Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

How sharp is it. Wind moving plants around against it all the time. And what happens to the fine splinters.

I've seen many times where people have talked about using glass. But as far as I know, not one has actually gone and done it.

First you want to make sure it is not sharp bits of glass, if it has been smoothed, then it might be ok but sharp glass shards and water and digging hands.......need I say more?
But
I think the biggest problem is, most of the glass pieces are really small. 1/2" and even larger media is ideal. Tiny stuff will clog and won't allow the water to flow through fast enough. Seeing as most the glass in recycling centers is from bottles and most bottles are pretty thin for most of their size, you are not going to find a lot of large pebbles of glass for use as media without a lot of extra processing.

Marbles???

my son has a whole bucket of them that he hasnt looked at in years......

need a lot of marbles to fill a GB tho hahahaha

also a lot of light would filter down into the gb possible causing Algae??

Thanks! All good points. As I have only read about it and haven't seen it I can't comment. It might be worth going to look at. My impression is that it is fairly smooth and splinter free as peolpe use it for paths. The size would be the issue though. I guess I am attracted to things I don't have to pay for.

If you happened to have 500 liters worth of marbles, it might be worth a test but you might be better off saving them to use in a more ornamental setting.

Me too i stopped on the side of the road before cos someone had dropped a length of 80mm pvc, it had been run over and was pretty banged up but i salvaged about 3 lengths approx 1500 out of it

I bought six 45 litre bags of Canna Clay Balls from the local hydroponics shop. At $45 a bag it cost me $270 to fill my pots in the GB. Now my new system has two GB with pots filled with gravel (18 pots per GB) and two GB with clay balls. Then I have two GB setup as floating raft and another six setup on the other side as wicking beds. No fish yet.

We have used recycled glass purchased very cheaply from our local recycling depot in some of our hydroponic systems. Plants grow very well in it - but the main drawback is that it weighs a ton - really very heavy.
We had thought of buying an Imploder but these are rather expensive unless you have an unlimited source of glass bottles etc.
We will stick to what glass we have at this time,and continue using it in the hydro systems.
It is too heavy to use in our present AP growbeds at this time .

My new system will have 20mm scroia (I know its a pain to wash), for the bottom layer then 20mm white river pebbles on top.
My thinking is that the scroia has a huge surface area for bacteria, and the river pebbles are smooth and easy to plant in.
Both are cheap

Free Recycled Glass.
Whether it'd be good as sole media, depends on the size. No porosity = no leeway when clogging starts to occur.

I'd bet if you used green and blue, as the top layer of a big round growbed, and formed it into the BYAP logo,
You could make it onto the cover of the magazine.

Rick

Sorry for dragging this up but im trying to get a handle of weight to volume of scoria.

I took a 1/2 blue barrel to a Landscape supplies, filled it up with scoria (14mm), had it weighed and went home. I paid $17 for 85kgs (possibly 85 litres by volume which is close) - with filled it up to about 5cm from the top. Going to be expensive to fill 30 1/2 barrels!

I can get 1 x m3 for $128 or 1 x yd3 for $99. The bloke told me, 1 x m3 = 1 ton (of scoria?) so if that's correct, I was overcharged and its cheaper? confused

Hi Erich,

I always thought they sold this type of material by volume...hence m3

In Melbourne, you can find 20mm Scoria at landscape places for between $65 to $80 per cubic metre. Delivery is another matter....my local is $80, but a truck o fup to 4 cubic metres is $22.

$17 for 87kg, or half a blue barrel, which is about 100 litres is very expensive....

Heck, $128 a cubic metre sounds expensive also....

would using scoria push ph levels up or down?? or keep them neutral...

finding my ph is still sitting on the high end of 7

wondering if i could make another bed with a media that would bring it down that may help buffer it??

currently running 450-500 litres of Blue metal

hoping to have another 500-600l of beds up in the next month

all tests I have seen = scoria = low

I filled up 1 x 1/2 blue barrel with scoria, took a bit out and done the following:

1/ tested water (rainwater) = 6.4 PH

2/ Washed some quite well, left over night and tested = 6.6 PH

3/ Added some unwashed to water and left overnight = 6.8 PH

I have 20mm Blue metal (same water) and its been sitting on 7.6 for 3 months now

hmmm might give it a go another couple of beds filled with scoria, maybe i could mix the two together......