Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yea it was the BYAP owner's commercial system that had the problem with gum leaves in the raft beds.

I think some people actually paint or coat the rafts to help protect them from sun, I don't know the details though. I've seen rafts made with the white boards that are made of the small beads stuck together and I've also see rafts made with the blue or pink extruded stuff.

I think the packing peanuts would be too large for fish to eat, but tiny stuff might be a problem. Then again, my chickens eat the stuff eagerly and never show signs of illness (or lightweight eggs). But we do take it away as soon as we see them eating it.

I wonder if styrene (styrofoam) is more or less safe or likely to break down than bottle cap material?

Probably just more likely to blow away if caught by a wind.

Then again, I would avoid some of the new packing peanuts as they will dissolve in water.

Yep, I think they are actually starch.

Starch?! So they use potatos to pack things these days?!? what madness, have they never heard of chili garlic fries?!

I'm sure it is made of corn. It seems that 50% of all products these days has some corn component.

Yep that was us, and our rafts were painted. The paint makes a big difference in stopping the degradation of the polystyrene rafts by UV. It's very obvious where the paint was missed, or was only thin on the rafts as the foam is starting to break down in patches.

Do you guys use cinder, i live in hawaii so we have a lot of cinder, maybe half cinder half hydroton? Should i mix it or just put the cinder on bottom and hydroton on top?

Does anyone have experience using polyester batting (as in quilt) as a growing media, replacing pea gravel?

Think someone tried it a while ago.... and found it was too much of a problem in flood & drain... floated and stayed too wet...

Cinder is used by many in HI. And on the mainland many people use red lava rock which our friends in OZ usually call scoria.

As to the batting, no I haven't tried it but I've thought about using something like it for fodder trays or something. I don't think it would work for flood and drain and it wouldn't provide much support for the plants.

Cinder will work fine as long as it does not float away.

Not to get too OT but have you done any fodder trays?

Not really but sort of. I've done seed flats sitting on capillary matting on the floats in the "raft bed" sort of fodder tray thing. Worked well some times and failed others and I'm not sure why.

That is what I'm using. It is very lightweight, cheap, and pH neutral. Solved the floating problem by simply weighing it down with another cheap neutral product....half size glass blocks, only need a few. As for staying too wet, maybe. I haven't actually pulled mine up to check since I put it in but the pepper plant is still going. I transplanted the serrano plant into it and no other seeds have grown. Could be due to pH fluctuations though as I use tap water every now and then.