Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My local recycling yard has glass that is rounded smooth for use in landscaping. It's cheap ( 18$ a ton). Alas it's a little on the small side about 1/4 inch and smaller. So I was thinking about putting down a layer of glass in a tub and then laying down a "rope" of fish safe silicon, laying down another layer of glass, then after it dries pulling out a "rope" of silicone and glass. Then putting the "rope" in the grow bed. Then repeating the process a few hundred times. If this sounds crazy plz tell me.

might cost a fortune in silicon . . also why do this instead of using gravel?

You asked for it your crazy

yep....what he said

Well cause gravel cost 80$ a ton. Glass cost 18$. The glass comes in a 275 gallon IBC tote. The cheapest I have found an empty 275 gallon IBC tote is 60$. So to buy an empty IBC tote and one ton of gravel would be 140$ vs 18$ for a tote full of glass.
I guess I could buy the glass just to get the tote and then just dump the glass in my farm pond.

Yeah I'd buy the glass just for the tote... Actually the glass might be similar to pea gravel and I know some people have used it with success.

I would not hesitate to try it...the only issue you might have with the smaller size media might be glogging of solids. A small prefilter bed of gravel, or larger gravel mixed in would help. There would be lots of ways around it. I wish I could find those around here. I would get dozens of them...

Are there no roads over where you are? there is always gravel or blue metal stone by the sides of the road here and it has been known to jump into traliers on moonlight nights

i watched a pile sit by the side of a road, just asking for a plastic bucket full to come home for years back and forth every day to work......i could have redone my drive

Can any tell me how much hydrotron it would take to fill a half blue barrel?

Blue barrels are 200 Litres, there is 50 litres to a bag, so 100 litres or 2 bags

Thank you for the info.

Might be good to adjust the grow bed media list to pH neutral recommended items and a non pH neutral list. No use encouraging anybody off to a hard start. I started with limestone river rock and did not see any success until I completely started over with something else, nothing I tried could counteract that super high buffer. I also had thought about using glass marbles or crushed glass but they are both very heavy and expensive compared to other choices. Now I'm using polyester batting.

I need some advice is it just as good to go with half pea gravel and the other half hydroton or go all hydroton? I finally found some of this in LA and bought out the store that had 10, 50 lit bags. Think I'm going to need more.

reading through the above posts gives a wide range of opinions. What would be the concensus on size of media. I'm thinking fravel/crushed rock..