Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have been looking at various exanded clay / hydroton sources.

Seems every person you speak to sells a different brand.

Is there anything special about each brand I need to look out for when buying?

I notice BYAP sells Hydroton in 50L bags.
Growfresh sells Aqua Clay pebbles in 45L bags.

Are all clays equal?

There is also nutrifield, iv been using it lately and dispite the bad rating of on here, they changed suppliers and it seems to be fine, its actually better to clean.

I was looking at canna aquaclay but the 45 l bags turned me off as you need 11 bags for a bed, and its no cheaper than hydroton in that sence.

I use both nf and hydroton, hydroton is best, nf is better than gravel, and a fair whak cheaper....

The canna sales man used to spend a huge amount of energy telling us how much cleaner he thought his product was. To the point that one day I just had to tell him to shut up. We found sticks and rocks, sand and muck, even one bag had a still live plant/weed within the bag of clay.. That would have gone down well with customs. After using both Canna and Hydroton over extended periods I think hydroton is a lot cleaner, and a standardized 50L bag size is far better than 45L.

Don't know if it's still the case... but the original "Nutrifield" clay was a cheap Chinese import... full of dust and crap... really uneven sized balls... that broke apart easily...

Tried it once... and wouldn't touch it again.... and that was when they were selling it a lot cheaper than either the Hydroton or the Canna....

was that when it was 45L bags???

I find it too be fairly good now ball size is pretty good just not perfect spheres i guess.... maybe a bit bigger than hydroton.

Yep.... sp what are they selling now... and what price??

The hydroton sold by BYAP, is the size uniform?

Many of the ones I have been looking at dont have a uniform size.

Both Hydrogran and Hydroton are classed 8/16... meaning the smallest pellet is 8mm, the largest is 16mm, and everything in between.

And from memory, Canna's exp clay is manufactured by one of the above two.

Mr Damage.

Thanks mate.

BTW, your avatar looks like Kim Jong Il when viewed form an iphone

LOL!... it's actually the cover from The Angels Liveline album (with The Angels logo removed)

Mr Damage.

Mine is !

Fired earth...

I have used almost 3 pallets of Canna expanded clay in my system expensive yes but well worth the price, they are EXTREMELY strong balls to break..... I was doing the 1 1/2 yearly cleanout of the beds and transplanting plants all day yesterday and my fingers started to get a little touchy at the end of the day so thank god i didnt use gravel....ouch might have only done 1-2 hrs work instead of a full day....

out of the 3 pallets I have had at most 6-7 bags of really dusty ones not bad for 160 odd bags..... and after all of the ways i have tried to clean them the best 2 ways I found was

#1 - pour a bag in a suspended shade cloth hammock then hit with the hose then either run your hands around in it to get water circulating or toss it like a salad to move pebbles about....
once the water underneath is running alot clearer pour into buckets and and fill up beds,

#2 - in a spare bath tub... It will hold 4 bags with a standpipe protector around the plug and spray the water one and push hands around to clean then when you get the upper portion done remove the cleaner ones then wash the lower portion and bucket theclean ones into the grow beds....

I tried making holes in the top and bottom of the bags you need to get your hand moving through them stirring them up so you can get all the dust off them

I havent tried the hydroton but now I wont stray from the canna as pretty clean good sizes and most importantly !NOT MADE IN CHINA!

We always clean clay in the bed... On system installs one of the first jobs is to place the beds, drill the drain holes and install drain fittings. Then we have a flexible 40-50mm pool hose attached to the standard fitting which screw onto the bottom of the drain. So attache pool hose, run off to a garden, wash clay in bed running red water to waste.. Doesn't ever take too long before the water starts to run fairly clear...

Yep, same.... from day one....