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.