Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Aww, so thats where all the pumice has gone. I know it is very soft and abrasive (like sand paper), people do rub it on their calloused feet afterall

cant think of anything else though....may be full of trace elements?

AD- We need some here! Can u send on a long boat! hehe.
Sometimes it makes it to our coast must be from indo.
AM-If it can be got from landscaper supplies it must be plentiful.
doing a google it seems it is blown glass, very hot sand.
Jaymie- got that tank yet?

no, the tank should be here on the weekend. Its a matter of arranging for the free pickup to get it up the hill. The tank is only 2km away!. But, we have a really steep hill through rural-urbia to get to our place.

Fair enough guess free pickup you can't argue.
Well you could if ur in that kinda mood.
BTW love that siggy.

Hey guys i know this Post is years old bu i think i may have solved the problem of creating large amounts of clay pellets using the organic material that will burn off to create porous clay pellets. This is the link on a seed ball roller. it makes clay balls mixed with compost and seeds. it's already set up to incorporate larger particles into the clay.

I wanted to source my own pellets and maybe start a aquaponics trend in my area. What do you think?

http://forums.permaculturenews.org/show ... LL-MACHINE.

I don't think the issue is making the balls, Ive seen this discuss many times on here.
My guess is that the firing of the balls is the tricky part.

Yep.. the (commercial) process involves heating to 1200C....

Which is just the standard clay firing temperature.

Yep... but they use a rotating furnace.. which forms the balls.... (suppose you could form them in a cement mixer)

Then they dump them into cold water....

We have a kiln at our school

I wonder...

I was thinking that by using the seed ball roller with, let's say, sawdust i could actually teach people how to make their own clay pellets in times of need. a lot of my thinking goes towards creating an off the grid mentality/existence. but i guess the easy thing to do would be source some some gravel locally. maybe sit around with a hammer and pound rocks for a day. it's just that the clay pellets are much lighter. and i love ceramics.

if anybody comes across a plan to build a wood fired in ground kiln that they think would do the job please let me know. Making small batches is also a possibility. i have been researching sawdust firing but i can't find the temperature range. looks like it might work.

In a standard kiln I'm sure there are road blocks. E.g. Pilling the balls all in together and having them stick to each other?

Yea, even simply sitting them there and getting flat spots...
What rupert said they do is obviously what is needed, a kiln with rollers, etc that rolls the balls in random directions constantly to stop flat spotting/sticking.

even with the flat spots do you think they would still be viable as an option? I mean look at gravel, it works and it's definitely not rounded.

just trying to exhaust the the dream before i kill it. If I fire something and it has flat spots is that hte end all? then next question would be how to mass fire them with out them stickin together. so i'm just looking for your ideas.

I'm trying to go where no permie has gone before!!!

I thought i had read that pumice was too sharp edged for a grow medium?

As a sometimes sausage maker, i don't see why you couldn't use and old meat grinder to do your extrusion. The one i have will make short work of your forearm, bones and all, if you're not paying attention. Don't think clay would be too bad. I like the idea of mixing it with coffee grounds.

Storing that one away in the back of my mind for a future test.