Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I made it to the Plants section after months of building! Got most of my GB's up and running for the most part for the first time today. Using gravel as a base, and Hydroton for the top few inches. Well, I noticed that the Hydroton floats. How do I plant seeds in that? I'm confused. I try searching, but there are 1000's of results for Hydroton, and I was unable to isolate a search of interest. Thanks for any replies.

Expanded clay shouldn't float too much, you should only be flooding your bed to a level thats an inch or two below the surface. Also if you used a cheap Chinese expaned clay, they tend to float a lot more than the European made ones.. Best not to buy the Chinese stuff if possible.

Hi Steve, EB is right but I think you'll find that the hydroton is probably floating above the rock layer - Lower your water level in the grow bed until the hydroton settles and is no longer floating, that should get you started. Over time the hydroton will float less and less as the water soaks in and organisms take up residence.

This happened to me in one bed and I couldn't figure out why the plants were moving around in the bed. It was like seeing crop circles - the aliens had landed

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I have all Hydroton in my beds and occasionally I wish to drain an FT, for maintenance and so I put plugs in the GB's and fill them up..

It is always surprising just how much does float.. that is just the beast..

PS - and mine is second hand and many years old
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Being of very low density and full of holes, some of it is going to float no matter where it comes form. I dug some holes in my GBs to move some of the gravel + Canna expanded clay balls to my other system recently, and when the holes fill with water, there are a heck of a lot of floating clay balls on top- they've been in that system for almost 2 years.

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I just looked and the stuff I have is called PlantIT clay pebbles. I assumed it was hydroton, but maybe it's different.

I'll adjust my water levels to minimize the floating.

As far as planting, do I just buy some starter plants, wash the dirt off and stick them into the grow media?

Depends on how warm it is there. When it's cool in Spring I usually start or buy plants elsewhere and wash the soil off to transfer them in (helps get a bit faster start when the water is still cool). Later in Spring and during the Summer just throwing seeds in works pretty well. The seeds will stick to the damp media and start to root in place. Sometimes it helps to raise the water level to get it more damp near the surface for seeding but it works pretty well without doing this too.

For planting starter plants after they've been rinsed off, I use a hand trowel to create a depression and drop the plant in. I try to make sure the roots get into the moist part of the media (usually a good portion is in the water).

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Just to give you a head start on the pest ID end of things. These are the biggest ones for me.

Slugs and Snails - If I ever figure a solution out that gets them all I'll be rich. A lot of them seem to just ignore the slug iron phosphate slug baits but it does help some. I think Ron uses the Iron Phosphate and it works for him, might want to check his thread.

Army worms/Cutworms - These guys are really bad news and they come in different colors. I get ones that are green like the one picture here http://cvp.cce.cornell.edu/submission.php?id=80 and more brownish ones like these - http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/oct/26/hermiston-ore-dealing-with-armyworm-invasion/. I've noticed the birds love these so if you have chickens you probably won't have many to deal with (fish love them too ). http://www.veggiegardener.com/pests/cutworms/. They seem to like crawling to the high spot of the compost pile in Fall.

Crane Fly larvae - These are the ones that damage lawns but they are semi aquatic and at least where I am like AP systems. The flying adults look like giant mosquitos. Their larvae hide at the base of the stem until night and can be tough to find but that's where to look. http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/look_out_for_european_crane_flies_and_turf_damage_in_october_around_grand_r They can completely kill a plant.

Aphids (the ones I find are usually farmed by ants)

Gold finches - These guys like to peck at the leaves of Kale and Chard especially around the edges of the grow beds where it's easy for them to perch. https://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=8038186

And then there's these caterpillars - I mostly find the imported cabbageworm larvae. These blend in so well it takes some practice to see the beggars. I look for their scat and usually the caterpillar is above this.

Cheers

Awesome reply! It is full on Spring here in Northern California, so I am good to go with my planting. This weekend I'll get my first crops in the water! Can't wait to get some roots wet.