Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The other thing I might try, particularly with toms and lettuce, is to put the plant in the traditional hydro basket and have clay balls in that basket, but dig the basket into the standard gravel grow-bed. Any thoughts.

Don't see a problem with that!

It would save them ultimatly getting mixed in with the standard gravel

Yeh, who suggested the filter thingy? oops!

It'll clear up in a few hours

Shake the filter ROFL!

Good one Steve!

There is an old saying in Aquaria - "A dirty filter filters cleanest."

But it only lasts in the 'sweet spot' for a few days then gets clogged. It's filled with bacteria and they are collecting everything going in the filter using van der waals forces, chaos and brownian motion as they do to stick together.

When the filter is full of bacteria nothing gets through but then.... overload, no room at the inn. And everything gets through.

Hasve you tried shaking it. Oh, and is that Rosemary in your bed?

Such sexy words AA, you're getting me excited.........hmmmmm van der waals........ lol

Just wanted to get some of that nice bacterial laden muck into VB's bed, his water will be clear again by the time he reads this.......is it VB?

Clearer - but not clear. One problem is that now the grow-bed has a pile of muck in the bottom, including a it of the terracotta that did not seem to come off in my rinse. I have a 19mm sprinkler fitting in the bottom for the water to drain through. This is coverred by a hydro basket (50mm??) to stop the clay balls from clogging the drain. Evenso it seems that the water may be gradually building up in the bottom. May have to increase the size of the basket. Anyway, I turned off the filter this morning to confirm that water was building up. This was confirmed by the fact that the drain continued to flow heavilly for 10 + seconds. When I put the filter back on, the new flow seemed to stir up the crud at the bottom of the bed and released it into the aquarium.

After I think some bacteria will have made its way to the clay balls, I will empty the bed, put a bigger basket over the drain and clear out the crud in the bottom. In the meantime I will try and not stop and start the flow. I suspect that as the level of the water in the bed increases, the increased pressure may increase water flow, so the bed may never actually overflow. I will monitor this.

wish I had thought to shake things up before dismanteling my filter to harvest bacteria form my canister filter... good idea there Steve