THIS is some awesome camouflage!

[Soundchasm]

Had this thing been lined up due N/S, I may have missed it. BTW, what the heck is this thing?

 

[Squirrely]

View attachment 198541 View attachment 198542 View attachment 198543

Had this thing been lined up due N/S, I may have missed it. BTW, what the heck is this thing?

Looks like it might be a tree frog. They can climb like crazy.



These are young Pacific Tree Frogs we hatched from pollywogs. They live in our septic tank.

Greg

 

[begreen]

Yes, looks like it may be a grey tree frog. The can change their color like a chameleon, but at a slower rate. That's a pretty cool example of camouflage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_tree_frog

 

[Soundchasm]

This place rocks!

 

[firefighterjake]

Tree frog . . . I love them. My wife hates them . . . mostly because they've been breeding in our swimming pool this year after we opted to not open it up and about every evening they start calling to each other in their loud, shrill voices.

 

[Soundchasm]

Tree frog . . . I love them. My wife hates them . . . mostly because they've been breeding in our swimming pool this year after we opted to not open it up and about every evening they start calling to each other in their loud, shrill voices.

I was telling the bass player about it at a gig last night and he turned and asked his wife, "Don't we have about six of those in our pool right now?".

 

[Squirrely]

Tree frog . . . I love them. My wife hates them . . . mostly because they've been breeding in our swimming pool this year after we opted to not open it up and about every evening they start calling to each other in their loud, shrill voices.

Oh yeah... the little suckers really do get rowdy. Their sound is way out of porportion to their size.

Tree frogs remember where they were spawned.



The adults will return to the same place next season to spawn more wogs.



These little guys are in various stages of camo. They're not on the Hyacinth all the time, so they likely won't bother turning all green.

Greg

 

[sportbikerider78]

This year has been so wet, I have more tiny tree frogs than grasshoppers. Very weird year for bugs and critters in this part of the country.

 

[Squirrely]

We also got pretty good rain this year although technically it's still a drought. Nature is never out of balance because it constantly adapts to changing conditions. About 10 years ago it rained 66 inches in the canyon and the frogs were Biblical!

Greg

 

[georgepds]

Reminds me of the Navy captain who was asked why sailors where camouflage on ship.. "That's so we can't see them when they fall overboard"

 

[vinny11950]

They live in our septic tank.

Wow, that's the nicest septic tank I have ever seen.

 

[Squirrely]

Wow, that's the nicest septic tank I have ever seen.

Thanks, it's a do it yourself residential waste water treatment plant. The raw sewage from our house dumps directly into here where it's composted by aeration.



Because there's no smell, there are open safety wire covers on the risers just so no one falls in. We have a septic pit, but is is no longer used, because every drop of the processed water is pumped up the hill to a storage tank where we use it to irrigate our fruit trees.

 

[vinny11950]

Awesome set up, Squirrely.

 

[Squirrely]

California is in the middle of a severe drought so water here is really expensive, so we had to come up with an alternative so as not to be helpless victims of the water utilities.

Greg

 

[georgepds]

California is in the middle of a severe drought so water here is really expensive, so we had to come up with an alternative so as not to be helpless victims of the water utilities.

Greg

Are wells prohibited? Around here shallow wells work fine... so long as you're far enough away from septic sources


I like your system.. but is there any ned for an anerobic stage?

 

[Squirrely]

Are wells prohibited? Around here shallow wells work fine... so long as you're far enough away from septic sources

The ground water is about 300 feet down so a well would be expensive. We could drill because no effluent flows to the septic pit as we recover every drop. But we'd need to tear down a carport to get a drilling rig onto the property. It's much simpler and cheaper just to use all of our water twice. This is our water bill for before and after the installation of the waste water treatment system in April 2015. We now pay a flat minimum water bill all year round {$40 per month).

We no longer need to conserve household water as everything gets recovered and stored for reuse. We take all the long showers we want and all our toilets have a full five gallon flush.

I like your system.. but is there any need for an anerobic stage?

No. Anerobic bacteria make an awful stink because they metabolize hydrogen sulphide. So our system is all aerobic, as they are much more agressive in composting the waste water and they don't stink because they metabolize carbon dioxide. This is the settling section of the tank.



I turned it into a water garden. Pacific Tree Frogs live there among the Water Hyacinths. Their long fine hair root systems help to clarify the water and they flourish in the nitrogen rich environment. The system I designed has transformed our filthy stinking septic tank into a thing of beauty while saving us an average of at least $100 dollars every month on our water bill.

Greg

 

[georgepds]

Hi

In ordinary septic tanks you see solids on th bottom and scum (fats and oils)on the top..

Is this scum layer just below the Hyacinths ? Are their solids on the bottom?

 

[Squirrely]

Hi

In ordinary septic tanks you see solids on th bottom and scum (fats and oils)on the top..

Is this scum layer just below the Hyacinths ? Are their solids on the bottom?

Fats get metabolized by the aerobic bacteria, and the sludge on the bottom of the tank is exactly the same stuff I find in the bottom of our fish ponds when I clean them out. I pump out the sludge from the bottom of the tank with the Hyacinths into buckets and use it as liquid fertilizer on our fruit trees and grape vines. What would normally be a waste product we'd have to pay hundreds of dollars for a pumping company to remove, instead becomes a valuable resource which can be put to use. We're vegetarians, so our sewage lacks the potential pathogens and parasites typically associated with meat consumption.

We use our reclaimed sewage water to keep our ponds full and both fish and water plants thrive in it. The tree frogs that are living in the tank came from one pond reserved for the adult frogs to lay their eggs without any fish eating them before they hatch. The pond was crammed with wogs this year and some of the young frogs went down into the tank and like living there.



Greg