Ministry Opportunity Filled!!!!

This position for 2015 has been committed to by a couple from Boise, Id. who attend the Vineyard Church. They have been involved in the I-61 program since its inception and will be a great couple to help us out this year. 

Thank you to those who have shown an interest. More opportunities will come in the future. One such opportunity is a long term partner couple or individual who could commit to an annual minimum 6 month role at Nica Impact. Preferrably during the summer months (+/- April - Sept). A perfect opportunity for a retired couple or full time mission couple.

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If you are a person who has wanted to try missions for more than just a week or two, Nica Impact may have a volunteer ministry opportunity available for you. This opportunity is open for a person or couple and is located in Jinotepe, Nicaragua. The purpose is to provide support while the Effingers are visiting family in the US.

The job description is relatively simple. The volunteer would:
1) Assist setting up a weekly Skype call on Monday afternoons.
2) Manage the distribution of petty cash and track funds disbursement.
3) Facilitate some monthly administrative responsibilities.
4) Possibly host a few small day visits from I-61 ministries.
5) Assist in basic maintenance of the ministry greenhouse.
6) Communicate with the Effingers as needed via Skype or Vonage.

The approved candidate would be able to stay at the Effingers home and would not have to pay rent. The opportunity would provide plenty of time to travel around Nicaragua, either via the Effingers vehicle, a local private taxi, or the local transportation system.

Preferred candidates are people who have been to Nica Impact or know the Effingers from a previous trip to Nicaragua, people who have been through the I-61 program or stayed at the Isaiah House in Managua, or people who have visited Arms of Love Childrens home during the years the Effingers volunteered there. If you are not sure you would qualify, please do not hesitate to ask.

Spanish language skills are not a requirement, yet a basic level of Spanish would be helpful for getting around and such.

The range of time needed is from +/- September 26th until November 21st. A longer stay is acceptable.

If you are interested in investigating this opportunity, please contact Doug Effinger at dugeffinger@yahoo.com

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The Plant

The Plant

The other day I visited The Plant in Chicago. It was great to see! There was tons of innovative ideas and a very cool guided tour. The reason I went was to see the aquaponics but it turned out to be much more than that. The Plant serves as a small business incubator. I was knew to the term, but it allows new business to come in with lower start up costs. Each business is a cog in The Plants giant wheel. Everything going on in The Plant works in conjunction with each other. Spent brewers grain gets used for mushroom substrate, CO2 from the Kombucha Tea process gets pumped into the aquaponic rooms to enrich the plants air. These are just two of the many symbiotic relationships the different business have with each other.

The Plant has plans to install an anaerobic digester. This technology will provide the building with Bio Gas. The Bio Gas will provide The Plant with all its electricity and be able to sell some back to the power company at night! It works like a mechanical stomach. The right blend of fatty, oily matter and solid, starchy matter (which The Plant is paid to remove) is combined, and constant slow rotation starts a fermentation process that creates Bio Gas. When the "stomachs" contents are done digesting there are two by-products. The liquid byproduct is sold to farmers as an organic nitrogen fertilizer. The solid byproduct is used as a compost. The property is just over two acres so most of the compost will also be sold.  

Although there is still a little ways to go with construction around the HUGE building, the aquaponics system in the basement is flourishing! The main food production bed and fish tanks can produce a 1/4 ton of veggies and 100 lbs of fish a month!

The main grow bed that produces a 1/4 ton of mixed
greens. Seed to harvest in 30-45ish days.

This is their LED grow bed. They are growing Curly Kale.
Only purple / blue LEDs are used to not waste valuable electricity
on light spectrums the plants do not use. Curly Kale is the
most nutrient leafy greens. Very efficient power to nutrition ratio.  

Producing 100 lbs of fish each month cannot be easy, but this system makes it look like people have been doing it for decades. They have the fish in raised IBC containers so the gravity pumps the water into the grow beds. 

One of many IBC containers used by The Plant. These are
easy to recycle for aquaponic needs. 

Settling tank and minimal mechanical filtration.
Behind, you can see the main grow bed. 

Aquaponic plumbing

                 

Myself, Felix Vogele, at The Plant

I was very impressed with The Plants aquaponics systems. The whole process is about putting as little in as possible and getting as much as possible out. If all goes to plan, I can foresee many replica "plants" in the future.

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Nitrogen Cycle and Moving Bed Filter

Nitrogen Cycle

Nitrogen Cycle

One of the most important concepts in aquaponics is the nitrogen cycle. Without a full understanding of it, you will not know "how" aquaponics actually works. But if you take a little bit of time to think about it, its not too hard. 

The fish produce waste, and there is usually some food floating around that does not get eaten. These two when let to sit in an aquarium, start to break up, and this creates ammonia. This is the first step in the nitrogen cycle. While ammonia starts the cycle, it is very dangerous and deadly to fish if the ppm (parts per million) gets too high.

The nitrogen cycle has two naturally occurring bacteria that do most of the work. The first bacteria to aid in the nitrogen cycle is nitrosomonas. This bacteria converts ammonia into nitrites. Fish can tolerate nitrites more than they can ammonia, but it can still be toxic to them. 

Nitrospira is the secnond naturally occurring bacteria that aids the nitrogen cycle. Nitrospira consumes the nitrite produced by nitrosomonas and produces nitrates as a byproduct. Nitrates are much safer for fish than either ammonia or nitrites. However if there is nowhere for the nitrates to go and they are not being consumed, it can kill your fish.

In a home aquarium, the nitrates are removed by doing water changes, or if there are plants in the aquarium, they will consume the nitrates, which is essentially plant food. 

In aquaponics, we not only grow veggies, fruits, and fish, we also cultivate these bacteria. Without nitrosomona and nitrospira, aquaponics would not work the way it does. We use their by-products to feed our plants so we do not need to add fertilizers. 

So the key to aquaponics is producing enough nitrates for your plants to grow, and having enough plants to consume the nitrates. While reading up on different filters for my aquarium (before I converted to aquaponics), I came across moving bed filters. 

Moving Bed Filter

A moving bed filter in short is a nitrate factory. It uses small filter media that have extreme amounts of surface area to catch all the bacteria that flow through the filter. The idea is very similar to the way aquaponics works. The filter media cultivate the same naturally occurring bacteria, nitrosomonas and nirospira. Theses filter the water like a mini nitrogen cycle. The filter media is designed to work best when they are moving around in the water, hence its name. 

Tilapia Approved! 

Moving bed filters use nontraditional filter media. Many products can be used but through my research I found that Hel-X. Hel-x has 40% more surface area than its competitors and comes in an array of sizes.  

Close up of Hel-X filter media.
The surface area on these are impressive!

Usually aquaponic systems do not have filters (well Deep Water Culture does but...), however I believe adding this type of filter would be a huge benefit to aquaponic systems.

When I met Alex Blackwell, I brought with me a bag of Hel-X media. The idea was to build a moving bed filter for his system. After a day or two of collaboration and brainstorming, we got the idea of using a moving bed filter as a prefilter for his pump. 

Alexs pump is in the fish tank and the mechanical filter it came with got clogged weekly with all the fish waste. This slowed the flow rate and turned the water a murky brown color, not the best. We designed and added the moving bed filter to the pump. The pump pulls the water through the moving bed filter and stirs up the Hel-X. It works amazingly!

The filter has cleaned the water and increased the flow rate.
Once the bacteria is fully established, it will provide filtration
and nitrates for the plants.

The moving bed filter in the Blackwell system cleaned up the water and increased flow rate. Once the bacteria has a chance to colonize the Hel-X the filtration will consume the ammonia and decrease ammonia spikes. Plus once it is established, it will be pumping extra nitrates into the grow bed each time the pump runs, which is 15 minutes of each hour.

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