Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

got a pack of the nitrile to test out.

Been there, done that TCL... "it's just peroxide".... but after an hour or so......

You could also tape the cuffs to your sleeve.

Yup I guess I'm fairly certain there are no infections under my nails. Ouch.

The real kicker there is that once you start to feel the pain, too late, gonna have to just bear it till it goes away. Seems to be pretty much better now.



Tape around the cuffs is kinda a PITA though so I'm hoping I can find something else. Probably sweat bands or wrist bands of some sort.

I don't know how delicate the towers are but this might be a job for a pressure washer. People out here use them to remove algae from their driveways and moss from the roof. Here's an example of one of the less expensive versions. My neighbor has something similar and really likes it but I can't vouch for this particular model.

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?productId=203161270&storeId=10051&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&MERCH=REC%2d%5f%2dcategorylevel3Horizontal1%2d3%2d%5f%2dNA%2d%5f%2d203161270%2d%5f%2dN

I'm not likely to use a pressure washer to clean the towers. Under normal circumstances I just wipe them down with a rag and it is only because of the move that a bunch of them were left soaking in the troughs under the other towers and got totally covered in algae.

Using a pressure washer would mean I need to set up some place out away from the shed to do the washing so as not to make a mess of everything else and it seems it would be a waste of water and fuel or electricity to run a pressure washer when it will only take 15 gallons of water in the tray and I can wash/sanitize all sorts of things. (can't really use a pressure washer to remove the algae from inside the bottles.)

Only thing I might be temped to use a pressure washer for would be to really clean out the media inserts. But seeing as I've been running a bunch of towers for over a year with never washing the media out, I don't really see a reason to start now. Though I'm kinda tempted to make a set up to place the media in after harvesting to rinse some of the "Juice and worm castings" out to say..... grow duckweed or something like that. But so far I usually just keep the media moist (like by dropping it into a sump tank or something) and just re-use it.

Yeah, it's definitely a trade off. It might go quicker with a pressure washer but that's really it's main advantage. It doesn't sound like you would need one normally anyway. They have ones for bottles that hook to your faucet and run off the incoming water pressure . They're for homebrewers.

Once I started using the power washer my wife got me for Christmas finally everything got washed, it's like a hammer and everything looks like a nail. In the running for my favorite tool, behind the ShopVac.

You are welcome to come over to my place to clean!

I hear they have nice weather in California Dave! You could clean out the refrigerator and all the beer while your there

I always offer beer* and food to people that help me clean!


* really I slip them mickeys so as to press gang them into service

Better read the fine print Dave, he's really a slaver not a pirate....

That is how ships get crews. You get payed for the job, you just didn't know that you applied for the job

This is so exciting, TC!

I know you totally don't have time to do this, but one of Bill Mollison's ideas from "Intro to Permaculture" is to just sit and watch a new land site for a year, see what does what. Where the breezes go, where frost forms first, where the birds nest, things like that. And take thorough notes.

As for naming things, I just chose a fixed point beyond which I can't expand (the machine shop) and started numbering my way away from it. So I have greenhouses 1East, 1West, 2East 2west, etc. Then for the troughs, seedling tables and everything else I just started at 1 and kept going. So I'm in the process of building troughs 5-8, which happen to be located in greenhouse 2East.

This makes record keeping much easier as well.

To each her own.

I just love how you're building the troughs below the towers. Have you documented the process anywhere? I know I read the basics in another of your threads, but I've been so busy building I haven't been reading here much. I'm interested in things like: how thick of a pipe are you using, how often do you put support legs, and how wide have you successfully made them?

Thanks Karen.
Yea, I would love to be able to just sit and watch for a year but to do that I would have to spend most of my time away working instead of being here to watch. So certain things will just have to get placed based on best guess for now.

for Naming I like to have some information beyond just a number in the name (so I don't necessarily require going back to a reference to have certain info.)
So the two systems already going are NB900T (stands for North Back 900 gallons Towers, this is the "big system" to start) and SF300T (South Front 300 towers, this is the one that already has fish out of the blue tank that used to be on the old driveway.)

As for the troughs. I'd have to go look up the exact guage of the conduit but its basically the type of tubing that people bend into the arches for hoop houses and greenhouses. It's pretty light weight metal so I can't make the spans too long without sagging issues. I found that the frame for holding up the towers, if it's 10' it definitely sags too much. 8' is almost ok, 5 foot is definitely good. For the new tower set up I went with vertical supports every 6' (since I made the runs 48' long so a 6' by 100' roll of liner will actually give me 4 troughs.) The real trick is to use plenty of the snap clamps full 4' lengths. Some of the smaller rail trough things I've done, I skimped on the snap clamps holding the liner and Had issues.

I'm fairly certain making a 4' wide 12 inch deep raft bed by this method would work just fine with 6-7 foot post spacing since it is only a small depth pulling down on the liner. I will probably do a raft bed by this method sometime soon. When doing this with gravel beds, it is a bit riskier though and I'm not yet ready to tell other people to do it.