Thoughts on Roadside Culture Stand?

[Sylvia Bernstein]

A few weeks ago I was approached by Milwaukee architect, Phillip Katz for feedback about a new mobile fresh produce cart he has developed called the Roadside Culture Stand.  I wrote about it in my blog last week in a post called Aquaponics and the Evolution of Fresh, but I also told him that I would post it in here and see what you all thought...as long as he joined our site so he could answer questions and interact with us.  I've included a link to Phillip's page in his name above.

Below is a link to a more extensive set of drawings of the cart.  What do you all think?

[Jay Wolf]

Hey Phillip,

 

I am originally from Sheboygan and would love to see a fellow Wisconsin"ite" succeed.  I think everyone is in agreement that the tough part is obviously fish.  Chris's idea of goldfish is great, but there might be some even tougher fish out there.  I don't know how effective goldfish waste is too plants in general, but that might be a good start.  Good Luck!!!!!

 

 

 

Phillip Katz said:

Hello. I am owner and founder of Phillip Katz Project Development (PKPD) a design and management practice in Milwaukee, the global epicenter of urban agriculture. We recently won a competition for our design of a 'Roadside Culture Stand'.

PKPD is in the process of fabricating several of the roadside culture stands for use by farmers and urban agriculturalists locally. We are offering the stand for sale to anyone who might be interested across the country.

The stand makes it possible for farmers and urban agricultural practitioners to bring their produce or wares to wherever their consumers may be.

We welcome any and all comments and feedback related to the roads culture stand. Please feel free to contact us if you or someone you know of may be interested in procuring or hosting a roadside culture stand in your community.

[TCLynx]

Goldfish waste will be as high quality as the food they are given.  Most "goldfish food" is designed for ornamental or aquarium situations where the point is feeding the fish while keeping the nutrient load as little as possible to reduce the need for water changes.  If you feed them a higher quality feed like for growing out koi or commercial feed for growing food fish, you will get higher quality nutrients out of them.  Goldfish can be quite "dirty piggy fish" (and I mean this in a very fond fashion in that they will eat and provide lots of nutrients for you if you provide good food for them) that will eat as much and grow as much as their environment and food source will support but they will eat/survive on a very wide variety of food which makes them a great fish for tough situations.

[David Hart]

Tclynx is right...they are 'dirty piggy fish'........that's why I call my 3 goldfish "THE THREE LITTLE PIGS"  But they sure aren't little any more !

TCLynx said:

Goldfish waste will be as high quality as the food they are given.  Most "goldfish food" is designed for ornamental or aquarium situations where the point is feeding the fish while keeping the nutrient load as little as possible to reduce the need for water changes.  If you feed them a higher quality feed like for growing out koi or commercial feed for growing food fish, you will get higher quality nutrients out of them.  Goldfish can be quite "dirty piggy fish" (and I mean this in a very fond fashion in that they will eat and provide lots of nutrients for you if you provide good food for them) that will eat as much and grow as much as their environment and food source will support but they will eat/survive on a very wide variety of food which makes them a great fish for tough situations.

[Molly Stanek]

David Hart said:

Tclynx is right...they are 'dirty piggy fish'........that's why I call my 3 goldfish "THE THREE LITTLE PIGS"  But they sure aren't little any more !

TCLynx said:

Goldfish waste will be as high quality as the food they are given.  Most "goldfish food" is designed for ornamental or aquarium situations where the point is feeding the fish while keeping the nutrient load as little as possible to reduce the need for water changes.  If you feed them a higher quality feed like for growing out koi or commercial feed for growing food fish, you will get higher quality nutrients out of them.  Goldfish can be quite "dirty piggy fish" (and I mean this in a very fond fashion in that they will eat and provide lots of nutrients for you if you provide good food for them) that will eat as much and grow as much as their environment and food source will support but they will eat/survive on a very wide variety of food which makes them a great fish for tough situations.

[Molly Stanek]

Oops... not sure why that didn't go through!  Let's try again...

 

While I was at Sweet Water Organics, we had the use of two wonderful Roadside Culture Stands.  I couldn't believe that they were given to us to use for free, and had to find out more.  

 

After asking a couple of questions, I learned about the Wormfarm Institute, and their fantastic Roadside Culture Stand project.  Artists and architects submit designs for Roadside Culture Stands, and a limited number are selected to be constructed.  When completed, the stands are distributed to Wisconsin farmers to use.

 

Such a cool project, it makes me really proud to be from Wisconsin!

[Sylvia Bernstein]

Hi Molly.  thanks for sharing the bigger picture of where the concept for this innovative idea came from!  Cool idea indeed - you Wisconsinites have it goin' on, baby!

[Green Acre Aquaponics]

Very cool indeed!  If a baffle system can be incorporated into the tank for constantly transporting the fish that would probably work to keep the fish alive.  Even, dirty little goldfish didn't care to be transported so much!

[TCLynx]

Was it the transport that killed the goldfish or was it being netted and moved from tank to tank that did them in?

 

I expect a extra deep tank that was only filled half way could house the fish full time and they would probably survive if they didn't need to be moved from tank to tank all the time.  Probably simply a piece of filter media placed about at the water surface for travel would probably help with the sloshing.

 

Then again, Green Acre Organics, you have far more experience with doing the weekly demos.

[Chris Smith]

It isn't really necessary to transport the fish. A little system water and all the plants are fine. There is no need to provide the plants nutrient to grow on the day you sell them. One time while driving to a farmers market I lost all my system water in my storage tank. When I got there I had no choice but to use tap water for the display system. The plants were fine through hours of Kona summer heat.

[Chris Smith]

If you insist on taking fish on the road it would be best to design the fish tank similar to a bait tank on a fishing boat. Keep a full tank with a small opening at the top that can be locked securely for transit. If there is is no airspace in the tank then there is no sloshing!

[TCLynx]

I think the desire for fish on the road is more as a demo system (not so much to feed the plants.)

 

Good point about the tight lid for transport, just make sure to open it back up for aeration when you get there.

[Don Justice]

I've been a semi-pro aquarist for 40 years, both fresh and salt.  In that time I've shipped and received a lot of fish, and even very sensitive live corals and other marine invertebrates.  The secrets to survival during transport are temperature and oxygen.  Most all fish that are shipped commercially are in bags of water from their habitat with pure O2 making up the airspace.  When acclimating to their new home, water chemistry differences are the problem.  The shipping water and the habitat water have to be very close in temperature and chemistry for the fish to avoid going into shock.  Taking along a container of native water, say a 55 gallon plastic drum, would help avoid shock, but remember, temperature differentials are a factor.  There are also commercial products that help with shock prevention and treatment from chemistry problems, but they won't help with temperature and O2 issues.  These products (like StressCoat) deal with chlorine and other tap water issues as well.  Sloshing, I don't think would be that big a deal.

 

Take a 5 gallon bucket, put a trash can liner in it, fill 3/4 with water. Add fish.  Fill the rest with O2 (preferred) or get a battery powered air pump, one for each bucket/bag.  Oxygen is pretty easy to get.  Hit your local welding or home medical supply.  One small tank will go a really long way for something like this.  Tie off the bags with a ziptie or something and hit the road. Make sure you don't have temperature fluctuation issues.  Ideally, a big cooler could substitute for the buckets.  Two trash bags should fit a 30 gallon cooler fine.  Going home, the same deal.

Realistically, for a demo system, I don't see taking more that a dozen 5-6" fish. 

They say a picture says a thousand words.  A live demo speaks volumes.