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 Below is an idea of a fence that allows wind, air and sunlight through, but is still eye proof.  It is made of redwood from the local hardware store.  The traditional fence planks are cut lengthwise to make each horizontal slat.  Pictured below is a gate and fence that faces the street.  Air and light gets through, but homeless stay out.  The ecology of the beds around the fence are almost the same.  Before, I could not grow anything on the either side of this gate.  Now, ferns are growing.

 The fence/gate looks the same on both sides.

Construction is easy.

  It takes no more wood than a traditional fence.  First make the frame of the gate and fence.  This is done with redwood 2 X 4s.  Use decking screws to fasten boards together.  Second, make the frame, cross boards need to be installed.  In this case I used three boards at 45 degrees to hold the gate and the fence.  The eye line for the boards start in the fence and pass through into the gate on the right.  Try to stay with odd numbers of supports.  I divides the gate and fence  in odd numbers where it does not pull the eye away from the whole fence and focus on one center board.

All of the horizontal boards are made with 7.5 inches wide fencing boards.  They are spaced 1.5 to 2 inches apart.  Boards are alternating on both sides.  Use a level to make sure all of the boards are evenly spaced.  Use smaller decking screws or use cement board screws.

 From a distance the fence looks solid, but when you come up closer, you can see through the fence and about 2 feet past the fence.  See picture below.

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Test Tank Physical Requirements:

The test tank has to be hermetically sealed.  This means no air can be exchange with the outside.  The tank needs to be sealed and pressurized.  In the climate controller, the normal barometric pressure swings between 78 KPa to about 101 KPa.  This means the tank needs a pressure air pump and an air vacuum pump.  This means seals of the tank have to be working.  A hose is attached to the top of the tank and sealed with aquarium glue.  I’m not using Dap because it releases poisonous gasses while it.

 The other end is attached to an air pressure pump.  This is a cheap airbrush pump that is connected to a Solid State Relay.

 One may say I can cheat and make the tank system a bit loose; allow air to pass through, helping the biological items inside the tank grow.  It is counter intuitive to main stream thought.  If air is allowed to pass back and forth, the system now has to embrace the changes occurring inside the tank and outside the tank.  Here is the trick; when plants or ecological systems are placed in a new environment (Like a plastic bag, or a glass fish tank), it creates its own eco-system for survival in the container as a function of the new container.  Adding leaks to the tank make more trouble than just controlling the internal environment.

The true lubricant of an ecological system is water.  Just like oil is used in an engine, water is the lubricant of biology.  In any test environment, RH and DP need to be monitored and provided.  Not supplying water starves the systems and slants the data.  Below is a picture of how I provide water to the gas system and monitor how much water is consumed.  A graduated cylinder is placed upside down in a petri dish. The cylinder is filled with water and the level is noted.  When the experiment is over, the water level always changes.  It’s a sample way to keep accounting of water.

 There are a lot of electrical connections running between electronic equipment and the data collectors.  In this case I am borrowing ideas from WWII antenna Scientists.  These ideas came from the early pioneers of the radar.  In this case, it is a stainless steal nut and bolt.  The plastic is drilled and tapped.  Aquarium glue is used to fill the gaps between the threads.  In this case RS232 communication and 9 volts DC is passed from the outside to the inside.

 Last are lights.  In this case, I need have light that has no heat effect.  No such thing!!!!  All artificial lights heat up what they are illuminating.  The worst kind is HIDs.  The least offensive are LEDs, to a certain point.  LED lights give all the wavelengths, but are Omni-directional.  This means light shines directly away from the lamp.  There are very little reflections to coat the undersides and layers below the first few layers of leaves.  HIDs do a great job of shining light throughout the plant; but, they are way too hot, even with fans.

LEDs are the only choice, so far.  They are placed about 8 inches away from the tank to help prevent the tank from warming up.  Later, a dual pane window will be installed to block the heat.

Checking for Leaks

 Next is the check for leaks.  So, I do it like a plumber.  Soap and water.  Put the pressure on and see where the bubbles appear.

You can see I have some problems.  I was hoping just the plastic would work, but this is not the case.  I glued a 1/8 O-ring on the top plate.  That did the trick.  I can keep a pressure indefinitely.

Checking the Tank for MicroOrganisms

 This is the interesting part.  And it is a hard lesson for me.  I really learned how much bacteria and fungi grow around us all the time.  It is important to test our equipment with nothing in it for a base line.  It’s important nothing is effecting your measurements.  When it comes to ecology and micro-biology non-interaction, there is no such thing!!!!!

I placed in the tank water in a graduated cylinder and a CO2 meter.  The first test I was going to do is find out how much CO2 is produced by mushrooms.  I need to test the tank to see if it produced CO2 from something else.  Here is the result of the first test.

The graph above is in ppm of CO2.  The X axis is in seconds.  20000 seconds is about 5 hours.  The sudden jump in the graph is from Microsoft windows.  When I was recording the data, Windows 7 felt it needed to update itself and reboot the computer.  I started the data collection as soon as I discovered the interruption.  Despite Microsoft Windows, it gets the point across.  CO2 goes up with a graduated cylinder of water and a CO2 meter.  The LED lights are also one at this point.

 The LED lights are on, raising the temperature.  The reason for the dip in temperature after 5 hours is because it was night.  The whole environment chilled.  Despite the chill, the CO2 levels went up.

What is producing CO2?????  It turns out it is microscopic organisms on the walls, ceiling and floor of the tank.  They are growing using water (about 1 MM of water was missing out of the graduated cylinder) and light to metabolize O2 into CO2. It was time to call the Merry Maids.  I did the entire test over again after wiping down all of the surfaces with Isopropyl alcohol.  Here are the results.

The scaling is all different.  After wiping down the walls, it appeared to clean up the Co2 generation.  Please remember this is including the addition of water.  Cleaning does make a difference.  The micro-biology lives on the walls and everything around us.

The temperature changed, but it did not seem to have an effect on the amount of Co2 generation.  Almost no water was evaporated into the tank.

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For more information on using mushrooms as a source for CO2, Click here

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If you are interest in data from this data collector, Click here

Because most sensors available are located in niche markets or in foreign countries; it is difficult to make a collection of sensors to work together.  I need to design my own A/D conversations or write software routines specifically for I2C applications.  Most I2C applications have to be written for custom applications and I2C protocol.  Below is one CPU (Central Processing Unit) with several sensors connected to it.  The information is collected and sent out the RS232 port once every 2 minutes.  This data can be collected on a laptop and converted to a spreadsheet to see trends.

The main data collector is used to collect climate profiles from different parts of the world. (Currently, the profiles are from Germany, Holland, Africa and the United States)   It collects the critical data that makes up a climate and saves it in a Flash device.  The data is sent back and that climate is re-created in the Climate Simulator.   The main data collector is hidden in a fake bird house.  My experience with placing data collectors out in open areas has resulted in been stolen or shot at with a gun.  The data collector needs to be hidden from passer-byers.  In general, people give a lot of crap coming from a whole lot of stupid!

Below is the functional architecture of the main data collector.  This same unit is used to control the simulator.  You can see the PID loop control.  This is a mathematical device used to converge between what is real and what is required.  It normally works for motors and servo motor controllers.  It has worked for temperature controllers in plastic injection molding machines and other controlled devices.  It’s an old proven technology (It came from the late 1800′s, I believe).  It’s nothing new.

The bird house contains both units and is downloaded every three months.  Time permitting, the profiles will be published on this website.  Last, the picture for this post is a CO2 meter.  This devices costs around $120 and is a pain in the butt to interface.  However, it is very accurate and a great device.  One of these is installed in each birdhouse.

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The interesting part is this cycle is a secondary cycle to the main cycle like the water/air cycle and the methane/ozone cycle.  It evolved after the anaerobic bacteria came into existence.  The carbon dioxide and oxygen cycle is called aerobic cycle (meaning with oxygen).  The anaerobic part of gasses do not contain much oxygen.  When anaerobic bacteria is present in oxygen, it normally goes dormant if it has a chance.  When the oxygen level goes down (the threshold had been arguably around 5.5% oxygen), anaerobic bacteria come back alive.  That is how anaerobic bacteria can survive in oxygen.

Before any of us have been walking the plant, anaerobic bacteria is present.  At that time there is not oxygen.  Over thousands and thousands of years, plants in combination with anaerobic soil bacteria make an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere.  The cycle that evolved is plants with animals (namely anything that creates carbon dioxide).  The aerobic cycle is started.  Air is mainly made of up 20.9 % oxygen, 78% nitrogen and the rest is methane, carbon dioxide and inert gasses.  The average amount of carbon dioxide in air is around 400 ppm  (parts per million).  If we would compare the amount of carbon dioxide  with oxygen, we would have 20.9 % oxygen and 0.0004% carbon dioxide  (400 / 1000000).  That’s not much.  Small amounts of carbon dioxide is OK, but larger amounts can give trouble.  See the chart below.

Carbon dioxide is a heavy gas.  When left alone, it will settle to the bottom of a container or a valley if there is no wind.  Think of carbon dioxide as dry ice used for Halloween decorations in witch’s pots.  The gas boils and slides down the sides of the pot.  When designing a closed growing system, a source of carbon dioxide needs to be present to feed the plants.  The byproducts of plants feed bacteria and other forms of carbon dioxide producing life.  In this project, I decided to use mushrooms (or more specify mycelium) for carbon dioxide production.  How much carbon dioxide does it produce, or at what rate. 

Test Setup

Items monitored: Carbon Dioxide, Oxygen, RH and Temperature

Several bricks of mycelium are used.  The bricks are made of 20% corn meal, 70% saw dust and 10% starches.  Stropharia ambigua  (California native mushroom.  It tastes like cardboard.  There is no common name for it.) is inoculated into the block after it is sterilized in a autoclave for 45 minute @ 15 psi.  This is what the mushroom looks like,

And this is what is underground.  It measures 8 by 6 by 4 inches.  The whole block is placed on a paper plate with some water underneath.

All of the meters and mushroom are place in a hermetically sealed glass chamber insulated with Styrofoam.  No light can get it.  The top of the container is made up of Plexiglas glued with aquarium sealant.  Another piece of Plexiglas covers the opening and is screed down with stainless steel wing nuts.  All screws are sealed with aquarium sealant.  The tank is pressure tested for 10 psi for 16 hours.

All of the meters are connected to a PC (not in the picture).  Everything is connected using RS232 and a free software called PuTTY.  Data is collected every second.  Below is a picture of the CO2 meter.

 Below is the tests of 4 test runs of a variety of blocks of mycelium.  The x axis is in seconds.  The Y axis is in ppm of carbon dioxide.  At this temperature of around 11 degrees C, it throws out 200 ppm of carbon dioxide once an hour.  This is consist with other blocks ratio accordingly.

The change in temperature did not seem to effect it greatly.  I found the fastest metabolism for mycelium is between 30 ro 40 degrees C.  The whole tank can accumulate 800 ppm in just an hour at 30 degrees.

At the same time, oxygen is used by the mycelium.  The glitch on the left is caused by a fussy oxygen meter.  I hate this meter, but once it starts to work, it’s OK.  The important part is on the bottom line.  In the beginning, some oxygen is used up, but later it trails off.

  For more information using the O2 meter and how to connect it to your PC, Click here

This is one of the important graphs.  The RH went up to almost 99 %, but never makes it.  The mycelium is using the water in the air to mix with it own organic material to make more food for itself and through off carbon dioxide.

This test gave the basic rate of CO2 emitted from mycelium blocks.  It will be different for mycelium in soil.  The volume of the block is taken into consideration.  If the surface area is calculated, there is no consistency with slopes generated of time vs. ppm of CO2.

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For more information on other cycles like the Nitrogen Cycle, Click here

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The video below shows how to add a simple timer, photocell and lights to your chicken coop to force chickens to lay eggs daily throughout the year.  The timer, photocell and external lamp housing can be bought at the local hardware store.  Enjoy eggs all year round.

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California native plants are an acquired taste, but there are exceptions to the rules.  Cream Cups is an excellent plant for color splash in your garden.  The flower lasts over a month and they are drought tolerant.  In fact, if you water it too much, you will lose flowers.  They attract humming  birds and other insects.  In general, annuals die at the end of the season; therefore, they need to make enough seeds to perpetuate the species.  This means they need to make a ton of seeds which in turn makes a ton of flowers.   Perennials come back from year to year, so they are more lazy.

For other California Native Annuals for Showy Front Yards, Click here

How to plant:

They are almost impossible to buy in 6 packs.  They can be sown regularly throughout the year with excellent results. You will have to grow them from seeds.  Buy the seeds online before February and plant in flats.  They germinate when there is a consistent amount of moisture in the soil.  Plant them out in the garden (for instance in the front yard) just before the last rain of the winter season.

Watering: 

Water until the plant is established and back off.  They like dry heat.  Tt needs good drainage, sun, and dry weather to grow to its fullest potential.

For more information on CA native gardens, Click here

California native plants are an acquired taste, but there are exceptions to the rules.  Chia is an excellent plant for color splash in your garden.  The flower lasts over a month and they are drought tolerant.  In fact, if you water it too much, you will lose flowers.  They attract humming  birds and other insects.  In general, annuals die at the end of the season; therefore, they need to make enough seeds to perpetuate the species.  This means they need to make a ton of seeds which in turn makes a ton of flowers.   Perennials come back from year to year, so they are more lazy.

For other California Native Annuals for Showy Front Yards, Click here

How to plant:

They are almost impossible to buy in 6 packs.  They can be sown regularly throughout the year with excellent results. You will have to grow them from seeds.  Buy the seeds online before February and plant in flats.  They germinate when there is a consistent amount of moisture in the soil.  Plant them out in the garden (for instance in the front yard) just before the last rain of the winter season.

Watering: 

Water until the plant is established and back off.  They like dry heat.  Tt needs good drainage, sun, and dry weather to grow to its fullest potential.

For more information on CA native gardens, Click here

California native plants are an acquired taste, but there are exceptions to the rules.  Ruby chalice clarkia is an excellent plant for color splash in your garden.  The flower lasts over a month and they are drought tolerant.  In fact, if you water it too much, you will lose flowers.  They attract humming  birds and other insects.  In general, annuals die at the end of the season; therefore, they need to make enough seeds to perpetuate the species.  This means they need to make a ton of seeds which in turn makes a ton of flowers.   Perennials come back from year to year, so they are more lazy.

For other California Native Annuals for Showy Front Yards, Click here

How to plant:

They are almost impossible to buy in 6 packs.  They can be sown regularly throughout the year with excellent results. You will have to grow them from seeds.  Buy the seeds online before February and plant in flats.  They germinate when there is a consistent amount of moisture in the soil.  Plant them out in the garden (for instance in the front yard) just before the last rain of the winter season.

Watering: 

Water until the plant is established and back off.  They like dry heat.  Sun or part shade.  Great for pots.

For more information on CA native gardens, Click here

California native plants are an acquired taste, but there are exceptions to the rules.  Globe Gilia is an excellent plant for color splash in your garden.  The flower lasts over a month and they are drought tolerant.  In fact, if you water it too much, you will lose flowers.  They attract humming  birds and other insects.  In general, annuals die at the end of the season; therefore, they need to make enough seeds to perpetuate the species.  This means they need to make a ton of seeds which in turn makes a ton of flowers.   Perennials come back from year to year, so they are more lazy.

For other California Native Annuals for Showy Front Yards, Click here

How to plant:

They are almost impossible to buy in 6 packs.  They can be sown regularly throughout the year with excellent results. You will have to grow them from seeds.  Buy the seeds online before February and plant in flats.  They germinate when there is a consistent amount of moisture in the soil.  Plant them out in the garden (for instance in the front yard) just before the last rain of the winter season.

Watering: 

Water until the plant is established and back off.  They like dry heat.  Sun or part shade.  Great for pots.

For more information on CA native gardens, Click here

California native plants are an acquired taste, but there are exceptions to the rules.  Red ribbons is an excellent plant for color splash in your garden.  The flower lasts over a month and they are drought tolerant.  In fact, if you water it too much, you will lose flowers.  They attract humming  birds and other insects.  In general, annuals die at the end of the season; therefore, they need to make enough seeds to perpetuate the species.  This means they need to make a ton of seeds which in turn makes a ton of flowers.   Perennials come back from year to year, so they are more lazy.

For other California Native Annuals for Showy Front Yards, Click here

How to plant:

They are almost impossible to buy in 6 packs.  They can be sown regularly throughout the year with excellent results. You will have to grow them from seeds.  Buy the seeds online before February and plant in flats.  They germinate when there is a consistent amount of moisture in the soil.  Plant them out in the garden (for instance in the front yard) just before the last rain of the winter season.

Watering: 

Water until the plant is established and back off.  They like dry heat.  Sun and shade.  Elegant container plant 

For more information on CA native gardens, Click here