Building Habitat for Trophy Bluegill | Slab Lab Episode 14

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Just learned today you don't want to cross Sarah cuz she is really aggressive with a trowel.

[00:00:05]Um can't see it from here, but if you want to get rid of a body, she's your girl.

[00:00:14]>> [music] >> Chironomids.

[00:00:21]>> I [music] already had a thing with these things.

[00:00:23]>> I know you did.

[00:00:25]>> All right, well we are here today at this lab lab and um we are planting some floating wetland habitats here so that we can get some really awesome habitat for Sarah's bluegill, for habitat for the zooplankton, habitat for all aquatic life, and also uh help to improve water quality as well in a natural way. So, these these islands are going to go into the water. We're going to plant them with these native aquatic plants here, and they are going to get launched out into the water, and uh we're going to show you every step of the way.

[00:00:59]>> God made dirt, and dirt don't hurt.

[00:01:01]>> Let's go.

[00:01:02]>> You heard it here first.

[00:01:05]>> This is the very first Natural Water Shapes shipment of the Atland Floating Treatment Wetlands, and they are a very, very sturdy unit.

[00:01:19]Very well constructed, nice and solid, durable.

[00:01:24]I can actually just jump up on top of them.

[00:01:26]There's 200 lb on top of the island. Not going to do that with any other island on the market.

[00:01:32]And they're a modular system, so these pegs connect all the islands, and we're going to build out an island to get it launched today.

[00:01:39]We're going to get our planting media ready to go for these, get a little bit of gravel in the bottom so that we don't have that planting media winnowing out through the bottom, and then we'll get plants and start growing stuff.

[00:01:50]>> Winnowing?

[00:01:51]>> Winnowing.

[00:01:52]>> Is that a phrase?

[00:01:53]>> It is a real word. Wow, it's in the dictionary, I think. So, how are we going to prep the planting media?

[00:01:58]>> You could technically fill these things with gravel and plant them. Uh that's not what we're doing today. We are going to put a uh stone base at the very bottom of them, but then we're actually going to be using coconut fibers to be our main planting media in here. Peat moss is another option. There's a lot of great options that you can use. And the reason why we're doing a media like this is because it stays damp, so it's great for aquatic vegetation. Some of the other media that you put in here, they get really dry. In an area like this in Alabama, it's really hot. We don't need to be cooking those plants before they're established in the pond, so we want to use something that stays pretty moist.

[00:02:36]>> And that's a very good point, especially with this island. We've got a very high degree of flotation, so they're going to ride relatively high in the water until we get a lot of vegetation bulk on here.

[00:02:46]So, that wicking action from the bottom is even more important when you have an island that rides high in the water.

[00:02:52]>> So, what's cool about this stuff? It >> It >> It comes in really compressed. We're going to saturate this with water, and then it's going to swell up. Uh and then that's what we're going to use to put in here.

[00:03:04]So, that's what we're going to do next is we're going to saturate the coconut fiber.

[00:03:14]>> So, there's our media that is now breaking apart. So, those little bricks that uh compressed into So, it continues to expand a little bit.

[00:03:25]Um but that's going to be a really great rooting media to get these plants started and get them established so that we can get that root zone going.

[00:03:37]>> All right, so what are we putting down as the first layer? Okay, so So graceful.

[00:03:44]>> Right?

[00:03:45]>> Oh, all right.

[00:03:46]Oh.

[00:03:47]>> Flipping tables, is that what Jesus did?

[00:03:49]>> Yes.

[00:03:50]>> [laughter] >> So, we are going to start with putting a layer of gravel down in these and and honestly the two part, one we want these to be a little heavy because it is really windy out here at the Slab Lab and a lot of ponds do have a lot of wind too. So, we want to we want to give them a little bit of weight. This medium is is really light. So, that is one. Second reason is, you see how fine this stuff is? We don't want that falling through this mesh screen. So, the rocks give us a base layer to uh keep this within the planting baskets.

[00:04:24]>> Oh, you mean you don't want the winnows?

[00:04:28]>> I'm never going to use that word.

[00:04:29][laughter] We don't want it to winnow.

[00:04:31]>> Or affect the winnows.

[00:04:33]>> Which will be living underneath all of this once the root system takes hold and starts to grow below the water surface.

[00:04:40]This will have all kinds of life. It'll have an entire ecosystem underneath it.

[00:04:44]So, that's what I'm excited for.

[00:04:46]>> That's the cool part. That, you know, at face value this seems like, "Oh, that's a a nice concept." But, really dig into it and unpack it. You're going to have biofilms on those roots. You're going to have microscopic activity in there.

[00:05:00]You're going to have zooplankton crawling around there. And then you're going to have your smaller fish using that as shelter and habitat. And your bigger fish doing the old jaws circle around the outside waiting to pounce. Um it's going to be a really cool micro ecosystem within the Slab Lab.

[00:05:19]>> You know what? I can't wait for the day I drop my underwater camera >> Oh, yeah.

[00:05:23]>> and just watch all the activity.

[00:05:24]>> Yeah.

[00:05:25]>> It's going to be so cool so cool.

[00:05:26]>> Yeah.

[00:05:26]>> Yeah, well.

[00:05:27]>> Let's get them planted.

[00:05:28]>> Let's do it. Let's do that. Let's go.

[00:05:34]Really important to tamp.

[00:05:37]>> Is it?

[00:05:38]>> Yes.

[00:05:38]>> John, what are your thoughts on how high we should be putting the >> Like add more >> Um and it's it's going to vary depending on what kind of plants we're putting in.

[00:05:47]We're putting in bare roots today, so we could actually probably bring it up a little bit more.

[00:05:51]>> Mhm.

[00:05:52]>> Just so that we don't >> What do you think about it now?

[00:05:56]>> I'd still bring it up. Heather's is probably within 2 in of the top here.

[00:06:01]And we could even go a little bit higher again since we have bare root. If we were installing plugs or even quarts in this, we'd be at a really good level here because then those quarts and plug plants are going to take some additional soil space and bring that up on their own. And that's kind of an interesting thing with these as well. There are a variety of ways that you can seed these. So you can actually go from just a seed product blended in the top, tamp it down so it's got good contact with the the media, and let it germinate and grow on its own.

[00:06:34]>> Yeah.

[00:06:34]>> You can go with what we're planting with today, which is bare roots.

[00:06:37]>> Okay.

[00:06:38]>> Then you can also go with plug plants that are about 2 in in diameter, and they're typically the deep plugs I believe are on the order of 6 in deep.

[00:06:47]You can sometimes get them a little bit deeper. So that gives you a really solid start for your root zone.

[00:06:54]>> Okay.

[00:06:54]>> of course you can go with a quart plant or in here if you wanted to you could even squeeze probably two half-gallon plants in here if you wanted something that was really established and ready to go out of the gate.

[00:07:04]>> Okay.

[00:07:06]Sarah, I was really desperate to make money in college, and so in in addition to working full-time at the Ace Hardware in Bozeman, Montana, I also had the privilege of making coins, like collector coins, out of buffalo crap.

[00:07:25]I worked in like a little sweatshop.

[00:07:27]>> nickel?

[00:07:28]>> Yeah, kind of. I don't know. Like >> Didn't it have one of the president's heads on it or something? Wasn't it?

[00:07:33]>> Yeah.

[00:07:33]>> It was like right before the elections even.

[00:07:36]And so we had we just had piles of poop essentially, and we just stirred them into the slurry with glue and then pressed them into these molds.

[00:07:46]>> That is not what we're planting in today.

[00:07:48]>> All right, are we ready to put a plant in here?

[00:07:50]>> This is a really great plant for habitat and wildlife. That's already got a very nicely established root.

[00:07:57]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:07:58]>> So, when we're planting that, what we're going to do is we're going to go all the way down to that gravel layer and get that root down to the gravel layer and then tamp right around it at the top. So, I'm actually going to pull that up a little bit, Heather, cuz I know you're going to add some more material here. So, I'm going to mound that so that we still have that root crown up at the top and that's something that with plants in general, um you certainly want to make sure that your root crown doesn't get buried too deep.

[00:08:34]>> Yeah.

[00:08:34]>> Um some of your submerged aquatics and and the the deeper aquatics will handle that root crown being submerged, but those marginal plants need that air atmosphere interaction right up at the root crown.

[00:08:48]>> So, how many of this will you put in each of these or will you put a another type of plant in this pot?

[00:08:55]>> to start to mix some other species in because of the size that the pickerel is able to attain, that that's going to push out. So, that that's really going to take up space there. So, we're going to start to pull in a couple of others other species. So, this is the common spikerush.

[00:09:12]So, we've picked a lot of these plants to be common across most of the eastern and midwestern US.

[00:09:19]>> So, this particular plant is a sedge.

[00:09:23]This one is called a Britton sedge, but there are a lot of different species of sedges. Sedges are a really great aquatic plant to use for shoreline erosion control, but they They have a great root system, too. So, that is something that once this gets established, it's really important that because we want the habitat not just at the surface but at the bottom, we want stuff that's going to grow down. So, that's why we picked this particular plant like the And then, we've got the spike rush, which is another great one for their root systems that are going to grow down um and become great habitat below the water surface.

[00:10:02]>> Yeah.

[00:10:02]>> We found some >> All right.

[00:10:04]>> chironomids or to the layperson, a midge. Look at Sarah.

[00:10:10]What you doing, Sarah?

[00:10:11]>> Playing in the dirt.

[00:10:13]>> She's got the technique.

[00:10:14]>> Got the technique down.

[00:10:17]Getting her done, son.

[00:10:20]I want to save this one for last because that is just such a cool root system.

[00:10:24]>> Okay.

[00:10:25]>> Okay. I already have favorite plants.

[00:10:28]That one ain't it.

[00:10:29]What's going in, anyway?

[00:10:31]Slab Lab will bring anything back to life.

[00:10:34]>> For the locking mechanisms on these islands, they do not go through the tab as they come out of the package. There is a release mechanism right here on the bottom of this collar that you have to press in and then you can slide the locking mechanism out of the top with your index finger. That allows it to slide directly through the locking collar and then you can slide the locking mechanism directly back down into it, click it into place, and it's locked and ready to go.

[00:11:03]Benefit of these islands and then where they were actually conceived is for their ability to help clean the water.

[00:11:11]And so, the plant systems are pulling nitrogen chemistry out of the water, pulling phosphorus chemistry out of the water, pulling some potassium out of the water.

[00:11:23]They're really utilizing that nutrient system that's in the Slab Lab and to balance that. So, every day this island's out there growing actively, you're going to be pulling a little bit of that phosphorus out. So, you know, we spent a lot of time using metal floc to bind the phosphorus, but we know that we're going to continue to have phosphorus coming in, and that's our primary concern, these plants are all using phosphorus every single day.

[00:11:55]>> Locked and loaded.

[00:11:57]>> 200 lb fully floated on just really two modules here. That one's grounded. Um but these things have a lot of flotation.

[00:12:09]>> They're following us around.

[00:12:10]>> I'm trying to figure out how to tow an island.

[00:12:14]We're getting wind blown.

[00:12:15]>> Oh, no. Do not get You better get me out of these trees right now before the whole thing attacks. John, I already had a thing with these trees.

[00:12:23]>> I know you did.

[00:12:23]>> Oh, he's going >> These trees are famous.

[00:12:25]>> We're going TO GET IT.

[00:12:29]>> [screaming] >> IT IS A CHALLENGE TO STEER THIS WAY.

[00:12:38]SO, WHERE DID WE decide we're putting this? On that side there?

[00:12:41]>> Wherever you would like. That's where I would like it.

[00:12:44]My mind would like Shark.

[00:12:53]>> She's anchored.

[00:13:00]>> Some of these islands that we planted a few weeks back, they got beat up pretty bad between Frank the blue heron thinking that this is his new home. And um we used bare-root plants to start, which can be really beneficial in a number of ways. It's really easy to ship them. We can ship a lot of the time.

[00:13:18]But uh some of the heavy weather that they got, that bad rain and winds right after we did these really took a beating on them. So, some of the islands, they do have little sprouts coming back. So, it's not that these plants didn't make it at all. It's just going to be a little while until they look nice. So, we are just adding more plants because the ultimate benefit of this island is the roots going down through and becoming a great habitat for the the fish and invertebrates and and the zooplankton. And so, we don't really want to waste a whole lot of time. We want to get it going. So, this would come back on its own, but we're just speeding that process along.

[00:13:56]>> Some of the pickerel fared really, really well from the initial planting, but we're going to replace some of these and bring them back to life.

[00:14:07]Ooh, look at all the new growth coming up out of this.

[00:14:10]All right, so we have our island replanted.

[00:14:14]Some of this stuff was already rooted in and looking really good. Other stuff was So, we decided to put in some new plug plants into the island that are going to do really well because they're already rooted all the way down to the bottom of the island. So, um they're going to establish pretty darn quick.

[00:14:32]We are going to set this back up. We left the uh cinder blocks that we have tethered to the bottom on buoys so that we can just reattach it exactly where we had it the first time. That should speed things up a little bit. But, yeah, island looks really great. Uh we can't wait to see the fish start to congregate underneath it again.

[00:14:52]Tada! Island complete.

[00:15:00]>> [music] >> Ooh, look at that.

[00:15:14]Wait, wait, wait, what is happening?

[00:15:15]Wait, wait, what?

[00:15:19]>> Hey, come on in. The water's beautiful.

[00:15:25]We got this massive crawfish boil.

[00:15:28]That's he's all over the place.

[00:15:31]>> It's a