Report On An Experimental Solar-heated Aquaculture System

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Warm-blooded land animals are monstrously Inefficient producers of nutritious food, and their meat will become more and more of a luxury as the population Increases and good agricultural land becomes more scarce. Almost 90 percent of the food given to beef cattle, for example, is "wasted" because it is used to keep up the animals' body temperature. The harvest of protein food In the form of meat Is small In return for the corn, grain and hay that Is Invested In supporting the animals.

[emphasis DeKorne's]

Readers who remember my arguments in favor of (organic) 'hydroponic gardening in MOTHER NO. 29 will perhaps recognize, at this point, a recurring theme which underlies the whole concept of a homemade ecosystem such as my underground greenhouse/fish farm: the attainment of maximum efficiency within the framework of natural processes. Thus, if hydroponic methods have the potential of more than tripling the harvest of agricultural crops, and if organic aquaculture can produce similar yields of animal protein, then it should be possible for a family or small community to produce a major portion of its nutritional requirements from a very small area of ground. Furthermore, if such food-producing units are designed to make use of only natural energy sources such as the wind, sun and composted wastes, then the system will be both self-supporting and consistent with what must become the world's philosophy for survival: Get more from less.

Our underground greenhouse was completed in October of 1973, and the wind generator and solar panel were installed in April of 1974. The original program called for about 100 catfish fingerlings to be planted in the fish tank, but limited finances-coupled with the unavailability of commercially raised catfish fry in lots of less than 1,000- necessitated an alternative plan. Consequently, last May, my son, a friend and I filed the barbs off of several fishhooks, half filled two 55-gallon drums with water and set off in our Volkswagen bus for the nearest pond, about 40 miles away. Within two hours we managed to catch 55 bluegill sunfish, which we quickly transported home and stocked in our 1,400-gallon tank. The fish survived the transplant in good order, with no casualties.

The original concept of the growhole, if you'll remember, was to raise earthworms as fish food. (The worm castings were to be leached with water to make up the organic hydroponic solution for the plants.) In a letter from Dr. McLarney I learned that recent research by other experts has suggested that earthworms are superior nutritionally to commercial trout and catfish rations, so I was on good grounds in using them to feed my bluegills. Further encouragement came from Philip and Joyce Mahan, authors of an article entitled "Raising, Catfish in a Barrel", which appeared in the November 1973 issue of Organic Gardening and which described an earthworm feeding system for catfish. Since I already had four 55-gallon drum halves planted with earthworms and compost, I felt that I was well on my way toward becoming a fish farmer.

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