Introduction

As this semester comes to an end, and I begin this venture, it seems appropriate to start with an introduction and reflection.

Spring Sunset at Yankee Hill Lake Saturday May 4, 2024.

My name is Josh Matthews and I have always been fascinated by the natural world. As a child I grew up exploring the sprawling urban landscape, which while in a rapid and constant state of development, had pockets of natural life throughout. As I got older, I began to explore the natural world in more depth through many camping and outdoor experiences with cub scouts, then Boy Scouts where I attained the rank of Eagle Scout by leading a restoration project of a family picnic area at a local nature conservation park.

My college career began at the Colorado School of Mines, where I would take several years’ worth of computer science courses, which culminated in PonDev, a project where I developed a sensor system that could monitor hydroponic and aquaponic growing systems and display the data in user friendly formats. I also developed a scheduling and control system that could manage on/off devices such as lights, fans, and pumps. That viable prototype was shelved as I transitioned to work in tech support, and later to allow my coding skills to re-emerge by developing an analytics website tracking NFT sales on the Cardano Blockchain. A half market cycle later and that website was no longer viable, and I began working out in the elements preparing lumber packs for houses, decks, and a plethora of other residential jobs who ordered material from that lumber yard. While I enjoyed the challenges of managing materials in the yard and the opportunity to be outside and move around, it quickly became apparent that there was not much long-term future for me in that career. It was time to go back to school and finish a degree.

When perusing through the University of Nebraska website, I stumbled across environmental science, and I was hooked by the description. Around a year ago today I met with my academic advisor for the first time, and she got me set up with classes. While I cannot say I particularly enjoyed economics and statistics early in the summer, I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to take a field limnology class at the Cedar Point biological station with Dr. Olson. That course was the best crash course in limnology and ecology that a student could experience. Besides learning about the beautiful aquatic ecosystems of the sandhills, out amongst the prairie wildflowers I was introduced to the world of plankton. Something clicked where everything I had learned about different plants and animals; chemistry and data science began to make sense. There was something extremely powerful learning to view ecosystems through the limnological systems-based framework.

Up until around that point in my life I had been extremely depressed about the state of our climate and the impact humans have on it. But as I began to learn more about the environment, I began to see hope. While humans can be extremely wasteful creatures, there does not seem to be really any true waste in nature. It seems that one organism’s garbage is the very thing another needs to thrive. I no longer believe that humans are outright killing the planet and that there isn’t anything to be done about it. I am now beginning to see how humans are shifting the distribution of global resources and how we can manage environmental impacts by being conscious of earth’s other life in the design of our urban, industrial, and agricultural processes. While I do not doubt the extent to which the destructive impact humans can have on the environment, I can only hope to help find ways to do better.

At the beginning of the 2023 fall semester, I was blessed by gaining employment at 2 labs on campus. I was hired by Dr. Jessica Corman’s STOICH lab to perform sampling and analysis of zooplankton in Lincoln’s lakes and reservoirs. Through her lab I have learned a great deal about the grant writing process, gained experience performing various chemical analysis using methods, and learned a lot about the freshwater zooplankton that call Nebraska home. Through this lab I continue to learn more about freshwater ecosystems and the various human and environmental factors that can impact them.

That Semester I also met Lindsey Chizinski, the lead investigator of the Aquatic Biodiversity and Conservation (ABC) laboratory. While touring her lab we discussed the possibility of doing aquaponics, however what stood out to me most was her problem with minnows. She shared that the yellow perch in the lab were piscivorous, meaning in nature they preferred to eat fish, and that the perch in the lab were not taking well to pellet feed. She mentioned that she had tried breeding their own minnows, but could not keep the fish alive, let alone get them to breed. I was inspired by the limnology course that summer where I had learned about food webs. If we were going to feed minnows to the perch, why not feed the minnows something living, and continue doing that with several organisms to begin recreating the food web in the lab. Linsdey was very supportive of this idea; she gave me a job in the lab where I have learned to manage and upkeep the large recirculating systems as well as a plethora of smaller tanks that have been evolving in configuration. She paired me with a research partner, and we began to learn as much as we could about fathead minnows and a plethora of other freshwater organisms.

After months of research, we began setting up tanks with the goal of breeding and raising fathead minnows, daphnia, and algae. The plan was the algae would feed the daphnia, which would feed the minnows, which would feed the perch. After letting the tanks cycle, we got in a shipment of organism from a reputable supplier, and we began refining the methods we had spent months researching. I look forward to sharing more about what I continue learning about culturing these organisms in a future post. We have faced many challenges and passed many exciting milestones along the way. 4 months in and we still maintain the initial starting cultures. Our breeding minnows produce around 1000 eggs a week and we are reliably producing algae and daphnia. There is still a long way to go to improve the sustainability of the system, but our initial results suggest that it can be viable.

My research in both labs is planned to be ongoing through the next year until I graduate in may of 2025 with a degree in Environmental Science.

Blue Bugle in bloom Lincoln, Ne. May 2, 2024.

That’s about enough about me for any post ever here. I do not claim to be an expert and recognize that there is still a lot to learn about the few organisms we are currently working with, and everything to learn about everything else. I am excited to continue learning and hope to continue meeting others passionate about exploring these issues. I hope that through the information I share in the posts hereafter, the products we try to sell, and the conversations to unfold will help promote sustainable agricultural practices to help protect earth’s natural habitats and nonhuman life.

In our name Eco stands for both ecosystems, those we want to create and protect, as well as the economy we hope to sustainably stimulate. Trophic is a term related to feeding and nutrition. In Limnology they talk about the trophic pyramid and trophic food web, models that help us visualize and quantify natural interactions between organisms. It is EcoTrophic Solutions because solutions are what we are working on. Initially, I think we are going to start small, and by small, I mean microscopic. Algae is the base of the aquatic food web and is an organism which seems to be lacking as far as resources on culturing it goes. Eventually it is my goal to research ways to efficiently recycle the fish waste back into a nutrient form to grow algae. I’ll do my best to share what I’ve learned and look forward to learning through whatever I do.  If you have read this far, please find us on whatever platform that we have hopefully created by them and reach out to share your story and interests in ecology, sustainable aquaculture, plants, algae, fish and more! I am always interested in meeting like-minded individuals to work with.

Thank you for your time in reading this far. Together we can make the world more environmentally conscious and sustainable.