May 2014 Update

I've still got five trout in the tank.  I threw a bunch of wildflower seeds in one bed, just to see what happens.  The plants have grown, but no flowers, probably due to the cold water temps.  Now that it's starting to warm up, I expect the cilantro to grow a lot more quickly, and maybe I will get some flowers.  Because we don't have A/C and we heat mostly with a wood stove, the temperatures inside the house aren't as constant as they would be with central hear and air, so the water temperature fluctuates with the seasons.

Instead of typing a bunch of stuff, this time I decided to just narrate the video.  Not sure if anyone can understand my mumbling over the sound of the water draining...

UPDATE:  After I uploaded this, I watched it and realized you probably can't hear anything I say, so here's a rough transcript:

Me: "Blah blah fish blah blah....I still have five fish....one is a lot bigger than the other.  Let's feed them.  They love dried meal worms....blah blah blah....
Here are the plant beds."
Cat in the backgroud: "meow."
Me: "In the left plant bed, I planted a bunch of wildflower seeds.  They haven't produced any flowers yet, probably because the water is too cold.  Oh, that looks like some little flowers coming in.  In the right plant bed, I have some basil and cilantro.  And here is Armando, the fish keeper."

Fish Fetching Fail 2013

I took a half day off yesterday to go to Boulder to get my 50 new baby trout.  Had the trash can cinched down tightly.  Had my inverter, air pump, and duct tape.

It was so exciting seeing the 50 baby fish swimming around in their little bucket before we headed out.  I couldn't wait to get home and get some pictures...they're just so cute!

After a 2+ hour drive from Boulder, at least half of which was spent in a pretty major rain storm (yay, rain!  boo, low visibility), I ran in the house to grab my cameras.  When I removed the lid, my heart sank....all but five or six of my new babies were lying at the bottom of the trash can, not moving.  :-(

I started scooping them out so I could move them to the big tank to see if any could be revived.  After several minutes, out of 50 fish, only ten survived.  Worse than the dumped-out-in-the-bed-of-a-hot-truck-in-the-scorching-sun episode of last year!  The only thing I can think of is that when I put the air tubes into the trash can for transportation, I didn't put the air rocks on them because they were kind of gummy and I was afraid they would get less air that way.  Instead, the rocks weren't there to weigh them down, so I think the tubes popped up to the top of the water and blew out into the air instead of into the water.  So sad seeing all those cute little rainbows dead.  :-(

One of the babies - This is how big Fatty McFish was when I got her last year.

Zipped up bag of fish failure - I read that if you fry them up crisp enough, it's easier to get the tiny bones out.
Worth a shot.  Or I guess I could boil them for fish stock - yum!  :-{

Today, on the way home from work, I decided to cheer myself up, so I stopped at PetSmart and bought three small koi fish to put in the tank with the trout.  Koi can survive cold (even freezing) water, so I figured why not add some color to my sad little tank of survivors.

As soon as I added them to the tank, the koi swam right over to the group of trout.  The trout were like, "whuuuuttt???" and swam away.  But within a few minutes, they were all hanging out together like a nice blended family.  Don't ask me how I am going to "harvest" one set of fish and keep the others.  Or how I will explain the sudden disappearance to my Koi babies.  One day at a time...

Trout and Koi Buddies

I tried to get some video of the new fish.  Sorry for the awful cinematography - trying to hold the aquarium light just right, while ducking under the grow beds and holding the camera steady.  Hopefully no one gets sea sick from watching this.

The End of the Rainbow - The Demise of Fatty McFish

FISH
In two days, I will be making the trip to Liley Fisheries in Boulder to get a new batch of fish.  Fatty McFish is  (was) a big fish in a small tank, so it was time to make room for the tank's future occupants.

For me (and probably most people, as evidenced by this post), this is the least enjoyable part of aquaponics - "harvesting" the fish - but, it must be done.  I read a bunch of opinions on the most humane way to kill a fish.  I went with two ideas -
1 - put the fish in a bucket of ice water so its circulation will slow down
2 - smack it in the head with a hammer

Well....let's just say that I won't be doing the smack in the head with a hammer.  It didn't work after one smack...or two...or...Anyway, I think you get the picture.  Obviously, I didn't smack hard enough, but that fish had a tough head.  I ended up taking a sharp knife and sawing off the head.  Wish it had been faster.  Sorry, Fatty.  :-(

Next time I will probably use more ice in the ice water.  Or maybe try the method mentioned in the forum linked above and use clove oil in the water to anesthetize the fish.

At any rate, Fatty's suffering is over and he will be dinner this evening.  He was pretty big.  I should have gotten a tape measure, but I was trying to finish it quickly, so we'll just have to take a guess at his length...looks like over 15 inches.  Actually, it was a "she," but we got used to calling it "him."

Fatty McFish

Here's a short video of him swimming in his tank last night.  BTW, the noise in the background is my dog drinking water.  He's crazy like that.

PLANTS

Unidentified Growing Object - 

Last year, my husband planted a bunch of acorns to see if he could grow some oak trees.  The planters were sitting above my grow beds.  This spring, once it finally stopped snowing and the temperatures got above freezing, a strange woody plant sprouted in one of my grow beds.  Once the leaves got big enough to be identifiable, I realized one of the acorns must have fallen into the bed.  There is now an oak tree growing with my strawberries and cilantro.

The Mighty Oak

Coconut Husk (Coir) Planting Material

All of my plants in the grow beds end up with very shallow, weak roots.  My husband bought me some coir, made of coconut husks, to see if I can get a stronger root system.  Coir is being used in many places instead of peat moss.  When I soaked the blocks of coir, as instructed, I was a little worried because it just looked like a bunch of potting soil ending up in the water.  However, I put about an inch of the stuff in a section of one of my grow beds, and it seemed to hold together pretty well.  I planted a few basil and cilantro plants...and I think something else, but I can't remember what.  We'll see if this allows them to establish better than starting out directly in the gravel.

Coir - 23 June

Sprouts in Coir - 29 June

That's it for now.  I will post some pictures of the new batch of fish soon.  Hopefully this trip will be a little less...eventful than the last!

Strawberries in December

Last winter, I didn't get any plants because there was a big gap in the dog door that allowed sub-zero winds to blow into the room.  I don't know how cold it got, but it was cold enough that nothing grew.

We replaced the dog door this year, and, after a mostly unproductive summer (too hot), I'm actually getting strawberries!  I bought a cheap thermometer that records high/low temperatures over a 24-hour period.  So far, even with outside temperatures approaching zero, the room temperature has only gone as low as 48 degrees Fahrenheit.

I've only got a few strawberries and a couple of basil plants.  In November, I had a cantaloupe plant that actually flowered, but then it wilted.  Because I've only got one fish left, I turned off the water flow to the bed that the cantaloupe was growing in.

Aquaponic Strawberries - December 2012

Aquaponic Basil

My lone trout is getting pretty big.  I haven't decided what to name him.  "Silvery 1" doesn't sound right.  He's kind of fat, so I thought about "Fatty," but I decided that was a bad idea, since the grow lights in my window already have my neighbors suspicious.  Maybe "Big Fat Grandpa Fish."  The bigger he gets, the harder it is for me to think about...harvesting...him.  I'll probably get a new batch of little trout in the spring.  I hope he doesn't become Big Fat Bully Fish.  

I tried to take some video of him, but he just sat there...until I brought out the still camera and the flash freaked him out and he wouldn't sit still.  Crazy fish.  

Big Fat Grandpa Fish

Last Fish Standing

OK, I knew this could happen, and at one point, I even considered buying a backup power supply, but since we haven't had a power outage last more than an hour in the last four years, I never got around to it.
Well, that's what I get for ignoring Murphy's Law.  Today, during an electrical storm, the transformer in front of our house went out.  The power company repsonded quickly, but they "didn't have a transformer that big on the truck," so they had to go back to the plant in town to get another transformer.  Anyway, three hours later, our power was back on and I was pretty happy.  I think our utility company is awesome...even during blizzards, I haven't been without power for more than a couple of hours in the fifteen years I've lived here.  Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking about my poor fishies.  :-(

According to the guy I bought the fish from, cold-water fish such as trout are very sensitive to lack of oxygen/circulation, and need a constant source of air.  He told me that even a couple of hours is too long for them to go without some kind of air pump or circulation, and I guess he was right.

When my husband went downstairs to feed the dogs, all fish were belly up.  One guy was still breathing, so we left him in the tank, but the rest will be dinner later this week.  Within about 20 minutes, Silvery One was right side up and swimming around in the tank.

Silvery One

Last Fish Standing

So, I guess the other seven fish will be dinner later this week.  BTW, if you're thinking that it's unsafe to eat these fish, consider the fact that lots of people will drive at least two hours to go fishing, so if they catch a bunch of fish, drive home, and eat them several hours later, it's really no different.  As long as we know that they died from oxygen deprivation, which is what most caught fish die from, they're safe to eat.  It would be different if they all died from some mysterious leprosy-like fish disease.  Just thought I'd mention that, since more than one person has voiced concern over my questionable fish-eating practices.  :-)

Friday Night Fish Fry

Summer Update - Mutant Plants!

I've been really lazy about posting to this blog, so here's a quick update.

Fish - Poor fishes, you have such a bad fishy mommy...
As the weather got warmer, I failed to add water to the tank.  One day, the timing of the two grow beds filling with water, but not enough to trigger the syphon, aligned like a bad horoscope (does that even make sense?) and sucked up almost all of the water in the fish tank.  The fish were left in about four inches of dirty water, and seven of them died.  :-(
My son had been down there about two hours earlier and everything was fine.  Since the fish weren't stiff from rigor mortis, I figured they were still safe enough to eat, so I ate them...and they were good!  Then, a few days ago, there was another floater, so I ate him, too.  I think I've still got six or seven live fish.  They're probably about 10 inches long now.

Plants - In an attempt to reach real sunlight, my plants have been growing freakishly large leaves and stalks.  I can't find the picture, but one of my broccoli plants, which languished all winter, and grew a skinny little stalk about the size of a thin piece of yarn, suddenly took off and grew giant leaves and a stalk about the size of my thumb.  The weird thing is that the bottom of the plant was still the size of a piece of yarn, and was trying to support the giant thumb stalk.  I decided to take everything out and stick with lettuce and other leafy greens.  I transplanted the broccoli and a few strawberry plants in the garden outside.  I didn't expect them to do very well, and my low expectations were met the next day when a long heat wave hit and withered the plants that were used to 70 degree temperatures.  The broccoli plant is still alive, but the strawberries all withered and died.
One of the strawberry plants I pulled had some blossoms, which I didn't notice until I had already pulled them (actually, my husband noticed them and told me I should put them back in the indoor grow beds).  I replanted it indoors, expecting it to die from shock, but it continued to grow and has produced several berries.  One thing to note is that aquaponic experts recommend against planting flowering plants.  These strawberry plants were in the bed for about six months, so I didn't expect them to flower.  They were growing mutant-sized leaves, so I figured they would never have the energy to flower.  I would still go with the experts' recommendations not to plant flowering plants, but it was kind of cool to get some actual fruit from these plants.  I tasted one the other day, and it was kind of bland tasting.  Even more bland than a supermarket strawberry.  I guess strawberries love to grow in real sunshine.  Don't we all?

Mutant Strawberries - The smaller berries in this picture are each about an inch long.  Note the gigantic leaf - some of the leaves are larger than the palm of my hand.  Kind of freaky for a strawberry plant.

Speaking of real sunshine, I did add grow lights a few months ago, trying to get a little more growth during the winter months.  Apparently, one of my neighbors saw the lights and told her daughter she thinks we're growing...uh....an illicit plant which I shall not name because I don't want my blog to come up in the "wrong" kinds of google searches.  Anyway, I am currently under investigation for a clearance upgrade for my job, so I hope the investigator doesn't choose that particular neighbor to interview.  LOL  Of course, if she does, she is more than welcome to come over and see that all I have are legal, edible leafy greens and a mutant strawberry plant!  :-)

Daddies and Daughters...and Why I Love Trout

During the little crisis I described in my previous post, while I was scrambling around the bed of the truck, trying to grab the slimy, floppy fish, I noticed their beautiful markings. It made me think about how I have always had a fascination with trout. It's nice to catch a catfish, bass, or whatever, but I love catching and eating trout! Fresh trout fried in butter....yummmm.

I started to reflect on why I always have a specific craving for trout fried in butter, and I thought of my first memory of eating trout prepared this way...

One Friday evening, when I was about seven, my dad was in the living room, setting up his tackle box. I asked him where he was going, and he said he was going to the Kern River to go fishing. Of course, being seven, my automatic reply (which would have been the same whether he was going to store, going to the park, or going to the dump), was, "Can I go?????!!!!" I assumed the answer would be no, but it was my seven-year-old duty to ask. He looked at me and said, "Get your fishing pole and sleeping bag. I'm leaving at 4 in the morning, so you'd better be ready." After the shock wore off, I ran out to the garage and got my fishing pole and sleeping bag. The next morning, we left bright and early (actually, I guess it was dark and early) at 4am, with two fishing poles, two sleeping bags, a tackle box, a skillet, and an ice chest with beer, RC cola, and a stick of butter.

I don't actually remember the next part, but my dad has told it so many times, it seems like I remember it. The first day we were there, we each caught our limit pretty early (the limit was ten fish each). There were a couple of young guys camping next to us, and my dad started talking to them. They hadn't caught anything all day (or maybe they had only caught one fish each, I don't remember). They saw the long string of fish my dad was cleaning and asked how many days we had been there. He told them that we had just gotten there that morning, and we had each caught our limits by lunch time. They looked at him and said, "The little girl, too???" He said, "Yep!" Then he invited them to eat with us, since there was no way the two of us could eat twenty fish. He fried up the fish in butter, and it was one of the best meals of my life! I have never been able to duplicate the flavor of that fresh trout fried in butter at a campground at the Kern River....or, at least my memory of it.  Actually, it probably wasn't butter, it was probably Blue Bonnet margarine.  :-)

But I don't think the butter was the secret ingredient. I think the secret ingredient was the special attention I received by spending the entire weekend with just my dad, and the pride I heard in his voice when he told those guys that his little girl caught her limit that day. I do still remember sleeping in the back of the truck, looking up at the stars and listening to the sound of the river that night.

That is one of my best memories of growing up. A year or two later, my dad took my younger sister deep-sea fishing. I don't want to discount all of the time and energy my mom put into raising us, and the special times we've had with her. But I think for a little girl to spend a weekend, a day, or even an afternoon with just her dad...it's a really great experience and I think it does a lot for her self esteem. So, for any of you dads who have little girls, I encourage you to find some time to spend alone with your daughter, doing something that is special to the two of you. I'm sure it will be a memory that she will always cherish.

Hmmm...I wonder if my sister has a special love of barracuda???  ;-)

There are no pictures of that trip (a camera was not in the list of necessities on that trip), but here are some fish-related pictures from my childhood.

I was about three here - "helping" my dad clean his fish

My mom, my sister and me in the mountains near Bishop, CA

Fishing with my sister

This one's not really from my childhood, but I like the picture.

My helper "cleaning" the brown trout I caught on the Arkansas River