"How about hydroponic tomatoes like your Aerogarden except 5 gallon buckets that are tiered."
"How does the water flow to the buckets?"
"Gravity."
I see on right-leaning blogs comments to articles addressing Jerry Brown and California and earlier chances they had back then in the 70's when population was less that go along the lines of, "All this for minnow," or, "Meanwhile hundreds of billions of gallons of water flushed into the Pacific to protect the Delta Smelt," and the comments rise to the top there in comments and separated out for admiration for their top commenting summation.
Ed Driscoll, VDH: How Jerry Brown Engineered California's Drought
That's a lot of water when people are hurting for water.
But why? Why would the state do this to save the fish? What is it about these fish? What are they anyway? And why all the fuss about concentrations of people and farms and industry?
Turns out to be Silvery Minnows in one area of controversy and Delta Smelt in another. The minnows are not baby fish, that is just their name because they are small like bait fish, they are adult fish that are small but not so small as neon tetras. Both are plain. If you drew a simple cartoon fish with the basics, these would be it. One is a little more like a pencil than the other. They're both the size of a finger.
It is the Delta Smelt that looks more like an eel.
The Silvery Minnow looks like a cartoon fish.
No challenge is too great for aquarium hobbyists, any river or lake situation can be replicated with technical precision and artistic éclat. The fish are not much to look at, but there is cache in being environmentally-minded, "oh those are endangered species," the sacrifices we make and all that, but if they would shoal together in river-like conditions, or collect among native river plants in or out out of a current, they might be fun to observe. I notice fish do that when frightened, clump together like that, so scare them a little. Reading along through various stories about these endangered species and water disputes, one of the articles mentioned that California is already doing all this aquarium breeding with some 50,000 or some fish in re-establishment programs statewide. It is not a matter of the number of fish being low.
Maybe it was 500,000. It was a lot of little fish.
It is a matter of their entire environment threatened. The fish are the canaries in the coal mine so to speak, indicating the entire environment is out of whack be the cause population stress, or farming or industry, things are seriously wrong and a million caged canaries or aquarium fish will not fix that imbalance.
And James you did move there to be part of all that is happening in California, so suck it, your wife knew worse hardships than relief from gardening, so let's look at some schemes for hydroponic tomatoes. This could be fun.
Two hundred eighty pounds of tomatoes! Shut up! I went back and forth from Tony's and home all summer long filling my backpack with tomatoes and peaches, passing them around, and I didn't come close to two hundred eighty pounds. That is a ringing success. He sounded so sad, and yet happy too for the success then back to sad for it ending this way with blight then back to happy to have done it, and pleased to try again and admitting the whole thing is fun. And that is the whole point because you buy heirloom tomatoes all season long for half the expense, depending on crop and setup, and none of the trouble.
I couldn't find the earlier video I saw of the guy with the 5 gallon buckets. Built as stadium bleachers the water is pumped to the top, maybe distributed up there, each bucket fills by charged water pumped directly over the roots of the top tier plants. It drains over them into the bucket. The bucket fills to a point then drains to the plant in the next bucket down directly over its roots, filling its bucket to a point. Water remains in the bottom of the buckets so the whole inside of the bucket stays fogged and the roots hanging in there always wet and always refreshed and recharged. All tiers are watered this way and and pump shuts off for awhile and starts up again in preprogramed sequence.
Now on YouTube all the videos are people showing off their gigantic hydroponic tomatoes. Each year new videos are added and now they only mention the type of their system. The rest is all tomato parade and that is not helpful. Except this guy. I almost made a cartoon of him in Rube Goldberg style.
He's bombed.
And then the camera turns back on the fish in their fiberglass storage containers to the fish that do not see the light of day and you realize the fish spend their whole lives in there like a prison. And my tank is a prison too but at least my tank has a chance of faking them out.
12 comments:
I had an aquarium as a teen. I ultimately decided (before abandoning the hobby) that the Brichardi Cichlid was the most graceful and aesthetically pleasing freshwater aquarium fish--at least that I could buy back then. The fish is flesh-colored and is fringed with blue. It also known as a lyre-tailed cichlid as the photo makes clear.
Kuhli loaches--they're kool too.
Agriculture used about 80% of California's water…so while domestic restriction makes some sense (everyone should bear some of the pain) it is hardly going to solve the shortage. You have to cut agricultural production given the shortage of water.
The minimum riparian flow into estuaries is not wasted, it impacts those bodies significantly not to have fresh water flowing in. So it is not just a few species of fish that are effected, but the whole ecosystem transition from fresh to salt water.
So do you get five or six of those loaches and let 'em wiggle around each other, like a loach orgy?
I had a loach that ate snails and that was good. But it ate everything else first. It was extremely aggressive eater gobbling up everything before all other fish had a chance. Then it ate went scavenging for snails. All the fish were starving except the loach had a big fat round belly. Then it finished off all the snails and that was a good. Then it started eating other fish as they slept. It sabotaged all of them, all the other fish had bites taken out of their fins it even ate some of them entirely if they were too slow escaping his nips and that is not good. The fish numbers decreased while the loach increased in size. There was no stopping it. All the other fish were tremendously vexed. It had to be removed. But it could not be caught. It absolutely could not be caught. Everything was removed from the tank. All objects, all rocks, all plants, most water, finally ALL the water removed with ALL the sand pushed up to a hill enabled the fish to be caught and ceremoniously destroyed by slow and painful torturous death with periodic dunking in water to refresh it then lifted back out with the net for more air-torture. Little bastard, I wanted to smash its little head in with my boot.
A friend stopped by that day this was going on. The nicest fellow you're ever likely to meet. Truly kind and always thoughtful. Like Chip & Dale level of politeness even formal to my parents. A very decent liberal Democrat gentleman from New Mexico. I like him a lot. I said, "This one fish is destroying the serenity of the whole tank. It must go." He said, "We must do what is right for the community." lHe put on an uncharacteristic smirk. A look of evil. A bad boy look. He was pleased to have a good reason to kill the fish. I hadn't seen this element in his character before. I dreaded murdering the fish. He seemed pleased. He urged me along.
I took the net with the fish into the bathroom and Alan followed me in watching intently with great focus and amusement. I tipped the fish into the toilet and reached for the handle. To lighten my own dread I started singing,
"If you can MAKE it there..." Alan picked up immediately and sang along,
"You'll make it AAAAneeeywhere
It's up to you *flush* New York, New Yooooooooork."
And this glee that he showed with something so dreadful surprised me and I never could not regard him quite the same after that as the innocent beautiful spiritual-type person even though it was I who killed the fish.
Is that right? In ASL it's me killed the fish. And if I did say I killed the fish then they would be thinking, silly English speaker person said I instead of me. And in Spanish it's I killed the fish. Who killed the fish? Me. I killed the fish. I think I'll stick with that.
And the ciclid requires brackish water, doesn't it? I'd have a problem with its terraforming proclivities. It would mess up the substrate. A little bit, okay, but if they're mad remodelers like some fish are then that would be a problem.
I think there was a longstanding attitude that if you failed to prepare for population increase, however it shows, with increased agriculture or whatever then people will acknowledge this and fail to come there. But they did. Colorado had that attitude.
Critical land was purchased by force to prepare for a large dam project. A friend lost property to the project. Her cabin would be well underwater. Then the area experienced political shift. A lot of resistance. The project was dropped. AFTER people were forced to sell. Population increased anyway. Deprivation ensued. All kind of suggestions for xeriscaping. It's a woooooord. Shower heads, water days. tickets for sidewalk waste. Toilets that require two flushes. And lots and lots of opportunity to out-liberal liberals.
"Does your filter need replacing every year?"
"No. But I don't usually let it run just to see water come out."
"Oops."
At another person's house: *snap* Shuts off water. Innocent child voice. "Gee. You're a water-waster." A homeowner really should know better so I get liberal picayune points for being a prick even though I cannot possibly care less. It's water. That's fun.
But I kind of do care about water conservation. But Jeeze, you know how sometimes you just feel like luxuriating, like the other day on Wednesday I go, I'm going to take a nice hot long bath and get all shined up, shave, trim the hair growing out of my nose even though it's not even Saturday.
Not all small fish species are good for an environment. I'd like to see some scientific material on the importance, per se, of the Delta Smelt et al., and in what population sizes. Are they even native to the streams they require? I guess I have some Google time coming to learn more about this because the devastation of California's farming is no laughing matter to all of us who prefer US crops to Mexican and South American.
Anyone who can provide me a succinct scientific statement or two on all this and save me weary time on Google, I'd appreciate it.
I have this tin foil hat suspicion that this is more about "green politics" than fish environment...but I really would like to be wrong. Maybe. Let's start off by telling me how swimming pools will be emptied in the LA and southern areas?
For small fish in an ecosystem that suck big time...try the Alewife who took over the Great Lakes (via the St Lawrence we're told) and caused both the US and Canada to "plant" tons of Salmon to combat them...now we have two non-native species...and the larger taste lousy because they eat Alewife mostly, which taste lousy, rather than smelt, which taste sweet. Our native Lake Trout and Rainbow Trout have taken a back of the bus position now and catching them other than in their spawning season is difficult.
However, I was very good at and managed it even in August (and taught many others how to do it...it takes a long line and some shoulder strain over a few hours) ... also found I had to cut open their stomachs to see what they'd been eating, smelt (good) or Alewife (nasty). I was a fisherman on Lake Michigan who ventured miles from shore and usually caught my limit, sometimes from depths of 100 to 150 feet over deep shoals. I quit when I could no longer find enough people to take most of my catches...because nasty. One guy can only eat so much fish, right...and I hate waste, plus catch & release doesn't work well on the larger (8+ lbs & up) fish after a half plus hour battle to land them.
Today my fish diet, when it happens is limited to the flounder called "Dover Sole" or fresh water Perch if I am certain of their origin...not so easy to do. I'd love it if Chip Ahoy posted a good recipe for preparing Dover Sole...many people can buy it, but few do it well at the table. I tell most people my idea of fish/seafood is Lobster, Crab, and Shrimp with some Crawdads now and then.
A drought is a drought. It is NOT the environment being out of whack. It is a naturally reoccurring phenomenon. The fact that we, all of us, are shortsighted and don't prepare for the lean years in the full years can't be offloaded onto the environment. Golf courses in the desert, green lawns in the desert, not building dams or desalinization plants: all that's on us, not mother nature.
ricpic ...my understanding is that some water is still available for the central valley, but much diverted to southern CA and the rest left to flow for the little fishies and allegedly to support their predators in the ocean. CA's first problem is way too many people in the wrong places, who demand those green golf courses and green desert lawns you speak of...their native American fore-bearers never tried to populate the place like us gringos.
Meanwhile, massive flooding is predicted for the Russian River in northern CA. You'd be right that we've not formulated a means to take advantage of that excess rather than let it destroy more homes and crops.
LIberals in California used to be big proponents of Zero Population Growth (remember the population bomb?)
Then they found that by importing millions of legal and illegal immigrants they could grab political power.
So I haven't heard about ZPG for about 30 years.
No matter what they say they are, Feminists, Environmentalists, labor union leaders, they will always sell out their "Cause" when it hurts the Left.
@ Aridog
Victor Davis Hanson has written a couple of excellent articles about this at City Journal:
http://www.city-journal.org/2015/25_1_california-drought.html
http://www.city-journal.org/2015/cjc0402vdh.html
He notes the irony that the fresh water being used to help the Delta Smelt comes from sources that never existed naturally, i.e., in droughts that occurred in years past, the rivers that are home to the smelt would have been nothing but a trickle of water.
Third Coast Thanks... that's kind of what I suspected. I am familiar with the new land the EPA seeks to control in the mountains where run off streams only stay wet for a couple months then go dry and have no vegetation that normally designates a "wetland." In short, those creeks are solid rock 9+ months per year. No self respecting smelt or salmon would even attempt to try their luck there.
I go in May-June, they are cascades of very high velocity water...I go in September-October they're dry as a bone, literally. They serve to feed the valley pasture lands at 5000 feet or so that are favored by cattlemen plus have no "native" fish in them...let alone vegetation beyond very few scrub pine here and there along the rim crevasses. Yet the EPA carries on with their nonsense.
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