Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

p.s. I'm going to cry I tell you, heeeeeyyyeeeellllppppp

This is the induction they talk of Abdul!
It may be very dirty, that is what it is suggested that you wash it. Can you post some pics please?

its 6 am here so eveyone is asleep, will put up pics of it all first thing in the morning.

I've been reading the forums about it, is it true that the dust will just settle down in a day or two?

You only have 60L, wait till its 1000L or 2000L
I found out the hard way that you should wash you gravel, check out the first page of my system thread http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=6137&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
that never cleared up
Just wash it a few times to get the majority of it off and the rest will end up in the GB after the first week of cycling.

Regards
Matt

Sounds like you are washing the gravel in a "closed" bucket. Obviously it does depend on the size of the gravel as well, but I found it most effective to wash the gravel in a "open" bucket. In other words, the bucket or tray has holes at the bottom so that the fine dust would drain out via the bottom instead of being stuck in the bucket... And since the only way you are going to get these fine dust in a "closed" bucket out is that you get the particles stirred up in the suspension when you pour it out... Will take a fair bit longer...

It is also not good to use too small a gravel size as it does not have enough space for water and air to fill and for the roots to grow...

Definitely as I noted in the other thread you started about washing the gravel, if you can find a basket of the appropriate size with the appropriate size holes to hold your gravel. Then you just fill the basket half full and swish it in a bin or bucket of water. The dust/sand/clay will fall out of the basket while you keep your gravel contained. Then if you can swish in a second cleaner bin of water you can get fairly clean gravel with minimal effort. It is also probably not a good idea to dump the dirty water down the plumbing in the bathroom as sand and dirt isn't really good for the plumbing.

As for the pumps. Keep in mind that when they say what the Max Head of a pump is, that is the height at which the pump hardly moves anymore water. If you can find a pump that says how much water it moves at different heights, you want to read that chart to figure out if you want that pump. If your fish tank is 60 liters, then you want to move at least 60 liters an hour. Usually we like to go a bit bigger. So you want a pump that will move at least 60-100 liters at the height you need.

And you should be able to test your gravel with a cup of vinegar to see if it foams up to know if it's limestone/marble or not.
If it turns out to be limestone or marble, you probably don't want to use it since most plants won't grow well with such a high pH.

Hey heyyy,

I already read your systems thread matt thats one of the reasons I made sure I washed my grow medium, or least am trying to.

I'm just going to test the rocks with vinegar so I'll know

Made a couple of videos of the rocks have put them up here. The soapy white bubbles appearing no more, have doused the rocks with hot water now, will do another couple of times tonight and hopefully all will be ok. Tell me what do you guys think of the grow media size? I've gotten some advice about little clay cylinders they use over here to fill irons with, quite small in size, going to see if I can fiond those tomm.

Oh urine and plasma, I put some of the gravel into vinegar, it all bubbles, ALL of it, not just the white bits, I put in some grey ones too and they bubbled as well, all that washing went down the drain, my poor fingers tortured for nothing, oh the hooorrroooorrrrrr

there there, just think of it as a test to see how dedicated you are to AP, what ever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

actually now that i think about it there are a number of diseases that don't kill you but leave you weaker than before but washing gravel will definately make you a better person

Chin up

That is hard, Abdul. My condolences. Still, keep the stuff and add it to a system if it starts getting too acidic.

I've always washed somewhat like RS_ does, except my container is my growbed and the kiddie pool is my fishtank. I just use a good powerful sump pump and a hose and wash until the water is thick, them pump it out and do it again until the water is fairly reasonable. Then I let it settle and siphon out the sediment. Now, this only works if the sediment is fairly minor, like a few percent by weight. I've used this on about ten cubic meters of gravel and my back is better for it!

If you are at all concerned about the foam, etc that comes from the rock, get a couple handfuls, rinse it, and put it in a bucket with a sacrificial goldfish and see what happens...

Good luck, mate!

I have a feeling there will a number of 'sacrificial' goldfish hydro ;] good call on keeping some of it to help buffer acidity, was considering going and tossing the lot of it in my cousins bedroom as he's the one gave it to me and promised it wasn't limestone or gravel. Anyhew have made a video of the tests I did, includes a river rock I found from a source, would be a bit pricey but at least its available.

So what exactly is hydroton? is the LECA just that, little clay balls that have been fired in an oven? I'm pretty sure I can have those made!

oh and I had figured that the little aquarium pumps I had would not do, tested them for height, so I got a new pump, a big one H.max 2.5m and flow max 2400 l/hour. I figure that should handle the 44 inches of height between my ST and FT just fine

wait a tick, I just read I can use coconut coir as the media! does anyone have any experience of this?!? I have access to oodles of the stuff! They'll probably let me have it for free

Everyone will tell you it stays too wet for flood & drain (and I'm starting to agree with them).

I'm down to just using it for net pots but am starting to use gravel in the net pots too. A few pages into my 55 gal system has a pic of algae starting to grow on the coco coir. No algae grows on the coco coir on the indoor system though (the coir is in the net pots - several inches of gravel under the pots). Light levels are a bit low indoors at this time of year.

I've heard of people using the coir as media and most report that it stays too wet.

If you can perhaps leave some of the rocks soaking in vinegar for a time and then rinse and test them again later in vinegar to see if they might perhaps become suitable with some soaking. However, I do kinda fear that you may have limestone.

If granite is available, that should be a good rock but it's heavy and if it's crushed granite, it will be hard on the hands. Anyway, you are looking for quartz types of rock or lava rock for the best grow bed materials.

As to size. Your initial gravel seems to be a fine size (at least the larger bits of it I saw) for grow beds. Those smooth rocks you got later are probably way too big. You don't really want too small of media or it will tend to clog more.

Hydroton is clay balls that are fired, I don't know the exact process, but I think they are made in Germany.