Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Joel - have finished reading your book - very interesting read. Must look at the DVD & CD.

I intend to do a flood and drain system. I am just wondering why the irrigation grid needs to have so much piping, ie have the pipes so close together in the grid. If the water is going to come up to the top anyway, why does it need to flow in at so many points. Is it so that the larger particles are getting trapped all over the bed??

Spot on VB...... When the fish are densely stocked there's a fair amount of solids in the way of spent food and manure, and thats going straight into the beds. I guess you could cut down on the irrigation piping a bit for the sake of saving costs but I would think that there would be major particle build up in areas where all the flow is..

I could probably have got by with just an H pattern and larger irrigation holes I guess, it's worth a try on a new system to see if less piping will work, you can always add a bit more in if you find there's build up problems...