Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hum all this talk about floc, you gonna use your sheep to rub the clay off the gravel

I suppose if you really can't use water, and the stuff stuck to the gravel is clay and won't come off with simply tumbeling/winnowing maybe some method using scrub brushes might work.

My thread gravel washing

I used a couple plant baskets in a bin of water to wash gravel. Just put some gravel in basket and move up and down in bin of water a bit before lifting to drain. I found I could wash a couple bags before the water was too cloudy to be really effective. I could have left the water to settle and continued using it longer but It had been raining and I had a line of buckets full of rain water off the roof available for the task so I saved time instead of water.

I think the bouncing of a basket, colander, or sieve in a container of water is quite effective at least against sandy or silty fines. Clay may be another matter but I probably don't need to deal with that one at least.

Sounds easy: I like it, I'll try it! I suppose that for more water efficiency, as TCL points out, you could run the water out to a settling tank, let it settle, then use it again. (details are left as an exercise for the reader ). I suppose that one could even run the water through the bed then siphon the sediment off the bottom of the tanks...

One disadvantage of your method might be that more sediment that would have come off in rougher washing will be dislodged in gardening activities. I'm interested in hearing when there are more results, either continuing satisfaction or the appearance of drawbacks (together, of course, with clever fixes).

The laundry basket is still going strong after washing nearly a tonne of gravel.
It is (was) a reasonable quality basket .
Filled with 3 or 4 good shovel loads each time.

Why not fill up the back of the ute or trailer with gravel, go down to the local river boat ramp, back it in till the gravel is submerged and pull a few chirppies to shake it up. Should do the trick. Water restrictions in QLD barely give me enough litres to wash myself let alone a heaps of rocks.

Seriously though, I've been growing hydro for years, all my perlite is chemically enriched so to speak. I know this stuff wouldn't be good for fish. Would it be wise to wash it out and use it in an AP system or should I just buy new media.

this has been suggested previously, and sounds like it would work, only most ppl aren't willing to see if the car can pull the added weight of the water in the trailer, back up the slippery wet boat ramp...

Thought we'd share our gravel washing solution. The trailer was too water tight to allow for the carwash approach. The box used here is actually for to sift compost and we just added a layer of smaller wire mesh for the gravel. When we discovered how small the gravel was, we did end up putting a piece of window screen over the top as well. The box tipped fairly easily into the wheelbarrow and then off the be unloaded with buckets into the growbeds.

very inventive HD ...and yes, it does look like small sized gravel - will do the job tho

Humm.... wonder if they'd fit..... yep.....

Jiggle up and down and rotate back and forth like a gold pan.....

I washed all mine in a concrete mixer. First I Cieved it down to the size I wanted then threw it into the mixer for about five-ten minutes. This did all the scrubbing work to loosen the dust from the nooks and crannies. Then I emptied the gravel a bit at a time into my ceive and gave it a quik rinse. I think the time in the mixer took the real rough edges of the rock, in fact I think more time in the mixer just creates more dust as it breaks down the rock. The key is to rinse it off right away.

Dan

Glad I found this thread as I will have 1000L of scoria to wash in the coming weeks

Cheers

I tell ya, 2 or 3 bins of water set at a good height for swishing plant baskets half filled with scoria. Very important, set bins at a height where you don't need to bend or hunch while swishing. I use small buckets for carrying gravel to keep from over doing it and they are easier to lift repeatedly.

Gravel washing, great work out for the arms and shoulders so long as you keep the weight low and reps high.

I was able to wash 100 gallons worth of river rock per day in 102 F heat and high humidity. I got started in the morning and worked in the shade until around mid day when I had pretty much finished the bed and decided that one bed per day was enough in that kind of heat.

If working as a team in reasonable weather, I expect 1000 liters of scoria could be done in one day though it does take more rinsing than river rock. I would recommend 3 bins of water so you can have a dirty rinse, medium rinse and clean rinse. Be gentle with the scoria as if you are really rough you can actually break it up and cause yourself extra work.

Thanks TC all good info. I have a couple of half blue barrels to dunk into

Cheers

I maintain the raking out of a wheelbarrow is the easiest and fastest... Unfortunately with the numerous website upgrades, my initial post oin this thread has lost all its pictures.
I can however clean 1 metre of gravel in under an hour, with any tiresome lifting or jiggling of buckets.

I found using the cement mixer method works well, the agitation gets rid of most of the dirt and dust stuck on the media, then tipped on to a 6mm square mesh home made sieve and rinsed with a hose and you end up with very clean media. Although you do use a fair bit of water in the process.

The only way to wash hydroton....dead easy