Stable systems must be robust. System stability requires negative feedback loops. Nature is generally very good at this, because... well, evolution. Anytime an organism is too successful, it becomes an opportunity for something else to exploit (note to humans: beware). What causes instability is generally a rapid perturbation to the system: invasion of a foreign species (not co-evolved to the local ecosystem), or a change to the environmental inputs.
For a planet sized system, such as the Earth, it takes a pretty big perturbation like an asteroid impact to throw off the stability, and even that was recoverable when it happened to the dinosaurs, albeit not for the megafauna of course.
For a much smaller system, such as my quail hab or aquaponics system, a smaller perturbation can be potentially catastrophic. The inputs to a CELSS are mainly electromagnetic and thermal. Earth life has evolved robustness to the degrees of Earth's daily and seasonal variations of light and resulting heat, but my systems while not exactly closed yet are also very susceptible to mechanical failure of pumps. This happened to my quail earlier this week, and they went a day or two without water. The quail survived, but egg production is still recovering. We had gotten up to 3-4 eggs per day (from 4 hens), and have been getting about 1 a day since the drought.
I try to personally monitor all my systems on a daily basis, and I think interaction is important, but I also value a certain degree of automation. To say it another way, I think it is important to check the animals have food and water daily, but it's nice not to actually to have to give them food and water every day. Also, in the real world, my wife makes me take vacations.
Subsequently I've been looking into electronic monitoring systems. I really like the Grove system for this, and there are some nice Instructables showing how to put it together.
This will likely be one of my winter projects.
For a planet sized system, such as the Earth, it takes a pretty big perturbation like an asteroid impact to throw off the stability, and even that was recoverable when it happened to the dinosaurs, albeit not for the megafauna of course.
For a much smaller system, such as my quail hab or aquaponics system, a smaller perturbation can be potentially catastrophic. The inputs to a CELSS are mainly electromagnetic and thermal. Earth life has evolved robustness to the degrees of Earth's daily and seasonal variations of light and resulting heat, but my systems while not exactly closed yet are also very susceptible to mechanical failure of pumps. This happened to my quail earlier this week, and they went a day or two without water. The quail survived, but egg production is still recovering. We had gotten up to 3-4 eggs per day (from 4 hens), and have been getting about 1 a day since the drought.
I try to personally monitor all my systems on a daily basis, and I think interaction is important, but I also value a certain degree of automation. To say it another way, I think it is important to check the animals have food and water daily, but it's nice not to actually to have to give them food and water every day. Also, in the real world, my wife makes me take vacations.
Subsequently I've been looking into electronic monitoring systems. I really like the Grove system for this, and there are some nice Instructables showing how to put it together.
This will likely be one of my winter projects.