Be careful, the birds that fly by, the insects and other invertebrates in and on the soil, the rabbits, squirrels, fieldmice, etc. that will be living in or around your garden all contain some level of
E. coli in their intestinal tracts which could be potennially pathenogenic. You better not eat that food in your garden or you could get sick.
I was at Epcot two weeks ago and saw the aquaponics system that they have and ate a salad that was grown in that specific system. They seemed pretty proud to serve me fish poop lettuce.
Be careful about the statements you make.
"You say I need to read up on the nitrogen cycle, well I could write a book on this..could you?"
The interesting thing about a forum like this is that no one really knows the other members backgrounds. How much experience, education, and knowledge that someone actually has may not be fully expressed or understood. I know of members to this and other similar forums who have research published in multiple peer reviewed journals. Not to say you couldn't, but I have multiple degrees in life sciences and am about to start my PhD in this field, and I don't think I could write more than a chapter on the nitrogen cycle itself. Martin A. Moe only has about 20 pages on the subject, and that seemed pretty exhaustive to me.
I understand the point you are trying to make, but lets step back a second and think both logically and biologically about this.
Plant root systems work by basic diffusion through a selectively permeable layer of cells into a network of tubes. Large molecules such as larger proteins can't cross this barrier, so how could a bacterium?
If you are splashing fish poo up on your plants, you may want to wash them first before you eat them, but if the water soluable nutrients are simply being taken in through the roots, there is no contact with the edible parts of the plants in the first place unless your growing carrots which really aren't suited for this type of system anyways.
Not washing your hands is the number one cause of food poisining, and not washing your hands after they have been in an animals environment is most likely what
Practical Fishkeeping Magazine was talking about. Also, I would like to see their evidence. It is not like this is a peer reviewed journal anyways, their job is to sell magazines not disseminate research based information. Not to say it is bad info, just not as strictly checked as a scientific peer reviewed journal.
I have actually been siphoning my 240 ray tank right into my potted vegetables and herbs now for 4 months. Never had better tasting or faster growing herbs ever, and no fertilizer otherwise. Will let you know how the tomatoes and peppers are in a month or so, and how the limes are in the fall.
