Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Because I'm actually using this slime as fishfood, I took some of the dried lumps/sheets that had turned completely white and dry, and placed them in a jar of water to see if they would start growing again.

For some reason I thought I might put a lid on it.

It smells really, really bad.

But there is some sign that the slime started to grow again.

Does anyone know what the slime is likely to be, and what it's lifecycle is? I wouldnt mind learning a bit more about it.

It seems to grow from single strands, and in my system grows up to two or three feet long. After that length it's difficult to tell, because it cant be untangled.



I set up a bit of a whirlpool with a powerhead to keep it as a central sphere.

My powerhead is no longer with us as of last week, so the sphere is no long a sphere and is now finding it's way into my SLO.

The slime was strong enough to stop the sphere of slime from rotating, so I needed to push it around every week or so to cut the strands and keep the sphere rotating.

Bullwinkle my suggestion to this thread would be dry it out, crush into a power then start smoking it, surely it can only add to the weird way your mind works. Gawd you are a serious funny man, love the way your brain operates.

String algae, sometimes confused with java moss.

You're welcome to all you care to remove from my turtle pond. Thus far I have managed to keep it out of the AP, I even went so far as to rinse the fish that I moved between the 2

Gold fish love the stuff, but yeah. It's pretty invasive stuff.

I put a pinch of flake food onto the floating slime to get the fish to eat even more than they naturally want.

I think my feed recipe will be flake food, peas, slime, and a carbohydrate... probably rice.

I notice they also like seeds from the parsley that's growoing like weeds and have grown tall enough to get over the rim of the 500L BYAP sump, so they'll probably take other seeds and grains.

Perhaps sprouting lucerne... or sprouts as they are also called.

My brain operates now?

Hi BullwinkleII. Your slime is a filamentous alga, possibly Spirogyra. Do you have a microscope? If you look at some strands under a microscope and it is Spirogyra, you'll see the most amazing spiral, coiled chloroplast through each cell.
(PS: I love your 120 thingy blog....I added to your observation on brick sizes a little while back. We seem to share many similar interests).

Hey Bull,

I just read back a few pages and loved your take on this,

I just googled it and everything I see is about avoiding slime when making paper. I guess that means there's a chance it's an original. If so, as usual I give my discovery freely to the world to do with it as it sees fit. It turns out there is licence for just such a thing here... https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

I'll bet that slime paper has a very high R value. You may have just invented nature's way enviro friendly wall insulation....maybe even a whole new type of toilet paper where you flush to your pond/septic system and the stuff regrows...full recycle!

Oh yeah I remember.

Pirates with small hands or something right?



I do have a couple of variations on the microscope theme laying around somewhere.

The most magnification is my toilet roll macro lens for my old DSLR.

I'll give it a try and see what I can see.

What ever happened with your epic sailing adventure? I hope i'm not dredging up any pain, but that sounded like a grand adventure. I hope you succeeded in grand fashion.

It's still on the cards and I have everything I need, but I've had various health setbacks that have left me unfit for even mounting the solar panels.

Also I'm having a rethink and perhaps changing to flexible solar because it will be so much lighter. My two panels weigh 15kg each, which means I get to carry less stuff. The boat with a large battery could handle around 175kg as an upper limit. Me, the solar, and the battery are 150kg or so, so it's going to be pretty tight.

25kg of gear for a multi month trip.

I dont need a lot of gear, but I was hoping to take some tools to make some stuff along the way. It all adds up.

I might need to wedge a kayak under the thing as a third hull so I can carry more, but that will slow me down.

I've also been reinventing myself as a web designer so I can work when I'm on the river.

Which reminds me. As a result I will be taking photos for this next job making me officially a professional photographer

Now I can add that to the member skills thread

Oh yeah I remember.

Pirates with small hands or something right?

Pirates??? or Romans and Cistercian monks.....certainly bricks anyway

from my blog...





Pirates, Naval Officers... it's all the same. I remembered the important bits

Yes BW. You are right. Pirates is much closer to the mark than Cistercian monks...my bad!

Bro! Please look more into this slime business, seems like quite a find!

I'm using our stick blender every day on really thick foods in the hope that I can wear it out enough that Mrs Bullwinkle lets me buy a new one and use the old one for slime blending

I have actually been growing extra (by adding more fish food than) with some kind of plan in mind.

I'm hoping to make a decent sized batch.

I've done a few experiments and have found it dries very well on shadecloth, so I suspect I'll end up putting down thick plastic sheeting then shade cloth, then when the paper is dry, peel it free.

The next step would be to slightly dampen it and press it flat between two sheets of glass or something perfectly smooth.

More experiments are required before I do a decent batch.

And of course a stack of research.

I always prefer to try my hand at a new method before learning too much about how paper is normally made. That way I dont get unwittingly pushed down a mainstream path. The mainstream has mainstream paper making pretty much under control me thinks, but within the next week or so, I'll start researching "normal" methods.

I'm guessing drying on a mesh then pressing is probably a method I've accidently picked up from seeing someone pressing flowers or something. Sometimes knowledge can get in the way a bit.

Until it's time. Then of course I need all the help I can get

I'll really miss the internet when I'm dead.

The world's waterways will no doubt see a lot more sludge in them as we see higher temperatures and ever more nutrient runoff from agriculture (and humans).

Anyway...

It would be nice to change the way paper was produced, if for no other reason than I like hanging out in old growth forest.

I'll do another few tests, and if it keeps going in the right direction, I'll ring someone from Adelaide University, and see if there is any interest.