Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Because you all need your own 'American Way" to do things

I have come across the odd use of term that makes more sense the American way around. Can't think of them right now though.

We have regional variations in our weirdness, too. My husband and I are always arguing over whether you "slow up" or "slow down." I say down, he says up. (I'm right.)

You are right G2N.

If you want your air con colder do you say turn it up or down?

Down. Colder is down. Warmer is up.

And if I say, "You didn't want any of that, did you?" and you in fact didn't want any, do you say yes, or no?

I find it annoying when people ask "you ain't got no" anything. Just ask if I have it.

I'd answer:
Correct, I didn't want...
Or
Incorrect, I did want...

Americans will usually say "no" if the assumption was correct--or "no, I didn't want any." But in Japan, where I spent most of my childhood, they would reply "yes," meaning "yes, you are correct, I didn't want any."

As a result, I was very confused by negative questions for many years.


Sent from my iPhone, typed with my thumbs.

I have water in (part of) my system!!! I even braved the cold and took a toe photo, to celebrate! But there is a hot bath calling to me, so I will post photos after I soak the mud off.


Sent from my iPhone, typed with my thumbs.

I was always confused by the statement "write me" as in write a letter to me. Ive heard it so many times on American soapies and movies. The other thing I have noticed is that no one ever seems to say goodbye before they hang up the phone, maybe its just a movie thing?

It must be movie thing....

It's a movie thing. And it drives me nuts! Also, movie cars just go when people jump into them. You never hear them starting the car. Or, for that matter, see them putting on their seat belts.

I had today off, since I worked the weekend, so I spent the whole day in my greenhouse. I had a helper with me. She has never seemed to properly grasp the whole foo-foo dog concept...
And I discovered something. Apparently, the concept of "outside" is not defined by what's underfoot, because despite the greenhouse having a dirt floor, and even a patch of grass for her to lie in when she got tired from all the work of getting herself filthy, when she needed to pee she demanded to be let out.

Hmmm.

Anyway, I got the grow bed racks screwed down onto the wooden stand, which took some doing, since they weren't anywhere near flat. They are now! It took some climbing and jumping to force them into position while I got them screwed down, so I have a pretty good idea now of how strong the stand is. It handled my climbing and bouncing around on it without so much as a wobble. (The climbing and bouncing is because of having wimpy girl muscles. They're getting better, with all this aquaponics-building stuff, but we've still got a ways to go. )

You can still do most stuff with wimpy girl muscles, it just takes knowing some physics and being able to problem-solve different ways of accomplishing things. Most of the time the solutions involve using your whole body weight to substitute for muscle strength, or using levers and fulcrums. The fulcrum frequently ends up being a body part, usually the thigh in my case, since they're pretty much my toughest parts, and are conveniently located for fulcrumming. (Which explains why they are currently covered with masses of bruises. Good thing it's not shorts weather.)

I had to fiddle with the heights of things (lower grow beds, higher fish tank), and that took a while. Fortunately, my husband showed up right at the part that would have caused a whole lot more bruising, and loaned me his man-muscles instead.

THEN, I finally got to break out the Uniseals and PVC!

I didn't get too far with the plumbing before it got too dark to be able to accomplish any more. I got a drain in the one growbed I've cut, with a temporary short standpipe in it, and I got the drain installed in the fish tank and hung the water distribution pipe over the grow beds. Getting that 3" pipe through the Uniseal was every bit as hard as TCLynx said it would be, too.

By then it was getting dark, so I stuck my new pump in the first sump tank, ran some flexible tubing from it up to the grow bed, and started the sump tank filling. While I was waiting for that, I dug out a bag of landscape rock that I had used for bed weight in my truck a couple of years ago when we had some snow and ice storms, and dumped it into the grow bed to have some media for bacteria to start growing in, since I don't have the scoria yet.

Once the tank was full, I fired up the pump. It's rated at 2K+ GPH, but I had my doubts, since I got it at the "ridiculously cheap tools" store. It had great reviews on their website, though, so it seemed worth a try. I timed it, just for grins; it took just over 2 minutes to fill the grow bed up to the top of the temporary drain, which I totally forgot to measure so I could figure out how many gallons it was...I'd say about 4 or 4.5 inches, just over a third of the height of the grow bed, which is, near as I could get it, for as warped and curvy as it is, about 12 inches. Seems like a decent flow rate, for a pump that only cost me $79.99. I was worried about overflowing the grow bed, since the drain and inlet are the same diameter, and the drain just has gravity to work with, so I threw together a U-siphon to help it out. So here's the working portion of the system, along with my toes. (They don't show very well, since by the time I got it going it was dark outside, and I just have one little light bulb out there.)

I probably would have just sat out there in the dark and cold half the night listening to the splashing and gurgling (such a happy sound!) but my daughter texted me that she'd made banana-nut-chocolate chip bread, so I went inside. (Most things my daughter makes have chocolate chips in them. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, since she's 5'9" and barely over 100 lbs, and I don't really have any objection to a little extra chocolate in my diet.) I did have the good sense to bring back a jar of the water for initial testing, though.
I have nitrates! Is that because it's well water? Or because I got mud in it when I dumped in the gravel?

So, initial readings:

Air temp 48ᵒF (9ᵒC)
Water temp 53ᵒF (11.6ᵒC)
pH 7.6
Ammonia 0 ppm
Nitrite 0 ppm
Nitrate 5 ppm

The previous owners left a jug of clear ammonia under the kitchen sink, so after checking ingredients and doing the shake test, I took a cup or so of it down and dumped it in.

Let the cycling begin!!!

(It's probably a good thing I'm working the next 4 days, or I'd probably empty my test kit by obsessively checking the water every few hours...)

No toe so does not score

It's there, look in the lower right side in the darker part of the photo.