Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

this morning the pain is less intense, however I want off the painkillers because I'm now constipated, ya can't win, If I think I can sit in a car all the way over to Santa Fe, maybe it's time to get this sorted. I will try the lemon and olive oil trick first. I'm not literally thinking straight

Hope it works as well for you as everybody else I know that tried it.

BIN-Kidneystone-episode-pre-op-smile
Good Morning

I hope I’m over a weekend of Hell. It all started Friday night, with minor groin pain. Arg, you’d think after five episodes with kidney stones I’d know what was happening. No. Silly me thought,” Maybe this is an STD?” I actually told my wife this. She loves me, apparently. Amazing what a guiltless conscious will blurt out and be taken offhandedly by a trusting woman. Sometime before midnight I took a pain killer and went to bed, only I didn’t sleep. I writhed in bed. I got the right signal finally from my body and it was quite clear what the problem was; the kidney stone from Christmas day episode had begun to rear its ugly head. I have no idea what it was doing all this time, but it was waking my body with sirens by 1:00 pm. I took another pain killer.

Thank goodness my urologist prescribed painkillers in case this was going to happen.. The pain was managed, but I was in a bad way mentally. We had bought two batts of insulation and 8 OSB panels to get our greenhouse finished enough to allow me to finish building the two flood and drain grow beds for our aquaponics project. I know in my mind there are very strict schedules to keep in order to finish the greenhouse pond project. Now the whole show is stalled, grr.

Saturday the pain killers helped curtail my ambition. I hate that about drugs; friggin slowing me down. Nevertheless, I was in agony throughout the day and some of the night so they were very necessary. Everything they tell you about kidney stones is true. One of those stories a female doctor in a ER at Christmas told me was, “She had given birth and had kidney stones, the stones were worse.”

What am I gunna do? It is what it is. I’ve radically changed my diet, drink water all the time, besides juice in the evening and coffee before work, it’s water, water water all day long. And I have to tell you that drinking a lot of water with urinary problems makes life difficult.

Sunday I felt better, I hadn’t taken any pain killers. That lessened the strain on my guts. Unfortunately, it all started again that afternoon and kicked my butt all night long. Not only was I in agony, my body was beginning to tell me I could not endure much more pain. Monday Morning I called in sick, and we arranged to go to the emergency room at Christus Saint Vincent hospital in Santa Fe to be nearer to the Urologist in case he wanted to take this damn stone out.



Sunday night it snowed these huge flakes, Nell ran outside to pick daffodils before they froze.

Sunday-night-snow-Nell-Picking-dafodills-before-freeze2

Kidneystone-episode-Cristus-st-vincent-hosp-ER2

Kidneystone-episode-Cristus-st-vincent-hosp-ER

So I told them at the ER that I needed a cat scan and I had the pain under control, or it had lessened considerably. Ignoring my request for no pain killers they gave me, as the nurse called it “a light dose of morphine.” Fine whatever, unfortunately I got the chills and shakes so bad they had to postpone the CAT scan, at which point the gave me Toradol, which I believe is a non-narcotic often prescribed for Kidney stone pain. Grr. The Toradol worked right away, not only with the pain, but with the shakes and hyperventilation. Dammit man. Finally they got me in the Cat scan which confirmed I had a 5mm stone in ureter on the left side and possibly another one nearby. Okay let’s get a hold of the urologist. That’s when the system really failed me: They couldn’t get a hold of him. Some kind of trouble with the staff at the hospital and their specialists left them with no contact information, Christ! You’ve got to be kidding me right now. Nope it was true, they could not get a hold of my urologist. Which in turn meant I couldn’t be admitted! I was steaming mad. I was also seriously considering why I came to Santa Fe when many of my friends said I should go to Albuquerque.

Arg, we had no choice. Fortunately, we were able to stay at Sara’s and Jona’s. Thank god for those guys.

Now in my mind, which we all know is a dangerous place left to its own devices, I had come to many conclusions why the urologist left me in the lurch. I surmised the stone wasn’t threatening enough to need surgery since I wasn’t admitted. We had an appointment first thing in the morning, where I expected him to tell me to stop whining, I’ll be fine. So of course I started this new day with an orange and a cup of coffee. See this here is why we needed better communication. As soon as we got to the urology office he came in and told me, he booked a operating room for 3:30 pm that very day. Well I had to confess I drank coffee and ate the orange. He seemed alright with it, however the anesthesiologist wasn’t. Oh crap, now what?

The anesthesiologist gave me two options: One I could risk aspiration on the operating table, which we understood meant choking to death, or they could play it safe and do a spinal. Choking to death sounded pretty bad so I chose the spinal. Grr. Unfortunately, after three painful tries, he said arthritis in my spine made the spinal impossible, arg! I didn’t know I had arthritis in my spine, didn’t have time to think about it either, they put me under. That meant they would intubate me to prevent me from choking. BTW, in case you want to know, it is the half&half in the coffee that posed the problem.

Anywho that’s done, I survived seemingly against all odds, well in my mind. I already mentioned how dangerous my mind is if I’m not building something, right?

So now I sit hear more or less of sound mind and a very sore throat. Feeling slightly violated, but knowing the stones are broken up and about gone, very much appreciating my wife for putting us with her cranky old man.

Cheers to you all,

Brian Cranky Rodgers

since I can't work, I drew my setup, mind that it is through a lens of pain killers



mostly I am trying to convey the levels. My hope is one pump in the sump will lift the water to the grow beds, which all should gravity drain back to the FT. When the water reaches the level of the 102 mm overflow pipe it will gravity pour into the sump tank, where it starts to cycle again through the 24/7 sump pump. well that's the plan ...
I'm certain this needs clarification. I'm happy to answer questions

Hiya boss. I hope I don't get kidney stones.
Firstly thanks for sharing your build its coming along nicely, looking forward to the completion.
Ok, I've looked over your sketch and it looks good although unless the SLO exits the ft at water level and has a siphon break you could end up with two fish tanks. Or raise the first filter inline to the ft water level and add a siphon break.
I'm sure you've thought of this however just in case....
Keep up the good work.

oh yeah thanks I forgot to picture the siphon break on the SLO

I saw in one of your pictures a white barrel with the word "Zep" on it. Love the company and their products. I wonder what was in that barrel....hrrmmmmm. This was from the January 15, 2015 post I believe.

Brian you'll be glad that's all over and a far better result than surgery.

Get better man!

I was skimming from the top of the page and saw the kidney stone post then the system diagram on the paper and thought you'd got a Tattoo of you system put on your arm . Probably would have been less painful. I think I've been reading too many of Bullwinkles posts. Hope you're doing better

Zep is a powerful detergent, I got that one from a cement company, they use it to clean their trucks in the back where the cement is kept moving. Currently that barrel is part of my veggie oil collection system for making biodiesel. I was using it to size the space where the RFF & biofilter will be. Definitely I be very choosy about what the barrels had in them. The little town of Las Vegas, NM sells small barrels supposedly for rain water catchment, but I think they are too small for rain barrels, however they are opaque with a removable lid and readily available. they cost around fifty dollars per and have never had anything in them. Iv'e been searching for barrels like you saw, but the downside is what was in them, and I'm not finding them anyway.

you and me both brother

Hope you are feeling better Brian - there is nothing worse than being unwell - without your health everything is much more difficult. I hope you can fully recover so you can get this build finished & running soon.

thanks Team41 and all who wished me well, I appreciate it greatly. I told them at work I'd start back in on Friday, but right now the failed spinal has my spine aching from top to bottom. I hope this stiffness goes away today.

On the greenhouse I have to add one circuit for an outdoor light, one circuit for the battery backup system then put up insulation and do a very complex cut for almost every wood panel that goes in there before I can finish the first two media beds and start on plumbing, Sorry you probably don't need to know all that, but I find it helps me sort it ll out by writing it down

Wow, glad that's over! It is rough getting back in gear. Nothing like a bout of pain and pain killers to mess up momentum.

I got the first coat of sealer on the pond.



This stuff is impressive. It says on the gallon (3.8 liters) can that it covers 100 sq ft (.09 sq m.) I did it in two cans! My irregular shaped pond has, give or take 200 square feet or .18.4 square meters. There question answered!

here is the first coat. I got halfway before my legs started shaking. I fell over at one point. So I didn't open the second can.


I worked somewhat feebly Friday, but I did it!

Yep I'm happy to be back in the saddle, I am even happier that two gallons covered the interior.
I had to go and read the directions (must have been the pain killers ) it said, "put two more consecutive coats on 3 hours apart" Arg. Well first things first, I am celebrating that first coat. I ordered another can. It better cover twice as well, my wife is losing her enthusiasm.
Although, boosting it back up, An acquaintance down south is breeding lilies and lotus: The two concrete footings are for a large flagstone to sit atop. That will be the shelf for the lilies to rest on as well as a fish hiding place



I still need to decide if I'll buy a 24 volt Jebao pump and run it off photovoltaics and batteries or the 110 volt AC battery backup circuit from my wind turbine. Both have plus and minuses

Brian we're all starting to get excited, as soon as you're back to full strength things will zoom ahead.