Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have a system set up in my house that uses a 10 gallon fish tank and a 10 gallon tote on top of it for the grow bed. I'm using an airlift pump to recirculate the water with a single 1/2" pipe down the middle of the bed that has holes in it to drip out water.

If I'm using perlite, can I do a fill and drain system?

Would it work better than the current set up that just drains out the side back into the fish tank?

Might be an idea to go with another media. Perlite seems to break down in a AP system and clog everything up. Flood and drain would work better with gravel or expanded clay.

Flood and drain with perlite does not work. The perlite will float over the top of the tote - along with the plants.

F&F has had some good success with perlite I think - though CF I expect.

hang on - maybe he was using vermiculite

thats it just picked the last collie yesterday now planted groslizie tomatoes

Rmind us how you water that bed F&F. Is it F&D or CF and how often?

Got some of those tommies recently from the markets and put them in too F&F

Provided it is the really really big perlite, like 1/2 inch stuff, and you only flood the tote about half full, it might work. You can't flood very deep with perlite since is floats really easily. I have actually done DWC in hydroponics with perlie where I actually grew the plants in perlite that was simply floating in the nutrient. Didn't work that great since it used lots of perlite and heavy plants would sink through it. Generally perlite is not well favored in AP since it dose have a nasty habit of busting down to smaller bits and escaping the grow bed to clog pipes or damage your pump.

Or do a 75:25 vermiculite:perlite mix ... ala hydroponics... best of both media...

The vermiculite will stabilise the perlite and stop it from floating...

Or dont use the carp at all

Seriously the stuff sucks big time.

Thanks for all the replies... I didnt even notice that perlite floats, good thing I didnt just set it up to f&d and walk away while it filled and spilled over onto the floor in my office

I would like to use gravel so I can flood and drain, however I dont have a support structure to hold up that much weight..... Maybe in a month or two I will get something underneath it and fill it up with gravel

Flood and drain on a timer 15 min on 2 hrs off 8 am to 4.30 pm now over summer 24_7
And yes vemiculite

If you don't have the support structure to hold up the gravel, you don't have the support to do flood n drain yet either (water can be heavy too). Get the support, get the gravel and then you should be good to go for the flood and drain. In the mean time, you could experiment with siphons and get the practice cleaning up spilled water till you sort it out.

I have perlite beds with 5-10cm of gravel over - works great, just have to be gentle when pulling plants out.
Have you considered hydroton (expanded clay balls)? It's much lighter than gravel.