I live 3 miles away from a boat launch on the very southern tip of Puget Sound. The launch is adjacent to seagrass meadows that are the subject of my investigations.

In order to get the same sea water as the meadows, I built this system for pumping 5 gallons of sea water into a tank that’s strapped into the back of my Volkswagon Beetle. The setup should take no more than 5 minutes and the pump is advertised to pump 1 Gallon per minute.

I’ll collect water at high tide but I’m worried about clogging the pump so I’ve installed a filter along the hose leading to the pump’s intake and I’ll probably fasten a Whiffle Ball to the business-end of the intake hose.

Once I’ve sterilized the tanks and everything that will come in contact with it, I’ll need to sterilize the sea water I’ve collected from Puget Sound.

I’ll be using two vacuum filter apparatus with 20 micron filters that I’ll replace every 1000 mL.

Because my autoclave (pressure cooker) is only 8 inches high, I’m limited to four 500 mL bottles.

I plan on using the same pressure cooker to sterilize the soil I’ll collect to plant the seagrass rhyzomes in.

This is going to be so tedious!