Tag Archive: aquaponics


Strangeness in Paradise

Filed Under: Environment, alternative power, aquaponics
Sep.16, 2010

Here in Largo, Florida, it is finally beginning to feel like fall.

Tonight is a nearly perfect night, with temperatures well below our recent furnace-like heat, with low humidity and a lovely breeze, enough to set off the large wind chimes in the back yard. I just took Sprinkles out for a walk, chatted briefly with some neighbors (I’m not the only night owl on the block!), and came back in to write.

This past Sunday my sister Carol died following a long and exhausting illness. Although I was sorry to see her go, and I know I will miss her always, I was at the same time glad to know that she is at peace. We had a lovely conversation on August 20th, three days before she wound up back in ICU, and so I know that she was not only okay with what was happening, but very much at peace with the entire process. At the time, she told me that she was choosing to live, and for the first time asked me to send her energy; but I got the feeling the Monday before she died that she had changed her mind, which became more pronounced as the week wore on. I continued sending her energy as requested, and praying for her highest and best good, but when she died I was not surprised.

Still, it is surreal, and I keep wanting to pick up the phone to get her take on things.

One of the things we discussed in that final conversation was my determination to set up a recurring online income of multiple streams from multiple sources. She was very much in favor of what I am doing, and said that she not only supported it, but that she had seen me in that role for some time.

So in honor of my sister, Carol, whose favorite number was four, I am including links to four things I believe in:

The first is a book on how to set up a simple aquaponics raft-type system, including complete instructions, which will enable the average person to grow fish and vegetables in a completely organic system with a minimum of expense and space devoted to the task. I am a strong believer in aquaponics as a way to provide healthy food that you know is not chemically contaminated or genetically modified because you are in complete control of what goes into the system. Aquaponics has an additional benefit in that it uses approximately 10% of the water used in traditional soil-based growing systems, and is therefore a boon to arid areas, such as the desert southwest.

You have a choice whether to grow food fish, such as tilapia or bass, or ornamental fish such as goldfish or carp. Regardless of the type of fish you choose to raise, it doesn’t take a lot of fish to raise a LOT of vegetables, and particularly with tilapia, which are largely vegetarian, a high percentage of their feed can be vegetable scraps and/or duckweed, which will cut down substantially on the amount of fish food needed to raise them. One caution on growing duckweed: make certain that you have screening on your intake tubes, as I have heard of horror stories of duckweed multiplying unchecked inside filter systems, and rendering them useless in short order in hot weather. I would grow the duckweed in a separate system, such as a kiddie pool, which could also provide wonderful habitat for tadpoles, though you will want to include a mosquito dunk to prevent mosquitoes breeding in your duckweed pond. Speaking for myself, I would also include a worm bed in the system, both to take care of kitchen scraps and to provide an additional protein source for the fish. Many people growing food in aquaponics systems successfully grow all the food needed for their fish.

Here is the link:

Ultimate Aquaponics Book

The second reference I would like to offer is on electricity, specifically on how to make electricity for your home economically, and how to maximize your power usage and storage to the point where you can successfully get off the grid, or sell power back to the power company if that is your choice. This is a great book with a lot of useful information, much of which is as useful for city dwellers as it is for those living in more rural settings, which are more often associated with “off the grid” living.

Electricity – Make It, Don’t Buy It

The third reference goes along with the second, and although I have not yet purchased this one, I intend to in the near future. This book is on how to easily cut back your electric usage using some basic and inexpensive parts from any good hardware store. Since the author claims that you can drastically cut your energy usage, perhaps even by enough to sell power back to the grid, it again promises to be useful no matter where you live.

How To Reduce Your Electric Bill (For Almost No Money)

Finally, I am including a link to Christopher Westra’s program Royalties University, which is a program specifically written on setting up a recurring online income, and which is a large part of the information I am using to set up my blogs and my online businesses. This is a monthly subscription, but it is very reasonable at $19.00 per month, and he not only includes a lot of excellent information each month, but specific steps to take, and a lot of bonuses and extras on top of the monthly lessons. If you would like to make your living online, and are tired of the hype of get rich schemes that make money for no one but their creators, then I believe you will agree the program to be money well spent.

Plus he promises a bonus at the end of the course which will be worth all the money spent up to that point.

Royalties University

Thanks for your time and best of luck in reaching and exceeding your goals.

Peace,
Cori

This post was originally published on my online business blog, www.brokenkazoo.com.

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Permaculture and Aquaponics

Filed Under: Edible plants, aquaponics
Apr.14, 2010

Driving into Key West at sunset

Driving into Key West at sunset

I should go ahead and mention that one of my primary goals in beginning my aquaponics venture is to include permaculture into the mix.

My ultimate goal is to take the full-boat permaculture course from www.permaculturevisions.com, in Australia, but in the meantime, one of my local Tampa Permaculture groups recently posted the info that iTunes has a 36-part lecture series on permaculture from North Carolina State University, and all you need to do is to search for HS432 on iTunes.  I did, and came up with all 36 lectures, which I promptly downloaded.  So I owe a big thank you to North Carolina State University, and since I am leaning toward moving to North Carolina or thereabouts, that isn’t a bad thing.

The thing I love most about permaculture is that it embodies my most cherished belief, which I’ve had since I was seventeen, and that is that everyone, no matter where you live, no matter your circumstance, can provide fresh, naturally grown food for him- or herself, with a little time, ingenuity and effort.  I fully believe, and it has now been proven many times over, that the average city dweller can grow more than enough food for a family of four or more, naturally, without potentially harmful chemicals, and do it beautifully, while creating a lovely and meditative space which is conducive and nurturing to the wildlife that frequents it.

Permaculture also lends itself to forest gardening, to which I was first introduced years ago through reading about indigenous cultures in South America and Africa, and more recently through an article in The Mother Earth News.  In forest gardening, food-bearing trees, shrubs and ground covers are grown together in a living tapestry, providing not only food for the body but for the spirit as well.   It is what I hope to accomplish in my own garden, no matter where it may turn out to be.

Tonight I was enjoying what little fire I could in our back yard, since we are mostly out of wood to burn, while noticing our resident opossum scurrying along the fence line toward the back, and then a bit later, back toward the front, all while Sprinkles was sleeping on the back porch.  So, while Sprinkles occasionally may warn us against the neighbors walking in their own yards or a stray squirrel wandering onto our place, the opossum is now an accepted part of the landscape, and a part of our extended family.   He was a welcome sight.

I have been missing our raccoons.  We used to see raccoons on a regular basis, and Bette next door once remarked that “they” had made a recent sweep, and had rounded up all of the raccoons except for two juveniles, who were still on our block.  She and I made it a point to leave all household scraps for the raccoons, well away from the house in my case, and on her front porch.

One evening I had a meeting, and my then-husband Michael, having nothing else he would rather do, came down to the shop to work on some projects.  Upon entering through the back door, he bent down to pet our cat, Turbo the Wonder kitty, and she scurried away before he turned on the light.  Upon entering the next room, here was Turbo, getting up and stretching from a nap.

So then who did he just try to pet in the next room?

He shined a light under his work bench, spotting two half grown raccoons, about the size and coloration of Turbo.

There were two of them and one of her.

Turbo was a smart cat.

The raccoons had the run of the place.

Michael shooed them out, blocked the kitty door, and that was pretty much the end of it.   We saw them around for a couple of years more, but then they too disappeared,  and I miss them.

Turbo died in 2005, a year to the day before our Great Flood, and she is buried in the back yard near the giant bamboo.  In just over a year we also lost our cats Bonnie and Clydesdale, and in the saddest loss we lost Michael’s 2 1/2-year-old cat, Siesta, who died of kidney disease, and who I got for Michael following Turbo’s death.  I miss them all as well.

I still have Siesta’s big brother and littermate, Bear, who is my sweetheart.  He and Sprinkles are buddies.  ;-)

Bear

Bear

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Birthdays, New Beginnings, and Rebuilding Haiti with Aquaponics

Filed Under: Edible plants, Uncategorized, aquaponics
Apr.07, 2010

Today is Marek’s birthday (actually April 6th) and, for this and so many more reasons, we have so much for which to be thankful.  It is a beautiful spring day, the grapefruit trees and blueberries are blooming and fragrant, my three new blueberry bushes have just arrived, the elderberry bush is beginning to bloom, our other bushes and trees are starting to leaf out, and our frigid winter seems finally to have come to a close.

Naturally, this being Florida, it is already too hot.  ;-)

Yesterday we took Sprinkles to Dog Beach at Fort de Soto State Park, which unlike many (or most) dog parks is located on a particularly pretty section of beach, and apparently everyone else in Pinellas County had a similar idea as we have never seen so many dogs there at one time.  Still, with the exception of one leashed German shepherd, the dogs were friendly and well-behaved, and everyone had a great time.  Even better, Sprinkles actually listened when I called him back from the bushes, so for the first time ever we left Dog Beach without a dog full of stickers – hooray!!!

Sprinkles Ft DeSoto

Sprinkles Ft DeSoto

Our winter this year was particularly harsh, and we lost several of our smallest tilapia when we had two nights of freezes and, despite the aquarium heaters, the water temperature in their aquarium reached a chilly 46 degrees.  Most survived, however, and we now have fifteen very healthy and active blue tilapia, many of which are now large enough to breed.  Hopefully I will have their small aquaponic system set up within the next couple of weeks.

We lost a number of plants, as well, though most are once again showing signs of life.  All of our smaller ficus trees bit the bullet, but our huge ficus tree in front survived, albeit severely diminished; it lost almost all of its leaves following the freeze, and still has only a spattering of leaves, whereas it is usually densely covered.  No matter – the two species roses, which voluntarily rooted in their pots beneath the tree, are blooming their heads off, as never in all the years they have been there have they received this much sun.  So, though the yard still looks a mess, and there is a lot of post-winter cleanup left to do, we came through the winter very well overall.

Aquaponics is proving helpful in other recoveries . . . in Haiti and in Turkey, following the devastating earthquakes, different volunteer groups are building simple aquaponics systems to help enable local villagers to be food self-sufficient once again, and since plants and fish grow so quickly with the use of aquaponics, the effect should be long-lasting, and help a great many people over time.  Both Morning Star Fishermen and our local Tampa Bay permaculture group sent volunteers to Haiti to aid in the recovery, and other groups were already there when the earthquakes occurred.

As many have no doubt heard, former president Bill Clinton recently spoke of his regret that policies initiated during his presidency contributed to the demise of Haiti’s rice farmers’ ability to compete, when foreign (mostly American) agricultural firms flooded the country with rice priced far lower than they could reasonably produce.  As Ruth Messinger said in her excellent article, it is imperative that any aid to Haiti include financial aid for Haiti’s farmers, to enable them to once again feed themselves and their nation.

Anything less is nothing more than a band-aid.

Sprinkles Ft DeSoto and Marek

Sprinkles Ft DeSoto and Marek

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Greetings and Salutations!

Filed Under: aquaponics
Dec.18, 2009

Greetings and Salutations, and welcome to the Keyspoet blog page!

My goal with this blog is to discuss a wide variety of subjects which interest me, most of which have to do with getting off the grid, growing organic foods for my own use and that of my pets, and making more sustainable choices overall.

Aquaponics at Home

To that end, I will begin by discussing the relatively new field of aquaponics, which is the combination of aquaculture (growing fish and marine invertebrates) and hydroponics (growing vegetables with no soil).   Aquaponics is, in effect, the marriage of Aquaculture and Hydroponics into one linked system.

In traditional aquaculture, a large part of the expenditure comes from buying feed for the fish, chemicals to treat the water, and often complex filtration systems, in addition to the requisite water pumps.  In traditional hydroponics, soluble plant foods, chemicals and micronutrients can be enormously expensive as well, and complex pumping systems are employed. There are also complex and expensive lighting, tanks and/or grow beds to consider in both systems.

In aquaponics, the two efforts are combined, with the result that both fish and plants are healthier and grow more quickly.  One pump system serves both purposes, the growing plants provide the filtration to keep the water clean for the fish, and the fish waste provides the nutrients for the bacteria to break down into a form which the plants can utilize.  Chemicals are generally not needed, and since aquaponics employs a closed-loop system, it can be done 100% organically with relative ease.

Luckily, I am in the right place at the right time, as a wonderful series of aquaponics systems is maintained for educational purposes by Morning Star Fishermen, Inc. in San Antonio, Florida, about an hour north of my home.  This is a nonprofit organization providing education to those who would grow their own organic fish and vegetables at home or commercially, and they have demonstration systems which range from single family size up to and including a commercial aquaponics system with multiple concrete tanks.  The couple who started the organization, Hans and Sigrid Geissler, originally started in Largo, Florida, literally down the street from where I live.  They have since moved the entire operation onto a ten acre parcel in San Antonio, Florida, near Dade City, which used to house a tropical fish farm in a series of large greenhouses – the perfect place in which to house their demonstration aquaponics systems.  They have started educational programs in Haiti and Jamaica, and are well underway with another in Nicaragua.  They also bring in villagers and missionaries from around the world to teach them how to set up their own aquaponics systems to feed their families and villages.

Happily, as an inveterate gardener, I had a lot of plants to share with them when they needed them quickly for an upcoming class, and they were kind enough to give me a couple of dozen blue tilapia fingerlings in return for my help.  Although they are not too happy with our current VERY cold weather, they have been growing quickly, and let me know every time I come near their tank that it is time to feed them – even if they have been fed five minutes earlier.  ;-)   Although most of the tilapia grown at Morning Star Fishermen are hybrids, blue tilapia are the only tilapia it is legal to possess in Florida without a special permit, and as blue tilapia are also the most cold hardy and among the best tasting, that works for me.

There is a compact aquaponics system marketed by Aquaponics USA, which I will probably not purchase myself as I am a bit of a do-it-yourselfer, but which would be an excellent starting point for an individual or small family without the time or resources to do the requisite research to set up their own system.  The system appears to be very well designed, and although it is a bit expensive, I see no reason why it would not work for most applications, either indoors or outdoors.  I am including a banner for your convenience, which, should you buy a system, will pay me a small commission, helping me keep this blog alive and able to continue to research my own systems.

That is all for now – stay tuned for a lot more information to come!

Aquaponics

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