Wildlife and the greenhouse aquaponics setup -- Precautions

About 1 week after the picture here was taken, Seed Bed, the picture below was the view of that bed.  This was from a visit from either a raccoon or a large opossum.  All the plants died except for the cee gwa.

This is the bed after I "fixed" it.  It was completely trashed. The creature dug through it harvesting snails that were growing in the media.  I suspect it was a raccoon because it was strong enough to pull unglued pipes that were pressure fit.  It completely scrapped my flood and drain piping.  I found out about the visit during a remote camera viewing, I noticed the bed was overflowing in water.  Since the drain system was foiled by the creature the water overflowed from this bed.  It is the only bed that the overflow doesn't fill into another bed -- so it effectively drained my water to a failsafe level I have (otherwise my fish would be gone also).

In order to minimize this disruption or worse, fish kill, you need to take some precautions. Steps to consider:
* first by following the construction techniques of the greenhouse series, Gazebo-to-Greenhouse, you get a significant lead because wildlife do not attack through the styrofoam.  Now this could be the variety of foam I have used (see pictures in the blog), or maybe it is the creatures in my area (doubtful).  -- it took two years for this first large creature to breach the walls -- and they did it by realizing they could climb an adjacent pear tree and come in through the open "window" area
* it is key to cover your fish tank -- the breach by a raccoon would have been much worse if it had gotten to the fish in my tank

* on evidence of visitation, sprinkling of hot chillie powder can be used to dissuade calls -- also hanging a sachel of bloodmeal may be helpful  -- here you see how I used the chillie powder around the base of the outside greenhouse including the door entrance and on the top of the styrofoam walls.  Chillie powder on the outside will only be good until the first rainfall.

* if you have a particularly bad situation with visiting animals, you may also consider using galvanized or insulated chicken wire on the window area -- this has the added advantage of providing a growing mesh for your creeping vegetables -- I have plastic insulated chicken wire that I may install if the problem returns. The chicken wire can also be used on the inside behind the styrofoam wall panels if you have creatures that are not shy about tearing the foam -- if really bad, or you don't care too much about aesthetics, you may consider putting the wire on the outside.

* once you have determined the type of rodent or creature that is visiting you, you can also place traps -- if you worry about this, consider that while rodents will eat excess food that may spill around the place, they will also nest and/or do additional damage in pursuing additional food -- this happened to me in a rat that ate through my fish food feeder looking for additional food -- the hole added more food to the fish tank and was the cause of fishkill during one of my trips away -- my raccoon/opossum problem above was alleviated by using the traps shown -- the small mouse traps triggered but didn't do anything, but the larger black rat trap caught the creature, likely it's leg -- it got out and away but it did get a good dose of chillie power and likely a decent scratch from the trap before it freed itself -- didn't have problems after that.

Benefits of Vermiculite Growth Media for Separating Seedlings

Two of my aquaponics vegetable grow beds have a top layer of vermiculite.  I have detailed this in earlier postings. [Grow-beds-and-media-stackup.]

Some vegetables are very sensitive to root disturbance.  An example of this are pepper plants and specifically bell peppers.  Normally, to cover less than 100% germination, a gardener will plant 2 or more seeds (depending on expected germination rates) for every seedling desired.  When the seedlings are at their first true leaf you would cut off (kill) the less desired seedlings in a bunch to prevent disturbing the roots of the chosen seedling.

I found that vermiculite does not hold to the fine roots of seedlings. What I have been able to do then is to gently pull seedlings apart from the vermiculite and place them in another spot (making a hole for them with my finger).  The ones remaining do not get disturbed, and the transplanted one continues to grow also.  I did this first with tomatoe seedlings that had reached their first true leaf.  Tomatoes are hardy plants anyway.  But after that, I successfully did it with bell pepper seedlings.

This is a picture of seedlings in a bed of vermiculite. The red circled ones have been transplanted and doing fine after 3 days.  Note the coir pots for some of the seedlings.  These are meant to be transplanted into other beds. Since it is all soil-less I can even put them into the hydroton beds.

This is growth after 11 days total.  Note the transplants are doing fine. If you lift transplants when they are bigger, you need to be do it more slowly and gently as they have more rootlets developed.  I separated the two larger peppers on the left side just after taking this picture, and the one pulled successfully with vermiculite attached to its rootball.