
dark and
chilly basement which no one uses. Has any one ever heard of growing
hydroponic mushrooms? If you could do it would they use the enough
of the
right nutrients to work in an aquaponic system? Would there be
different
bacteria present at the lower temperatures which mushrooms would
require?
Unfortunately, the answer is probably no. I have been growing mushrooms
indoors and outside for about 10 years now. Mushrooms require mycelia to
grow through a substrate. There is simply no way (and believe me I've tried
a dozen or so experiments to try to get this to work) to get the mycelia to
grow through a sterile nutritionless substrate.
Mushrooms would also require as much grow-lighting as many plants do - they
only require darkness to go through their "vegetative" stage - where they
are growing purely mycelia and no above-surface mushrooms. In order to form
pinheads and eventually mushrooms they need both light and a good airflow.
Mushrooms also require vastly different nutrition requirements from plants,
and I'm not sure that this is compatible with aquaponics, even if you could
find a reasonable substrate.
Sorry 8(
If you want to discuss growing mushrooms indoors, apart from your aquaponics
ventures, I'd be happy to do so off list.
Susan
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Subject: fishless system?
From: Michael Strates
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 21:20:19 +1100 (EST)
Howdy,
I was wondering how easy it would be to develop a fishless aquaponics
system using clover instead of the fishes to fix nitrogen gas in the air
into nitrate?
Any ideas on its suitability?
--
e-mail: mstrates@croftj.net www: http://www.croftj.net/~mstrate
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Subject: Mushrooms
From: Adriana Gutierrez
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1999 19:01:39 -0500
While I don't think mushrooms are suitable for aquaponics I do
think you can find some interesting options thre the web if you
do some searching. I believe you can buy plugs that have the
spores which can then be put into logs, oak I believe.
Adriana
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Subject: Re: fishless system?
From: "Ted Ground"
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 18:20:57 -0600
> I was wondering how easy it would be to develop a fishless aquaponics
> system using clover instead of the fishes to fix nitrogen gas in the air
> into nitrate?
>
> Any ideas on its suitability?
A very good suggestion, Michael.
Instead of fish you could easily have microscopic algae, such as some
unicellular green flagellates, growing in the aquaponics tank, fertilized
by organic materials, and have the whole thing recirculating through gravel
beds that your plant crops grow in. I pretty much had this situation for
several months at the outset of my latest system. The fingerlings really
did not contribute much to the fertility of the system at the outset, yet
the plants growing in the gravel did quite well.
Here's how I could envision it working. You could fertilize the tanks with
alfalfa meal, clover meal, fish emulsion, seaweed extract, or some
combination of all of them. 150 lbs of organic fertilizer, such as alfalfa
meal or cottonseed meal will begin the process of fertilizing a one acre
pond (which is 4 or 5 feet deep), so use that ratio to convert to whatever
volume your aquaponic tank might be. You could fertilize in smaller
amounts than the initial fertilizer spike on a weekly basis after that,
using water quality indicators and plant health as your guide.
Gotta go feed my fish. I like the sound of the fish when they feed- like
the roaring of many waters.
Ted.
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Subject: Mushrooms in the Greenhouse
From: "Ted Ground"
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 18:41:38 -0600
Susan Couvia,
Thanks for your mushroom input. I have been considering the idea of
culturing "gourmet" or culinary mushrooms underneath my aquaponic beds
inside the green house where it is semi-dark and warm (The beds have
plastic sheets that drape down to within about a foot of the ground, so it
is pretty dark under there).
A friend of mine once cultured the oyster mushroom in a pretty elaborate
indoor system. I collaborated with him a little bit in his effort, and now
I know just enough about it to get myself into trouble. I also have
checked out the Fungi Perfecti website, and I am very tempted. My friend
still has all the equipment that he used to grow the oyster mushrooms,
which he will lend me if decide to go into this. Having cultured microalgae
and operated microbiology labs, I know enough about sterile technique to
bring the mycellium up and running in on the grain, but I do not want to
worry about the labor or extra care involved in sterility or excessive
sanitation in the greenhouse as the fruiting bodies are developing, so I
would want to culture something fairly hardy- something that can withstand
some microbiological competion without dying out.
My question is, what kind of mushrooms would you recommend that I start out
with-
I really don't want to grow oyster mushrooms. At first I liked them, but
after a few months of eating them from my friends mushroom factory, I guess
I got tired of them. I ended up putting all the spent straw from his
culture operation onto my raised bed garden. I like the big Portabellos,
especially when they are sauted with red wine, butter, pepper, and
Worchestershire sauce. Yum. I guess I would like that giant mushroom that
Fungi Perfect has featured on their site. It is sitting on a lawn chair
like a critter from out of Star Wars- is that a Stropholarium? (sp?)
Thanks for any advice you can give me on this.
Ted
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Subject: Re: Chilling tilapia at harvest
From: "Sam Levy"
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1999 21:13:43 PST
Adrian,
Cooling the water temperature slows down a fish's metabolism and also
will slow down stress responses (slowed oxygen demand (metabolism) is
why fish are often cooled to lowered temperatures during live shipping).
(Salt is also added to freshwater shipping water in order to lower
stress by lowering or eliminating osmoregulatory on the fish)
I have little personal experience with off flavors and have mostly
encountered this phenomenon in reading aquaculture literature where it
was generally assigned to various substances present in the culture
water and removed by "purging" (holding the animals in fresh, clean
water--sometimes on lowered or no rations--for a period long enough for
it to metabolize or eliminate the off flavor).
I'm not familiar with off flavors resulting from not chilling the fish
before marketing and would be interested if you have information on this
subject.
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Subject: Re: Chilling tilapia at harvest
From: "Sam Levy"
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1999 21:30:20 PST
Emmet,
My experience in sale of cultured fish is limited to supplying fresh,
chilled, whole fish to both a local and an export market. Logistics
resulted in 12 - 36 hr time frame from the time the fish were removed
from the water until they reached point of sale.
In this context, "shelf life" refers to maintaining maximum "freshness"
for maximum time.
On answering you it occurs to me that someone marketing under other
conditions (servicing live markets for example) would have different
considerations on meeting the same goal of providing a fresh,
attractive, quality product.
Sam
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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