So Saturday rolls around I had no idea what to do with myself on a half day of work. Thiago mentioned that after lunch he was going out to our aquaculture cage to feed the cobia.
Let me briefly describe the aquaculture cage: imagine an underwater mesh net in the shape of two cones joined at the wide bases to one another. This netting is held in place by a central spire that is anchored to the ocean floor in eighty five feet of water with the top twenty five feet below the surface. The central ring is roughly fifty feet in diameter. Inside there are five thousand cobia roughly five to eight pounds in size.
This is the offshore cage we were going out to feed the cobia at. Thiago also wanted to do some cleaning of the net since it is covered with algae that restricts water flow into and out of the cage. I haven'tdone nearly enough diving so I volunteered to help. Rob, Alyssa and I dive down after Thiago hooks up the feeding tube that pumps food from the boat into the cage. On our way down we noticed these large, slow, sleek looking fish cruising around the bottom of the cage. Oh, no worries, just four reef sharks six to eight feet long hanging out. We sat on the edge of the central ring and watched them cruizing around for five minutes or so. Such an amazing fish. Later in the dive after we cleaned a bit of the netting Rob and I found four sharks teeth laying on the top of the netting. I can't wait untill the bull sharks start coming around again. That will be fun to dive with.
Later Saturday I took my brothers Jeep out to Plum creek with Chelsea to show her how to compose some pictures with her DSLR. I posted some of the shots I took on my Flickr page. http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshua-island/ There are some amazing pictures of the sun, in my humble opinion.
New news with the aquaponics system. Catching Bahamian crickets is harder than I thought it would be. Veron devised a handfull of traps and just today we caught our first two. Now we have to make a home for them to breed in. I am also now looking at maggots as a protien source since it is much more readily available. I have some deliscious fish heads in a bucket making maggots for me. Yummy. The students are going to love working with me.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
My First Post - Behind schedule already
12 August 2009 - Wednesday
So in all honesty I have been meaning to make this blog ever since I came down here to beautiful Eleuthera. Seeing as how it has now been a month and a half I figured I should post something. Here goes.
This week has been pretty full so far. We have a visiting group on campus from the wonderful town of Harlem, NY. There are about thirty eight students and four faculty staying on the Island School side of campus. It is pretty loud now compared to the almost deserted times during the summer.
My work for the week has been concentrated on preparing for the Island School students arrival at the end of the month. I am leading six or seven students in a research project involving the tilapia aquaponics system that I manage. We will be looking at the different growth rates of the fish depending on alternate local feeds. Specifically I am looking at duckweed, crickets, and cockroaches as a supplemental source of protein for the fish.
Today I set up two new duckweed tanks and plumbed them into the recirculating system that feeds the grow beds. This will hopefully secure a steady supply of duckweed to base our experiments on. I also set traps out tonight for crickets and cockroaches. I think I am going to call the cockroaches "Bahamian crickets" when the students get here so as to not freak them out about having to chop up cockroaches every morning as food. More to come later.
So in all honesty I have been meaning to make this blog ever since I came down here to beautiful Eleuthera. Seeing as how it has now been a month and a half I figured I should post something. Here goes.
This week has been pretty full so far. We have a visiting group on campus from the wonderful town of Harlem, NY. There are about thirty eight students and four faculty staying on the Island School side of campus. It is pretty loud now compared to the almost deserted times during the summer.
My work for the week has been concentrated on preparing for the Island School students arrival at the end of the month. I am leading six or seven students in a research project involving the tilapia aquaponics system that I manage. We will be looking at the different growth rates of the fish depending on alternate local feeds. Specifically I am looking at duckweed, crickets, and cockroaches as a supplemental source of protein for the fish.
Today I set up two new duckweed tanks and plumbed them into the recirculating system that feeds the grow beds. This will hopefully secure a steady supply of duckweed to base our experiments on. I also set traps out tonight for crickets and cockroaches. I think I am going to call the cockroaches "Bahamian crickets" when the students get here so as to not freak them out about having to chop up cockroaches every morning as food. More to come later.
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