Coop Project: Maken the Plunge & Getting Chickens - Page 30

The main water tank houses a colony of Gold Fish.

As the Gold Fish metabolize their food, they give off waste compounds in the form ammonia and other nitrogenous products.

A pump, pumps the water from the main Gold Fish colony to spouts that spill into planting beds. 

As the water percolates through the planting beds, the root systems of the plants absorb the nutrients from the waste of the Gold Fish.

The plants use the nutrients to grow and produce wonderful vegetables.

The water that passes through the planting bed, enters a return system of pipes....

...and is then Gravity Fed into a sump.

Once the level of the water in the sump reaches a certain point, a pump then turns on and....

....the water is then returned to the main water tank where the colony of Gold Fish live.

So as the fish eat and poop in the  water, they polute their environment. The plants in the planting beds absorb the dissolved nutrients in the water. The plants serve to purify the water so that the Gold Fish don't poison themselves with their own built up waste load. It is a fairly closed system, with an injection point where the food is added to feed to the Gold Fish....and periodically the water volume needs to be replaced due to loses from evaporation.

Here is what has been racing through my mind since I left Pecker's new Home:

Imagine a Hydroponic Greenhouse system that uses a wire screen drop basin located under a the floor of a coop to gather and inject poultry waste into the water to create the nutrient source load; along side of the fish colony or even in place of the fish colony....this could easily be done and would result in a more nutritious energy load for the plants. That would mean that more plants would be supported by a smaller system; or a system of this size would support a larger number of plants....

If you set up an experiment where you collect fresh droppings from poultry you could digest the material and calculate the nitrogen content and thus the energy load present for plants to absorb. The fresh droppings are needed because ammonia from the droppings is not lost before it enters the system. Once the nitrogen content of the poultry manure is determined, the size of the system could then be scaled based upon the number of poultry present in the system.

The nutrient load for the system would be acquired each night when the birds enter the coop.  Once they go to their roost they will defecate, and their droppings would then pass through a screen on the floor of the coop and drop into the catch basin, thus entering the system. Based on the number of birds used; the number of plants in the greenhouse could be determined; so that there is a needed balance present to offset the energy inputs by the birds. The nutrient requirements of plants is well documented and used in calculations for the recommendations of fertilizers.

I have heard of systems where the poultry droppings provide the food source for the fish colony and the combined load of the fish and poultry waste is used to feed and grow the plants.

I am intrigued, to say the least.

Pretty sure that I'll have a hard time sleeping tonight with thoughts racing through my head.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashdoes 

This is a thread about using Sweet PDZ in the coop and run, for odor control. I found it helpful that so many people have talked about it, and switched. I checked Big R and they have it at a great price.
http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/621363/poop-board-convert-warning-graphic-gross-poop-pictures
~Ashley

 Thank you...I'll look into that product. I'm sure that it will come in useful.

I almost completely forgot...in the Greenhouse they had a pet Toad named Buster....

I miss my bird.