Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I guess this is more of a question than observation. I bought a box of worms from Bunning the other day 500 worms I think. Anyhow they came in fine, potting mix looking stuff and I put clumps of them on top of GB so worms would crawl (slither) into GB, they didnt move much after a day so I buried the deposits and left. About a week later when topping up with water I tried to wash the soil mix stuff through the GB as I didnt want it in GB. I think a lot of it went into FT as it got quite dirty.
Should I be concerned having a bit of dirt ( was very little) in GB. Should or could I have put the worm / soil mix in a bucket of water to seperate?
I kind of figured that the worms would eat the mix stuff anyway?
Any thoughts

I have Gammarus Scuds in my GB's and biofilter barrels. I have not had to back flush the biofilter barrels in 8 mo or so, they keep everything very clean, no poo buildups anywhere.......

RS_, that's great to hear, that gammarus are working for you too! multiple confirmations! I'll try too, in my commercial GH, once I get it up and running. Thanks for sharing that.

There is a huge benefit of having worms in our systems....It took a while for the worms to migrate to my system as it was new but now with all the fish solids getting pumped into the GB's I have A great feed happening as well....I have composting worms and an insane amount of bloodworms... My feeder fish loove these they hang around the gravity feed drain pipes as the bllod worms get rinsed down the system all the time giving my feeder fish free feed every hour... In turn the Jades just GOBBLE or maybe GULP down the feeder fish as they get sucked up the sump tank pump and thrown into the jades tank also every hr so My fish food bill is down a heap even trying to feed my almost 900 jade's ((150+ edible size (hahah What's left of killing most of my first 700) and 700 x 3in fingerlings...) that as well as them muching away on the caterpillars i find every day and a couple of handfuls of duckweed too... Most of the sediment is cleaned out in each GB evey crop (Rotating GB's) that muck is then makes it's way to the 10,000 ltr Sump tank (old swimming pool) where the Yabbies HAVE A FEAST.... So all in all they produce a heap of Solids I was thinking about putting a Swirl filter before the pump but I prefer the solids in the GB's as It creates a BIGGER more SUSTAINABLE system

any chance of pics of all this?

something you might find interesting is my experiment with mulching in my GB.
My system is +3 years and has had issues with solids build up the whole time, but in one bed i've taken to throwing all my prunnings (only from my AP system) back into the GB. at first i was being lazy but it seems that the layer on top forms a crust and the worms range from the top of the clay balls to the bottom of the bed because of it.
i'd say the more solids you can get into the bed, the more the worms reproduce and the cleaner your bed ends up.

That sounds interesting Timmy, do you have any photos?

Aha!
This just might be the thread I needed
People who have had good luck putting solids directly into the grow bed and relying on worms to clean up, what was your grow bed to fish tank / stocking ratio, and how long did you manage between grow bed cleans?


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