dirt tank

[KcMopar]

lol yeah thats true thyra. also i been drinking water straight out of the mississippi river and streams as well as garden hoses since i was like 4 years old. everybody worries about these heavy metals and i just don't i melt lead for making fishing lures all the time and that gives off lead vapor. i just tend not to worry about that stuff and my fish thirve with using untreated well water out of a garden hose. but on the plus side i tend to buy american over chinese so that may help with the garden hose lol. and i kinda mentioned all this stuff to my folks when we were at supper tonight and my dad just spouted bull sh*t he been doing it for 57 years and he is fine lol. i kinda guess thats where i get the lack of concern from. lol

Lead melts at 621 degrees and minute amounts of lead vapor are released at a linear rate as the temp increases. So with ventilation to the outdoors from a fan or similar device that carries the smoke away from an extinguished match is suitable as long as you are working in the range of 700-800 degrees. You really should not go over 900!!! At 1800 degrees lead emits harmful levels of lead vapor. I only know this because I make and reload my own and customers ammunition. Oh, and always be sure to wash your hands after working with lead even if you are using gloves as you should!!!

Also note that safety precautions are only needed when there is cause to a particular situation. Like a seat belt for instance or an air bag. Why drive a car with one if you dont need it at that time. We do so because it keeps us safe from tragedy and harms way. Like lead in the hoses, its only really dangerous if we consume more lead then our bodies can naturally remove. This is the only way lead ingestion is bad. We ALL have lead in our bodies and is fine if they are at safe levels that the body can handle. Just because we have never had the opportunity to see how safe a seat belt is or is not in a certain situation or how bad lead can be is not a cause to Call BS. This thinking is very blind and narrow minded. One might drink from a hose without ever a negative affect and one might never have the chance to see how a seat belt can or cannot save a life either. One could die even if using and abiding by safety protocols but, I would much better be on safe side then the gamble side.
Being educated to preserve ourselves, others, plants, land, water, air, and animals is what is important.
Here is a very short read on lead in water and the hot side as well from the NY times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/health/29real.html

 

[exhumed07]

i usually just open the windows in the garage. and i typically smoke while doing it cause i'll make 200 rounds at a time for my muzzel loader or a couple hundred jigs at a time and that takes a few hours. so got the ash tray right next to my melting pot. my water tested for 0 lead so i have absolutly no fear of having tiny amounts of lead in my garden hose. u do understand what u mean mopar and don't think that i am ignoring what u are saying cause u make a very valid point and i'm safe at work too. i trust my rigging but i still wear my safty harness. i just feel this country is just going overboard about this lead stuff. i mean they banned the small childrens dirt bikes and 4 wheelers because they had lead acid batteries in them. they were afraid children would be exposed to the lead. yeah maybe if they licked the battery. just think everyone is overreacting to it. I got a friend in cali and she is like addicted to hand sanitiser and freaked out about any possible little chemical that could be in anything. i seriously think this is the cause for kids getting sick so much anymore. one little sniffle and their parents fill them with anti biotics. a kid gets a little dirt on their hands and imediatly they get washed and have their hands sanitised. people are so afraid of germs their immune systems don't get a chance to get strong from being exposed to viruses and bacteria. and they are just as paranoid with chemicals and such. for me personally, i don't worry about it and i just go about my day. i don't worry about every little thing that could possibly make me ill.

 

[Thyra]

Gee, exhumed07, guess you need not worry about the lead, pvc and other metals and vapors - the smoke will kill you first! lol

You are so right about the antibiotics! And we also have a whole generation concerned about allergy to peanuts - never even heard of it until about the 70s. Wonder what cause the sudden change?

 

[exhumed07]

lol i know i should quit smoking but again it realy don't concern me, i'm not worried about it. i'll jump in front of a bus to save another person but i could care less about my own well being. and as for the allergies i have no idea but i have noticed like my friends daughter who was allowed to play in dirt and got greasy "helping" us work on our trucks does not get sick nearly as much as her class mates who constantly get sick but their parents never let their kids play in the dirt or anything. i'm a firm beliver that to get a strong immune system the system needs to be worked and needs to be expossed to stuff. otherwise it's like living in a bubble and the immune system never needs to do anything and it gets weak.

 

[Thyra]

I agree, I grew up on raw milk, but I only like the milk from our cows. I was just thinking this exchange reminded me of "Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid". When they are jumping of the cliff into the river and one of them says, "But I can't swim." and the other laughs and says, "It doesn't matter, the fall will probably kill you."

 

[exhumed07]

lol yep. and i am a country boy and i still go over to the farms and skim the cream off the top of the milk every now and then. i know how good fresh milk is lol

 

[skjl47]

Hello; My guess is that the folks who have taken the time to write warnings have done so with what they perceive as your best interest in mind. I find the advice sound enough but also feel that a person should be able to pretty much live any way they wish.
I do not use hot water for cooking, nor do I drink from a hose or smoke since 1978. I did buy a potable water hose back when I had a camper.
I did drink water from a contaminated well for a while years ago and may have ongoing health issues due to this. So even though I was taking what precautions I knew of, the actions of a local business put my health and the health of a community in jeopardy because they did not dispose of some toxic chemicals properly.
I will say that actually being ill had the effect of focusing my attention. Even if we take all the precautions known, it is not possible to get completely away from the effects of our environment. I knew of a study that related the lack of exposure to the dirt and such of protected children to an increase in health problems. I suspect that all of us will get to share the rewards of a degraded environment regardless of what we do.

One of my philosophies has been that in the end we each get to run our tanks any way we want. I guess that also extends to living any way we want. I guess the folks that try to get us to run our tanks the way they happen to like are not actually trying to be unpleasant, just helpful in their own way

 

[exhumed07]

i agree totally and have not tried to argue, just try to explaine my side and y i feel the way i do so to get a little understandy and which is i'm sure as well as everyone has done and what u take from it is your choice. i run my tanks as i see fit and will give my input from my experiences. as everyone else has. i have had no problems with how i run my tanks, this is the same setup my lfs uses and it's how i learned to do it. .

 

[Thyra]

Due to a ovarian cancer related health problem I agreed to participate in a Fred Hutchinson project including blood draw and a lot of personal questions. It was an involved interview and they asked a lot of questions. Mind you - I was in my 70's at the time - they wanted to know details about my diet as a teen-ager and the questions progressed through like six decades. Stupid things like how much light was in my bedroom at nite at those times. I mean it was an hour or more of questions of diet and activities I could not answer, but they wouldn't let me say that - I had to pick one of their multiple choices!!! After that I decided I would not believe in surveys again because the answers I was forced to give had absolutely nothing to give with my reality!! ( I didn't have the option to say I didn't remember)

 

[exhumed07]

yeah. and i watched a show where they will as a person questions and they are the same question just worded differently and get totally different responses. so as far as serveys go they in a way can sway people to say one thing or another without the people knowing it. it's pretty slick realy. had a friend do it for a psycology class in college and she got her boy friend to answer yes and no to the same question just worded differently. and with multiple question subjects. so yeah i don't put alot of faith into surveys myself. and americans in general are pretty paraniod when it comes to health. and i've always wondered. y do half the things i buy have chemicals known to the state of california to cause cancer or birth defects? y is it always california? if it's known to california i would think it would be known to the rest of the world. or does it just cause cancer and birth defects in california?

 

[exhumed07]

Well its been a week and i think everything is established for the most part. i have had no plants melt at all. everything is still bright green and no yellow leave or anything. and i can almost watch my jungle val grow. i put a mark on my tank at the top of one of the leaves at about noon yesterday and it grew about 1/2 of an i last night by midnight when i turned the lights out and went to bed. Also my cherry shrimp seem more comfortable in the tank. they don't seem to hide out as much in the java moss like they did. they are out scattered in the tank eating and doing their part to keep the tank clean. so Im rather pleased atm with this dirt setup. Getting better results in a week then I've ever had with a planted over months in the past

 

[exhumed07]

well i built a small canopy for my tank and was able to put in an old t8 fixture as well as my t5. running close to 2watts per gallon now so i should be able to plant nearly any kinda plant i want. now i do have a question. with 3 bulbs now i have a pretty good choice in wave lengths i can use. now i know i need to stay around the red spectrum of lighting. so what wave lengths should i use? right now i have a 10,000k daylight bulb and a plant bulb and the other bulb i'm not sure.

 

[skjl47]

Hello; I use and like the color of bulbs in the 6000-6500k range, called natural or daylight sometimes.

 

[exhumed07]

i belive thats the range of my plant bulb but to do all 3 bulbs that way it would be to red for me. i like the 10,000k for all around light, and i will keep the 6,000k as well but for the third bulb should i put in another 10,000k or 6,000k?

 

[KcMopar]

Sorry this is so late, I work for myself now and am very busy. I am a product of the 70's as this is when I grew up. My seat belt then was my dads arm when he slammed on the brakes LOL!!!! Back then the lead stuff was pretty bad and we didnt really know it. Just like asbestos!!! That stuff was awful. I have a handful of dead relatives that got the melanoma due to the stuff. I am not germ freak and dont live my life with anti bacteria lotions and soaps and things of that nature. What I do believe is that folks should be aware and make the decisions that best suites them. I do and will drink out of the hose still but I dont use it for my fish tanks because they get this exposure 100% of the time if its contaminated with lead. I dont believe my hose has lead in it but I dont want to expose my fish if it is.
I do think that some take the germs overboard for sure. Our bodies do need to build its own immunity to germs. I also think the banning of toys because it has a battery in it is crazy. But if this battery container/casing had lead in it like paint on the window sills like they did in the 70's then I can agree with that. There are many things out there that we get exposed to and our bodies take care of it for the most part if its not over exposure.
I used to be pretty carefree until I had kids. Since then I have became more aware of potential things that may or may not harm us but I have chosen to steer to the safer side of things and be more careful. Its not that I avoid every potential tiny threat but I do try to be more careful these days.

 

[exhumed07]

a can definatly agree to that mopar. and i still remember riding around in my dads 76 lifted gmc with no seatbelt, going on road trips sleeping on the back deck of my grandmas old car when they were big enough to do that lol. i look back and think holy crap lol but when it comes to lead and stuff like that i have no worries. my plumbing is copper but it is lead free solder, my water has been tested to be lead free so i think the miniscule amount of lead that may or may not be in the hose is not a concern for my fish. i can agree with led based paint as well. children play and rub their hands on the wall and lick their fingers or in some cases that i don't understand eat the paint chips. and the toys i mentioned about being banned cause of the batteries. they are the small dirtbikes and 4 wheelers that have real motors made for 5-10 year old kids. they banned sale of them because they use lead acid batteries. those batteries pose no threat to a child getting contaminated with lead unless they are licking the battery posts which i HIGHLY doubt. this country is full of paranoid people who get worked up about every tiny thing that could potentially be unhealthy. and this whole green thing is getting overboard too cause most of it is not what they say it is. take windmill farms. sure they produce clean energy but what about the carbon footprint to manufacture and assemble them? the prius is a great example. it's utterly worthless compaired to most other vehichles. the prius produces more carbon in it's manufacturing process then a hummer will being manufactured and all the gases it will produce throughout the life of the truck. also the prius gets maybe 35-40mpg. my moms impalla gets fuel milage like that. also there is a car in the uk that gets close to 90mpg. the volkswagon panda deisel. just floors me. but anywho i think i have ranted long enough lol

 

[KcMopar]

I hear ya on the green stuff. What kills me is the electric cars that plug into the coal generated electricity!!!! What kills me even more is the stupid people that think their electric car is not making any emissions. So many people take the info from the internet and TV and base it as the gods honest truth and go no further then that. I encourage my kids to research things they hear and even stuff they are taught at school. I enjoy watching my children question some comment one of their friends or even an adult made that was vague or without fact that they have repeated just because the news, TV, or internet said so. I have encouraged my kids to be analytically thinking and questioning since they were little and it shows more and more as they grow up. My 17 YO daughter graduates this school year and has one of the top GPA's in her class and even holds top GPA for her three college courses (real college course credit too!!) she is taking this year. With the courses she has, had, and is going to take she will have almost 2 years of college done my the end of her Senior year. We are very proud of her!!!

 

[exhumed07]

see one thing people do not think about with the electric cars is the carbon footprint of the manufacturing. the prius batter alone has a larger footprint then a modern pickup when it comes to manufacturing. the nickle for the battery is mined in the american southwest, transported to new york, then transported to france where it is refined, then to china where it is turned into a foam. then to japan to become a battery. then transported back to the usa to be distributed. and these batteries are only good for about 5 years.

and damn. that is very impressive of your daughter. i just barely graduated by the skin of my teeth but that was not cause i was dumb or did not ask questions. i got bored. they stuck to a subject for to long and i got tired of it. math is a very easy subject for me and the teacher would want to spend 4 weeks on one thing when for me a week was long enough. so i would get bored and not do my homework but ace my tests. i look back on it now and want to kick my own ass lol. but even if i was an honor roll student or something and got into college i would have no idea what i would want to do in college. and i do enjoy my construction job i have now and i did my time in the navy after high school. but realy i consider myself lucky that i have the job that i have and the life that i have considering my high school transcripts.

 

[Thyra]

My son had sort of the same problem you did Exhume, it seemed like he would lose his homework and if he didn't, the teacher did, but his test scores were good. There was a program where he could do part time at Voc school and the rest at H.S. and still graduate with his class. At the time I didn't think he was college material because of the homework problem. I don't know whether I was right or wrong, but he got his aircraft mechanic license, been working at Boeing for about 30 years and we all think he has the best job in the world! He has flown all over the world for them to fix planes, he has restored some historic planes for the museums, and he maintains the jets they use for chase planes when they test fly new planes - and he sometimes get to fly with them so he has experienced breaking the sound barrier! He also maintains two airplanes of his own, one of which he built.

And graduations to your daughter Kerry, that is certainly an accomplishment. Curious if she has a career goal or still figuring that out.

 

[KcMopar]

She is going to pursue a degree in nursing, maybe Nurse practitioner or even Doctor. Her mother is a RN/BSN.
I to was bored in school and didnt do the homework hardly at all. I usually got A/B's on all my tests/exams. I was always good in math. Heck I was taking High school Algebra 2 in 8th grade, College algebra and geometry in 9th, Trigonometry and geometry 2 in 10th, Calculus in 11th, then Calculus 2 and statistical math in 12th. Never did much homework LOL!!!!! I even argued with my teacher when he made the claim that the theory of addition is flawed because it proves 1+1=3 and not 2. After about three chalk boards of working the equation I showed him his mistake. He substitued "1" for "x" and its not "1" unless its solved for that. So unsolved it has no value and its "ZERO" until solved or proven. He worked the rest of it with no assumptions for "x" and he proved 1+1=2.
I didnt realize those batteries only lasted about 5 years!!!! I figured at least double that!! Thats awful.