Comparison between this BioSphere and NASA’s CELSS, click here

General descirotion of the BioSphere/CELSS project, click here

Further Information on Biosphere Lighting, click here

 General Information on CELSS and Climate Devices, click here

Earth’s History with Anaerobic and Aerobic Bacteria, click here

Detailed Pictures of System

Comparison between this BioSphere and NASA’s CELSS, click here

General description of the BioSphere/CELSS project, click here 

 Top of BioSphere/CELSS.  THe main chamber is down below.

More information on Gardening Rhythms EcoSphere/CELSS, click here

Summary of Similarities and Difference

Similarities

Both systems have a common goal of enabling people to live indefinitely on other plants.  Food and environmental needs are provided for inhabitants.   A common point, “the goal is to eventually include extended missions with sizable crews requiring capabilities beyond the ability of conventional life support technology.”  This comes from the Program Manager, NASA CELSS and Biospherics Programs, Life Sciences Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington D.C.

Download NASA-CELSS Directive

Both programs use enclosures and lights to grow plants, and both programs use temperature and light controllers.

Differences

The biggest difference between the two approaches is biological function priorities.  NASA’s CELSS focuses all needs and requirements on the human astronaut.  Problems are solved by breaking down components for human survival. 

These major subsystems include:

1. Biomass production (plant and secondary animal production)

2. Biomass processing (food production from biomass)

3. Water purification

4. Air revitalization

5. Solid waste processing

6. System monitoring and control

Any one of these subsystems can be created quickly by placing the components together and running the system. All of the biological systems are required to be aerobic.

Earlier papers published by NASA in the 1970s center around using fuel and other forms of energy to change CO2 and other waste products to O2, purified water, air and biomass production.

Gardening Rhythm’s BioSphere/CELSS focuses on imitating Mother Nature’s biological processes for sustaining a complete closed system; the presents of human beings are optional and not required.  This system embraces both aerobic and anaerobic processes for reconstructing material for plants and micro biology to grow.  Systems cannot be put together simply by assembling the parts together.  A stage/growth sequences needs to be followed.  In other words the system needs to be cultivated to grow within the prescribed enclosure.  Once established, it make is own control/balance.

Once the “micro eco-system” is established (this can easily be over a year in the making), all of the requirements for extended duration missions can be accomplished; hence, the following:

1. Biomass production (plant and secondary animal production) (See requirements 3 and 5)

2. Biomass processing (food production from biomass) (Grow plants in soil)

3. Water purification (Waste water is processed through the nitrogen cycle, sulpher cycle and etc….  See requirement 5)

4. Air revitalization (This is accomplished by plants and soil microbiology)

5. Solid waste processing (This is mother nature’s material reclaiming process – compost, nitrogen cycle, sulpher cycle and etc…)

6. System monitoring and control  (Don’t need one)

 NASA’s prospective on CELSS  

When I started my BioSphere project several years ago, I did some research on what is already done.  I found several groups of people who have tried to make a self -sustaining machine for living on another planet. In every case I found the human beings at the center of the project.

Information on CELSS, click here

You can download the document from the link below 

NASA-CELSS Directive

Quote from the document listed above, “A CELSS can be viewed as an integrated set of biological and physico-chemical subsystems, functioning through processes of regeneration of recycling to sustain human life.”

These major subsystems include:

1. Biomass production (plant and secondary animal production)
2. Biomass processing (food production from biomass)
3. Water purification
4. Air revitalization
5. Solid waste processing
6. System monitoring and control

Articlesand publications from NASA seem to center around hydroponics and using fuels to convert human waste products to something useful.  And if I am not mistaken, NASA may be as well the inverters of hydroponics.  Hence a lot of science fiction grew from this discovery. 

Hydroponics scene from the TV series Space: 1999 (Filmed 1975 to 1977).

The oxygen generating chamber from the movie Sunshine (Filmed 2007).

Below is a picture of a modern CELSS plant growing chamber.

And another plant growing chamber in NASA’s station located in Antarctica.

 Since hydroponics is exclusively used, it is an aerobic system.  That means eventuallya waste product is produced.  In nature the anaerobic bacteria and microbiology take care of compounds that don’t require oxygen.  They both evolved together.  Anaerobic bacteria are here for about 1 billion years before aerobicbacteria appeared.

 Gardening Rhythms prospective on BioSphere/CELSS

 This system embraces anaerobic and aerobic cycle systems in nature.  This version of BioSphere/CELSS is constructed like the upper layer of the earth’s crust.  In each BioSphere/CELSS there is a water table (with a structure similar to Aquaponics, it contains fish and other protists, fungi and bacteria), soil/ground, where plants grow, and a canopy layer.  All biological cycles are balanced.  CO2 & O2, CH4 & O3 and NH4 & NO3 are balanced cycles to name a few.  The biology has to be cultivated into the container.  This system cannot be assembled and then operated.  It can take more than a year to establish this system.  Once it is established, it’s surprising how forgiving it can be. 

Currently I have been growing fish in the water.  I have never fed the fish.   Once they are in the tank, they eat what they can find.  They have a healthy diet of algae and cyanobacteria.  Their waste product is consumed and  converted into NO3.  The NO3 is used by plants as fertilizer.  Algae use sunlight to help make O2 in the water and air.  Bubbles form in the algae and eventually float to the top.  DO (DissolvedOxygen) is around 10 mg/l O2.  That is higher than air (8.5 mg/L). 

Pictured below is an opened BioSphere/CELSS.  The water table is at the bottom, water plants are to the left and soil plants are positioned at the far upper left corner of the picture.  Instrumentation is located on a couple of boards located to the lower right of the picture.

The control device (pictured below) only changes the number of hours of light and controls the water and air temperature.  Nothing else is controlled.  There is a boat-load of monitors for CO2, O2, H2S, O3, NH4, No2, NO4, RH, temperature and CH4.   All lights are red/blue LEDs.

 The system would be similar to another movie called Silent Running (Filmed 1972).  The domes are used as a self-contained system.  Each dome has a different ecosystem.  I’m not sure how gravity works in the domes.

When the Biosphere is opened, it mixes with the outside air.  If it is not left open for hours, it really doesn’t upset the system.  After the chamber is closed, the gases go back to their original values in about 2 or 3 hours.  If the system is left open, it would adapt to an ecosystem with the container open. 

The BioSphere/CELSS can be used to create a number of environments.  By changing the amount of light and temperature day cycles, any climate can grow within the chamber. 

Climate Data collector, click here

For general information on CELSS and Gardening Rhythms, click here

Providing an HID light inside a hermetically sealed glass box will help get these microorganisms moving and chewing up some of the scum on the bottom of your tank.  Think of your Aquaponics system as the top layer of a lake.  The top layer holds oxygen and light.  When sediment or microbiology drops to lower layers, it like dropping to the bottom of a lake.

A brief history of the Earth with respect to freshwater animals, chemicals and microbiology, Click Here

BioSphere technology using mother nature’s architecture of lakes to grow food in an enclosed system, Click here

It’s best to learn the functions of each layer in a lake. 

Anatomy of a Lake:

What goes on in water with microbiology, Click here

How do plants get fertilizer from nature, Click here

Epilimnion Layer

The epilimnion is the top-most layer in a thermally stratified lake. It is warmer and typically has a higher pH and higher dissolved oxygen concentration than the hypolimnion. It is exposed to the surface. It has the ability to be exposed to the air surface.  It exchanges dissolved gases such as O2, H2S, CH4, NO2, NO3, NH4, O3 and CO2 with the atmosphere. Because this layer receives the most sunlight it contains the most phytoplankton. As they grow and reproduce they absorb nutrients from the water, when they die they sink into the hypolimnion resulting in the epilimnion becoming depleted of nutrients.

Thermocline Layer

A thermocline (sometimes metalimnion) is a thin but distinct layer in a large body of fluid in which temperature changes more rapidly with depth than it does in the layers above or below.

Hypolimnion Layer

The hypolimnion is the dense, bottom layer of water.  Typically the hypolimnion is the coldest layer of a lake in summer, and the warmest layer during winter. It’s the most stable in temperature.  It is isolated from surface during summer, and usually receives insufficient irradiance (light) for photosynthesis to occur. Dead microbiology from the Epilimnion layer sinks down through this layer to the benthos layer.  This is similar to the bottom of an Aquaponics tank. 

Benthic Layer

The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as a lake, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. Organisms living in this zone are called benthos. They generally live in close relationship with the substrate bottom; many such organisms are permanently attached to the bottom. The superficial layer of the soil lining the given body of water, the benthic boundary layer, is an integral part of the benthic zone, as it greatly influences the biological activity which takes place there. Examples of contact soil layers include sand bottoms, rocky outcrops, coral, and bay mud.

 Details on lake/soil biology, click here

Urban Adamah Farm
1050 Parker Street
Berkeley, CA 94710 USA

Sliding Scale $45-75

Click here to register

Download the Power Point Presentation for the Class, Click here

Class Syllabus

Earth’s Soil  History

Topics include how soil is made and what type of soil exist today.  What is Earth’s early atmosphere like?  Where does today’s  micro- organisms come from?

Plant Succession

Mother Nature’s first step for producing different soil types.  Soil type follows planted plants.  Learn how plants build soil.  Learn building soil micro-biology without compost, teas or any inoculants.

Download Frederic Clements’ Book on Plant Succession in PDF, Click here

Food Web

An Introduction to the soil food web and its members.  The class explains all of the components in soil and how they interact. The following topics are considered:

Fixing Nitrogen – Predator-Prey Nitrogen Cycle

Learn how to fix nitrogen organically.  What is fixed nitrogen and why we need it?  There are many natural cycles in soil and water, where microbes create fixed nitrogen.

C:N Ratios in Plants

 Learn how to determine if a plant is a true green or brown for your compost pile.

Microscope

Learn how to prepare slides for examining soil.  Learn what the mico microorganisms look like and how they move.  We’ll be taking collected soil samples and viewing them under the microscope.

Introduction to CELSS (Closed Ecological Life Support System)

Internal view of CELSS.   The chamber has been closed for 2 months with no gas, liquid or soil interaction with the outside.  Six fish live in the water.  The fish eat plants and algae.

Detailed CELSS Information on the Project, Click here

Picture of outside of CELSS.

Class location

Urban Adamah Farm
1050 Parker Street
Berkeley, CA 94710 USA

Sliding Scale $45-75

Click here to register

 Mushrooms play a major part in the eco-system and soil food web.  Soil Food Web Information, Click here

 Mushroom Life Cycle

 Mushroom Flower

The mushroom cap and stem is the flower of fungi.  Not every fungi flowers in the same way.  There are many different ways it flowers.  The flower grows in a few days depending on the conditions and mushroom type.  At this time the spores ripen (powder looking) and the flower releases them into the air.  Depending on conditions, some can land into an environment where they may germinate.

Spores

There are many genders for spores.  Basically spores are categorized as a + or a -.  When released spores connect (land or touch)  to something solid like a rock or wood, it sticks to it and waits for the right temperature and humidity before germinating.  If a spore does not connection to something, it will not germinate, but stay dormant for years (or centuries).

Spores Germinating

Spores need to be attached to something before they germinate.  When brewing fungi spores in compost teas, it is best to pre-germinate the spores before placing them into the tea brewer.  Spores can be pre-germinated by placing spores or mushroom caps with some oats, fish hydrolysate or powered rock in your compost bin.  Cover and let it sit there for a couple of days before brewing.  Spores that germinate without ever connecting to another germinating spore of the opposite sign makes a little small network of hypha.  This is often called mold. 

Hyphae come together to make a new mycelium

After spores germinate, they have enough energy to make hypha.  For saprophytic mushrooms, the mycelium start to decompose the surrounding material.  When two germinated spores have their mycelium cross each other, they make a new genetically different mycelium if both started with a + or -.  A + needs to meet a – spore type.

Mycelium grows

When a whole net of hypha has grown, it is called a mycelium.  When the right conditions (usually rain) come a long, mycelium start send up a new mushroom.  The mushroom propagation cycle starts over.

See graph below for mushroom cycles.

Mushroom Cultivation Life Cycle

Clone Mushrooms

It’s very easy to clone mushrooms.  The two best places to take clone starts are from just under the bulb of the mushroom stem.  The other place in half way towards the center of the cap and stem.  That is the most sterile place.   Cloning mushrooms does not means you have to mess with germinating spores.  Once you have clone, it can be placed in growing material.  If two different clones are planted close to each other, they will remain two separate mushrooms.  If two clones from the same mycelium are planted close to each other, both plants will join together an make one. 

The method described below is only good for certain mushrooms.  Most of the mushrooms in grocery stores can be planted in this method.  Japanese food markets have the widest verity of cultivated mushrooms.  It’s a great place to start experimenting with cultivating.  There are many books on the subject.

Taking Cloaning Material

Take mycelium from the bottom of the mushroom flower.  Or you can take mycelium within the ground without a mushroom flower.  Take the material and place it into lightly soaked wood chips.   Place the whole thing in a paper bad.  Place the bag inside a Tupperware container.  Place the container in the crisper inside your refrigerator.  In about 4 months the mushroom will grow to the outside of the bag.  It will look like white mold.   At this time, you can take  the mushroom mycelium out of the refrigerator, open the lid and expose it to air.  This will trigger the mycelium to flower.  For details how to clone your own mushrooms:  Cultivating your own mushrooms at home Video, Clcick here

Here are some simple rules of thumb about mushrooms.

• There are four types of different mushrooms, saprophytic (wood eating), parasitic, compost and symbiotic (ecko and endo).
•  A lot of saprophytic mushrooms can be cultivated at home.
• Plants need mushrooms in soil to help plants and trees grow.
• Mushroom spores can be germinated while brewing compost teas.
• Throwing your button mushroom, kitchen scraps into the compost bin seeds the compost bin for mushrooms to grow.

The tangled web produces enough fixed nitrogen to support a productive ecosystem for people to live.  If soil is treaded accordingly, with these animals in mind, it can produce more than applications of synthetic fertilizers.  See the link below for calculations and comparisons:

Calculations for Fixed Nitrogen Released from Nature, Click Here

In-organic compounds:

What is Synthetic Ferilizer? Click here

If you are interested and have access to a microscope, here is a link for you.  How to prepare your soil samples to see all of your soil’s microbiology:

Preparing Soil Samples for Microscopy, Click here

Living Categories

Bacteria

Bacteria constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms.  Typically a few micrometers in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals. Bacteria were among the first life forms to appear on Earth, and are present in most habitats on the planet, growing in soil, acidic hot springs and harsh conditions.

Bacteria are vital in recycling nutrients, with many steps in nutrient cycles depending on these organisms, such as the fixation of nitrogen from the atmosphere and putrefaction.   In the biological communities surrounding hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, bacteria provide the nutrients needed to sustain life by converting dissolved compounds such as hydrogen sulphide (H2S)and methane (CH4).

Below are some videos of H2S eating bacteria.  The surrounding green strands are Cyanobacteria.  And some of the Cyanobacteria is being eaten.

Fungus

Fungus is a member of a large group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts, molds, and mushrooms.  These organisms are classified as a kingdom, Fungi, which is separate from plants, animals, and bacteria. One major difference is that fungal cells have cell walls that contain chitin, unlike the cell walls of plants, which contain cellulose.  Chitin is the main component of the cell walls of fungi, the exoskeletons of arthropods such as crustaceans and insects.

Hypha

Hypha  is a long, branching filamentous structure of a fungus.   Collectively called a mycelium.  Below is a picture of hypha (400X).  You can see the cell walls forming uniform lengths of cells.  A general rule of thumb in determining if a fungal hypha is constructive or pathogenic; if the color of the fungi is clear and less than 1 um in width, it is generally thought of as pathogenic (disease causing) .  If the hypha is around 3 um and is brown in color, it is generally thought of as constructive or symbiotic.

Saprophoric Fungi

Saprophytic fungi feed on dead plant and animal remains. Many are extremely beneficial, breaking down this organic material into humus, minerals and nutrients that can be utilized by plants.  Below are saprophoric fungi

Growing Mushrooms for Food, Click here

Mycorrhiza Fungi

Mycorrhizae Fungi is a symbiotic association between a fungus and the roots of a vascular plants.   It’s generally mutualistic, but occasionally weakly pathogenic.  Mycorrhizae Fungi needs a host to survive.  In many cases, the host is trees and/or some plants.  The tree gives sugars to the Mycorrhizae Fungi and in return the Mycorrhizae Fungi give minerals and/or water.  When Mycorrhizae Fungi works with plants, it increases the nutrient take-up surface area.    A common Mycorrhizae Fungi is Chanterelles, pictured below.  It’s symbiotic with Oak Trees.

When trying to identify Mycorrhizae Fungi, they can be seen in the roots of plants/trees.  See below the connection nodes between Mycorrhizae Fungi  and tree roots.  In this case the hyphae are still attached to the root nodes.

Ecto-mycelium Fungi

Ectomycorrhizas – (Considered in Late Plant Succession)  can be found with a number of tree and shrub species, especially from the Pinaceae (pine tree family), Fagaceae (Beech tree family), Betulaceae (Nut bearing tree – alders, hazels and etc…), Salicaceae (willow tree family), Dipterocarpaceae (South Asian, African timber trees and Mallow family , Myrtaceae (guava and eucalyptus family), and Caesalpiniaceae (spiny trees, shrubs, or perennial herbs, including the genera Caesalpinia, Cassia, Ceratonia, Bauhinia; commonly included in the family Leguminosae)  families.

Endomycorrhizal Fungi

Endomycorrhizas are variable and have been further classified as arbuscular, ericoid, arbutoid, monotropoid, and orchid mycorrhizas. Arbuscular mycorrhizae, or AM (formerly known as vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizae, or VAM), are mycorrhizae whose hyphae enter into the plant cells, producing structures that are either balloon-like (vesicles) or dichotomously-branching invaginations (arbuscules). The fungal hyphae do not in fact penetrate the protoplast (i.e. the interior of the cell), but invaginate the cell membrane. The structure of the arbuscules greatly increases the contact surface area between the hypha and the cell cytoplasm to facilitate the transfer of nutrients between them.

Protozoan

Protozoa are a diverse group of unicellular eukaryotic organisms.  Protozoa were regarded as the partner group of protists to protophyta, which have plant-like behavior like photosynthesis.  Below are some videos showing Protozoan in action.  All videos are taken at 400X magnification.  Some have flagellum (whip like tales) and others have cilium  (hairy edges).  As a cysts (can go dormant in bad times), protozoa can survive harsh conditions, such as exposure to extreme temperatures or harmful chemicals, or long periods without access to nutrients, water, or oxygen for a period of time.

Nematodes

The nematodes or roundworms are traditionally regarded as the phylum Nematoda.  Nematodes, (small worms) have successfully adapted to nearly every ecosystem from marine to fresh water, to soils, and from the Polar Regions to the tropics, as well as the highest to the lowest of elevations.   The oral cavity is lined with cuticle, which is often strengthened with ridges or other structures, and, especially in carnivorous species, may bear a number of teeth.  The mouth often includes a sharp stylet, which the animal can thrust into its prey.  In some species, the stylet is hollow, and can be used to suck liquids from plants or animals.  Below are some videos of nematodes feasting on algae.

Microarthropods

Microarthropods are important components of the soil decomposer food web. Organic matter is a major influence on microarthropod abundance and diversity. Conservation practices that increase soil organic matter improve soil quality by supporting the development of the soil biotic community.  Microarthropods and other small soil animals are visible (sometimes barely so) but miniscule; most require some level of magnification for identification. Many microarthropods, especially springtails and soil mites, are responsible for breaking down organic material into a form that bacteria can consume, and are fundamental to the creation of humus and the formation of soil.

The thin layer where soil and litter meet is especially crucial to this process. This layer of soil is the most biologically active; many species of microarthropods thrive only in the interface between soil and litter.

Case Study on Microarthropods Working in Soil Litter Layer, Click here

Below is a video of a fly larva.  This is a Microarthropod.  It’s a pest, but is really helps with the soil food web.

How is Fixed Nitrogen Produced from Nitrogen Fixing Plants, Click Here

How is Fixed Nitrogrn Produced From Legumes, Click Here

There is no limit on the number of bottles you can hang in the window.  In the system suggested here, we are using three bottles.  All bottles are 2 liter bottles of soda.  When the bottles are empty, remove the label and try to clean off any of the glue that holds on the label.

What plants can grow in the Window Farm?

The best plants that grow in the Window Farm are annuals herbs or vegetables.  It is possible to grow tomatoes and cucumbers.  Your imagination is the limit.  Below is a partial list of suggested plants to start out with if you have never grown plants hydroponically.

All herbs, Mint, Basel, Cauliflower, Broccoli, BakChoy, Celery, Lettuce and Potatoes…..  etc….  your imagination….

How to make a Window Farm

Needed Materials

All materials can be bought at any local hardware store or pet supply.

• Small Fish Air Pump
• Three 2 liter soda bottles (any plastic bottle will can be used)
• 2 meters 3/8 inch plastic tubing.
• 2 meters 1/2 inch braided tubing.
• 3/8 inch Tee
• 1/2 inch 90 degree elbow
• Black electrical tape
• Gorilla Glue (or some general purpose plstic glue)
• Hydroponics plant basket (can buy it at a hydroponics store)
• Rope (any)
• 1/4 inch Tie Wraps
• 1/4 inch air pump hose

Start with a 2 liter bottle of soda.  Rinse out with water and let it dry overnight.  With a pair of scissors or sharp knife, cut out a slit half way up the bottle where the black planter basket can fit and anchor into the middle of the bottle.  There is no wrong way to do this.  See picture below of cut out.

Insert the black basket into the opening.  See below….

Dab three or four places on the black basket with Gorilla glue and let dry overnight.   The next day remove the entire bottom of the bottle.  Don’t take off more than 1 or 1 ½ inches from the bottom of the bottle. This will allow water drip from the above bottle to water the plant below.  See pictures.

Make two more bottle/baskets.  Let dry overnight. 

Last, take a decretive or practical rope and start to glue the rope along the sides of the bottles until all three bottles are lined up with the bottom of the bottle exiting water into the bottle below.  The fourth 2 liter bottle becomes the reservoir.  Don’t cut the bottom off of the bottle.  Instead cut about 3 inches from the top of the bottle.   

Making the Pump

Building the pump is easy to do.  It is not your typical water pump.  This pump uses an aquarium air pump and a basketball inflator. 

Take the ½ inch hose and measure up around 6 inches.  Using a sharp knife or blade, make an insertion around ½ inch long.  Take the basketball inflator and insert the pointed end into the slit.  Taking the air pump hose, connect one end to the basketball inflator and tape around the connection.  Take the other end of the ¼ inch hose and connect it to the air pump.  You’re almost done!

Cut off ½ inch of the ½ inch hose at a 45 degree angle.  This is where the water will enter into the pump.  Take the metal weight and tape it to the bottom six inches of the ½ inch hose.  This acts like a weight to hold the whole pump in the water. 

Another view.

Another view.

 After assembling the basket hangers and attaching the rope support(s), hang your window farm in the window with the lowest basket bottom just above the reservoir.  Put the pump into the bottom reservoir and string up the ½ hose all the way to the top basket.  Take the ½ inch right angle plastic piece and insert it into the house and hook the other into the basket.  See picture below.  Remember to cut the hose to the required length before inserting the 90 degree tube.

 Turn on the air pump.  Fill the reservoir with plain tap water.  Immediately water should be bubbling up through the hose and come out the top.  It will not be a steady stream, but water squirts with a lot of air.  Water does not need to flow quickly for this window farm to work.

Planting the plants

Start with a small six pack of vegetables or some herbs.  A smaller plant has a higher chance of success than a plant will survive the shock from soil growing to hydroponic growing.  Planting plants in the hydro balls is easy.  Take one of the plans out of your six pack and place it in a bucket of water.  Wash off all of the soil off the roots.  It does not have to be perfect.  The more is better.

With one of the plastic baskets glued into the 2 liter bottle, will it 1/3 the way full with hydro balls.  Place the plant’s roots and bury the rest of the roots with more hydro balls.  See pictures below.

How to take care of your new Window Farm

When the entire system set up, it’s time to start your hydroponics cycles.  There are three chemicals available in any hydroponics store.  Ask for general purpose chemicals for hydroponics.  They can be sold in a set of three or sold separately.  If you have never gone into a hydroponics store before, it can be over whelming.  You are looking for a set of three fertilizers that are dissolvable in water.  They are signified by three numbers on the bottle.  XX-XX-XX.   The first number is the percentage of nitrogen in the solution.  The second number contains the percentage amount of potassium.  The last tells the amount of potash. 

Since the system is not very large, you don’t need to use much fertilizer. Place 1 teaspoon of each of three chemicals.  That will last for a week.  Make sure you don’t over dose the water.  If there is too much solution, the plant will go into a condition of lockout.  Lockout is a condition where the salts in the fertilizer locked into the roots and will not allow any more nutrients to be absorbed by the plant.  When this condition happens, it is best to start over with new plants and water.

Plant any type of plant in your hydroponics window farm.  Don’t be afraid to experiment  That’s the best part.  In the beginning add about 1 teaspoon of each chemical to your water.  Watch how the plant grows and adjust accordingly.  Start out slow and later build up to high dosages of chemicals.

The Earliest Atmosphere

The first atmosphere consists of gases in the solar nebula, primarily hydrogen. In addition there are simple hydrides such as are now found in gas-giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn, notably water vapor, methane and ammonia. As the solar nebula dissipated, these gases escape, partly driven off by the solar wind.

Cyanobacteria & Stromatolites

Earth’s early atmosphere contained only small amounts of free oxygen, probably produced entirely by the reaction of sunlight with water vapor from volcanoes. The oxygen-rich atmosphere that evolved later, and upon which oxygen-breathing life now depends, was a result of the origin of photosynthesis. During the Precambrian, vast numbers of single-celled algae and cyanobacteria living in the seas eventually released enough oxygen to transform the environment.   Cyanobacteria use water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight to create their food. A layer of mucus often forms over mats of cyanobacteria cells.  In modern microbial mats, debris from the surrounding habitat can become trapped within the mucus, which can be cemented together by the calcium carbonate to grow thin laminations of limestone. These colonies of cyanobacteria create mats after dying called Stromatolite.   Pictured below is a modern landscape of Stromatolite located in Western Australia.

The oldest evidence of cyanobacteria dates to 2.7 billion years ago, although oxygen did not begin to build up in the environment until about 2.3 billion years ago.    Below are two pictures of cyanobacteria in modern Stromatolites.  When Stromatolites die, they leave a hard shell making the black stumps.

Appearance of Anaerobic Bacteria

Anaerobic bacteria appears on the scene around 3.8 Billion years ago.  They are single cell bacteria belonging to the prokaryotes.   It’s characterized by the absence of a nuclear membrane and by DNA that is not organized into chromosomes.  Anaerobic means without oxygen.  At this time, very little oxygen is present in the atmosphere.  The atmosphere mainly consisted of hydrogen (about 60%), methane and some nitrogen.   

Pictured below is a prokaryote.

Pictured below is a Bradyrhizobium; a rod prokaryotic nitrogen-fixing soil Bacteria that forms a symbiotic relationship with nodulated plant root systems, better known as legumes.

 GOE (Great Oxygenation Event) around 2.5 Billions years ago

The most widely accepted chronology of the Great Oxygenation Event suggests that oxygen is first produced by photosynthetic organisms (prokaryotic, then eukaryotic) which emits oxygen as a waste product. These organisms lived long before the GOE,(about as early as 3,500 million years ago).  The oxygen they produce is quickly removed from the atmosphere by the weathering of reduced minerals, most notably iron. Oxygen only began to persist in the atmosphere in small quantities shortly (~50 million years) before the start of the GOE. Without a draw-down, oxygen could accumulate very rapidly.

Free oxygen is toxic to anaerobic organisms and the rising concentrations may have wiped out most of the Earth’s anaerobic inhabitants at the time. During the transition from oxygen-poor to oxygen-rich atmosphere, the first banded iron formations may have formed.  Banded iron formations are silica-rich rocks that show alternating thin layers of dark and red iron-rich rock.  The silica probably was dissolved from volcanic ash and rock, and the iron came from sea floor vents or the weathering of iron-rich volcanic rocks. In the absence of free oxygen, iron dissolves in water. This must have occurred throughout the Archean, resulting in ocean waters that contained a great deal of dissolved iron. In the Proterozoic, however, the dissolved iron bonded with oxygen released into ocean water by photosynthesizing cyanobacteria to form magnetite (Fe₃O₄). This magnetite was then deposited on the ocean floor. The alternating layers in banded iron formations are thought to reflect the alternation of oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor conditions on the sea floor.  A vast amount of iron dissolved in the oceans was available to react chemically with oxygen, which kept oxygen from accumulating in the ocean and atmosphere. Once all of the dissolved iron was used up, the oxygen released by photosynthetic organisms could escape directly into the atmosphere. As gaseous oxygen built up, the atmosphere began to change from one that was chemically reducing to one that was oxidizing (i.e., rust-forming), like today’s. Iron weathered from basaltic volcanoes was oxidized on land before it reached the oceans. This resulted in the formation of red beds. The red color of these rocks comes from the particular variety of iron mineral precipitated on land, mostly hematite (Fe₂O₃).Thus, the history of Earth’s early crust also tells the story of its early atmosphere. Banded iron formations were precipitated from about 3.1 to about 2 billion years ago—most (92%) during the Proterozoic between 2.5 and 2 billion years ago. Until all the available iron had been deposited in banded iron formations, oxygen could not build up in the atmosphere. Red beds appeared only after free oxygen was released into the atmosphere, beginning about 2.0 to 1.8 billion years ago. They are still being formed today. Additionally the free oxygen reacted with the atmospheric methane triggering the Huronian glaciation, possibly the longest snowball Earth episode.

There are a great many differences between Eukaryotic cells and Prokaryotic cells in size, complexity, internal compartments.  The main difference is eukaryotic cells have a nucleus.
However, there is a curious similarity between prokaryotic cells and the organelles of eukaryotic cells. Some of these similarities were first noted in the 1880s, but were largely ignored for almost a century!

 Appearance of Areobic Bacteria

 Aerobic bacteria appeared on the scene around 2.5 Billion years ago.  Aerobic means with oxygen. 

Appearance of Red Alage

In the meantime around 1.5 billion years ago, Bangiomorpha pubescens appears.   It is a red algae. It is the first known sexually reproducing organism. A multicellular fossil of Bangiomorpha pubescens was recovered from Arctic Canada that strongly resembles the modern red algae Bangia (freshwater) despite occurring in rocks dating to 1,200 million years ago.  Pictured below are two fossilized red algae strands.

Second Atmosphere

The next atmosphere, consisting largely of nitrogen plus carbon dioxide and inert gases, was produced by outgassing from volcanism, supplemented by gases produced during the late heavy bombardment of Earth by huge asteroids.  A major rainfall led to the buildup of a vast ocean. A major part of carbon dioxide exhalations were soon dissolved in water and built up carbonate sediments.

Water-related sediments have been found dating from as early as 3.8 billion years ago. About 3.4 billion years ago, nitrogen was the major part of the then stable “second atmosphere”. An influence of life has to be taken into account rather soon in the history of the atmosphere, since hints of early life forms are to be found as early as 3.5 billion years ago. The fact that this is not perfectly in line with the 30% lower solar radiance (compared to today) of the early Sun has been described as the “faint young Sun paradox”.

 In the late Archaean eon an oxygen-containing atmosphere began to develop, apparently from photosynthesizing algae which have been found as stromatolite fossils from 2.7 billion years ago. The early basic carbon isotropy (isotope ratio proportions) is very much in line with what is found today, suggesting that the fundamental features of the carbon cycle were established as early as 4 billion years ago. 

Third Atmosphere

 Below is a graph of the change of oxygen in the atmosphere over the past 1 Billion years.

Pangea and change in Oxygen

The latest supercontinent on Earth is Pangea.   As modern continents split up, oxygen is still rich enough to encourage higher forms of life.  Dinosaurs existed between 300 million to 65 million years ago.  Below is an illustration how the last supercontinent split into today’s smaller continents.

Today’s Modern Atmosphere Components