Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

hi guys

new to the forum, excited about aquaponics!!

question - i bought clay beads from a local hydroponics store here. the issue is that when i fill the water in my system the clay beads all want to float. they raise up along with the water level. the problem is that they move so much that i doubt the plants can establish roots.

how to soak them? ive left them overnight and it hasnt soaked in water and they still float. i dont recall seeing this happening in any videos ive seen in aquaponics til date

Any support welcomed! thank you!

The cheap(er) Chinese & Thai clay balls are more likely to float... at least initially....

But you shouldn't be seeing a significant rise and fall of the clay balls...

It suggests that perhaps you're flooding too high... your flood level shouldn't exceed 25mm below the media level...

A single Canna clay ball I chucked into my FT 3 weeks ago is still floating...I wonder if it will ever sink?

Rupe's right, just add more clay balls or lower the height of the stand pipe.

Mine did the same thing until I added an extra bag of clay...

Hi guys

Yes I cut my siphon a little shorter so the flood level is at least 30mm below the top of the growing bed. The problem is the whole medium still rises as soon as water fills in... when it drains it the whole medium falls back down... this is huge movement for the plants.. I'll upload some pics tonight maybe I'm doing something wrong... I did notice one of two clay beads that we accidentally thrown into the fish tank and they have sunk... but the ones in the growing bed seems to take a long time to sink..

Anyone else have this issue? How long does it take to soak? Been three days soaking now...

Had this happen to me with chinese made clay and they never sink. Most of mine went on the paths around the beds. I filled a bed with them and weeks later they were still rising with the water, and the plants were getting sucked into the bed.
Get Canna clay if you can or hydroton if its being made again

I would try going Continuous Flood for a while, make sure your flood level is 25-50mm below the surface level and use the garden hose to give the unflooded balls a good soaking.

I mixed 3 X 45l bags of Canna with small river gravel in each 500l GB, and have no problems. 1 bed is evenly mixed and the other 3 have most of the clay buried under the gravel.

I had the same issue with the cheap stuff initially. I cut my stand pipe (repeatedly till I got it right) and now I only get a slight inflation of the media, and the water level is still only about an inch from the top. the media does not really get saturated enough to stop it floating, you just need to get the proportion of media to volume and depth right. also watch the pipe surrounding the stand pipe (the one with a gazillion holes in it) as it can float up with the media if it is not secured, which causes some additional problems if you don't watch out for it.

http://affnan-aquaponics.blogspot.com.a ... -test.html

found this guy who also has this problem.

The continual flow and adding gravel idea sounds like good ideas... thanks guys...!

You could try having the bottom two thirds of your bed gravel and clay on top

I had the same problem. Changing the height of the standpipe didnt make any difference at first because they just want to float.
The way I fixed it was to sit bricks on top of the clay to keep them down.
Also pieces of wood with bricks on top.
I was able to remove the bricks in about 2 weeks and has been fine since.
First few days before I weighed them down I thought I'd been stung by buying cheap stuff.
I'd changed over from pea gravel for a number of reasons.
Gravel was decomposing and the water was always dark brown.
Gravel was that heavy the growbed was bulging and I had to have a jack in the middle of it.
Plants never did much good even after 2 years.
Plants did much better after I changed it.

Hi all,
After reading all of the above I thought I would contribute with this post;

On the weekend I went and picked up 7 x 50 litre bags of expanded clay balls. At $20 AU a bag I thought I was onto a winner here. I say thought because now Im not to sure. Hence the post for some reassurance or advice otherwise. The fellow told me that the clay balls used to be imported from Germany but now as most things do, they come from China. Hence the cheap price. Well these balls are a browner colour as opposed to the sort of orange ones I've seen around the traps Also as I placed them into the barrels for cleaning some spilt and I noticed as I stood on them they disintegrated to just dust quite easily. So my questions are obvious, Are these going to be ok as a growbed media, bearing I mind that once they are cleaned and in situ they wont be exposed to my size sevens. But will they break down over time? Am I worrying needlessly? So my clay balls are floating also, but I have them in barells where I intend to leave them for a couple of weeks so they get well and truly saturated. Will let you Know how that works out.

BTW the product is called Growlush

Ozzyrod those balls are fine. I've got one bed of those and one of expensive stuff, no difference in plant quality /growth.

Just be patient and the balls will eventually stop floating, provided you got the water level right.

Thank you to 'sdelany' & 'BoredomIsFailure' & 'RupertofOZ'

Turnsout you guys were right.

I had to cut my siphon down to lower my flood level and now things looks perfect!

Thank you for the help and support for everyone else who pitched in with solutions!!!