Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello, so I just decided to build my own aquaponic system. I read that the best grow media is LECA (light expanded clay aggregated), so I bought a bag (it wasn't of Hydroton brand). On the images I saw in different forums LECA are small balls, it doesn't seem to be small broken pieces. In the bag I bought there are many broken small pieces. Usually this shouldn't be a problem, I'm just concerned that when siphoning the water down all this media will go to the aquarium, even though I plan to put a grow media protector.

What are your experiences? I don't know if I should just buy Hydroton, or it's just normal that many balls are broken into small pieces.

I think it's fairly normal to have broken pieces because of shipping and handling issues. Having said that I try to avoid the worst batches. The bags I bought years ago (which were Hydroton in my case) also had some smaller pieces that were whole. You can screen any out that you don't want by using some hardware cloth with whatever opening size you wish - the smaller bits and dust will fall through and you'll retain the ones you want on top. With most batches you don't have to do this.