Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I've lately had to do some renovations in my system due to termite damage. I had to empty an 8' by almost 3' by 1 foot deep grow bed so I could pull it out and replace it.

I piled the gravel/shells on a ground cloth and even planted one big plant from the grow bed in the mound. I hooked up a micro sprinkler to my irrigation system to spray over the mound a few times a day.

I can't say how viable the bacteria colonies stayed in that mound of gravel with very little food to process for two weeks but the papaya stayed alive. I fear that most of my worms from that mound of gravel probably escaped into the ground under the pile.

I definitely recommend storing the gravel this way over sitting in buckets and containers with standing water. I've found that leaving gravel in water for more than a day tends to make for nasty anaerobic gravel. If you must put it in containers rather than on a ground cloth, then plant pots with drain holes would be better than non draining buckets.

You'd be surprised - I still had worms in a growbed after about six weeks without water! Media was perlite though, so it would hold a bit more moisture I guess.