Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My friend is an experienced koi grower and wants to transition to aquaponics. His question: do the grow beds need to be cleaned/flushed regularly to get rid of any build up of solids?

He was going to build a channel underneath his growbeds so he can flush any solids out manually. Is that a good/bad idea?

I think it depends on a few things. What you are growing and how clean you want them. I have had mine running for over 2 years and I have only cleaned the grow beds I grew sugar cane in. My banana tree grow beds are also getting full of roots, but I don't want to kill the trees. All my other grow beds are doing just fine after 2 years. The banana trees are still doing fine, the water is just not flowing through the rocks as good as I would like.

I also think the worms in my grow beds are helping. They are breeding like crazy.

It would not be correct to give a yes or no answer like many things in AP it all depends...

I do feel that I can say that you shouldn't have to clean your beds, ever. Many people who have run systems for years have never cleaned their beds and if anything their beds are performing better than ever. Some people don't even bother removing the roots of plants when they harvest.

Having said that not many people are growing banana trees. You will hear quite a lot of reports of people having to clean their beds but I have found that these tales almost always come from people who are:

1. running systems where the stocking rate far exceeds the filtration capacity of their GBs
2. pushing the necessity of solids removal components (rather than the mere option).

Make your GBs big and they shouldn't give you any hassles.