Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have visited here off and on and procrastinated about setting up a small system for a while. Well almost there at last! After a friend gave us a huge fibre glass bath (brand new with no plug hole cut out) I decided to use as a beginner trial system. The bath will hold the water and probably yabbies' (I want something edible) and I have bought sturdyish plastic storage boxes to put on top to use as grow beds. I also have a pump and solar panel that partner is going to rig up for me. Im thinking that gravel would be OK as grow medium? I need something inexpensive and not too heavy. Can you recommend a type of gravel? Im in Glen Forrest and use Midland a lot but willing to travel within reason if supplier not in my direct area. Also any sign posting to information re: flood and drain small system would be very much appreciated. Many Thanks Rue

That's basically an oxymoron, in WA at least, where we don't have access to scoria etc.

You basically have 3 options:

Expanded clay: "Relatively" expensive (depending how you look at it) but brilliant to work with, easy on the hands, lightweight, and offers a high surface area per m3 for bacteria colonisation. My personal choice every time.

Pea gravel: Cheap (even free if you live in the hills and want to go for a drive down any one of the forestry roads), but heavy, about 3x times heavier than expanded clay, a major PITA to wash the clay out of, and hard on the hands.

Blue metal gravel: Cheap, but very heavy, about 3.5 to 4x heavier than exp' clay, hard to work with, hard on the hands, surface gets hot in summer, transfers heat to water.

Thank you Mr Damage! We have set up the system in terms of bath tub and boxes and made a frame for them. The solar panel is rigged up to a pump only yesterday but we are having problems with it working with all this cloud that is around here right now. I will search the solar info later today. We plan on going for a drive next weekend and just getting a feel how much washing and how heavy pea gravel is. I saw some expanded clay in Bunnings at $50 for 50litres. As our boxes are 54 litres Im guessing we would need 3 bags. Wow. Cant imagine how much it would cost for a bigger system......Thanks again : )

You should be able to get clay for between $30 and $40 a bag if you shop around a bit. you might want to rethink the solar panel, you need to have your system pumping on cloudy days and at night to keep the oxygen in your system so you either need much bigger panels and batteries, or just plug the system into 240V.

For a bathtub sized system you should be able to find a small pump that will be fairly inexpensive to run. Or is the issue access to 240v?

Hi We do have access to 240v- we are off grid on grid (photovoltaic panels on buy back scheme)and try and save our electricity to get as much back as possible. I will talk to partner who is the leader in the more technical things. We weren't sure if we needed the pump at night as its small system and yabbies'. However the cloud was a shock so we are realising that the solar will need rethinking. Thank you it is very helpful to get the feedback and info : )