Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

What works for you? hat are the pro's and con's of it?

I seen a few suggestions but want to be less hit and hope when it comes to planting my seeds. Some plant them straight into the grow bed, just sprinkling them in but from what I've heard some seeds prefer it deeper ]i.e. wet, wet, wet..] other seeds not so much, more dry ... more sun, less sun etc etc ... things I've heard like; you plant your seeds but nothing happens until one day - it's disrupted [i.e. knocked into conditions that will mean the seed sprouting.. these are story I've heard...] BUT I want a more controlled method of planting your seeds, or at least some ideas to help me create one .. yeah?

I find that the best and fastest for me is simply to use seed raising mix in large cell seedling trays.
I have a metal stand set up that sprays them with microjets for 1 minute twice a day 10 am and 3pm.
Get them to the size of those like at Bunnings etc then wash the dirt off the roots and plant in the AP.

I have always found that seedlings/seeds in my wicking beds are much faster to establish than the AP.
But once they get established in the AP they go fine.
Works for lettuces, tomatoes, cuc's etc and I get them into the AP as I take older ones out.

I will look into seed raising mix .. so far I've just used potting mix it's quite hit and miss - more misses than hits tbf haha

the basic Brunnings seed raising mix is pretty good and not too onerous cost wise.
Else the Yates brands etc. Just be careful about some of the cheap ones look more like saw dust.
Bunnings have a good range and I raise veg seedling no problem in rigid plastic trays like the nurseries use.

Sometimes using plastic ones like red dot sell are not so good.
But I have simply used the larger 6 cell and 4 cell ones that Bunnings seedlings come in.
Best thing I had was a 12 pot punnet which was a bit larger and seeds went really well in that.

The small pots that $3.50 advanced tomato/capsicum/flower seedlings come in go really well.
Just need to find someone that is silly enough to have spent $3.50 on one plant.

watering is the big trick - not too wet and not too dry.
1min twice a day is enough on my seedlings in summer and once per day in winter.

Hi all - I'm new to this, and I don't mean to hi-jack a thread. However, I was watching a YouTube video where a guy flooded his bed and used a small 4 inch pot filled with sand. He used a small hunk of window screen in the bottom of the pot to keep it from leaking into his water. The water wicked right up into the sand and soaked it within seconds. It seemed fairly effective. Has anyone done this, or heard of it?

PS. He did mention that the specific bed he "flooded" was ONLY used to start seeds, as he didn't want to risk sand making it into his full size grow beds.


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Here's what I just tried: I put some seeds between two paper towels and put them on the top of my GB. When the water rises to the top, the towels soak up the water and the seeds germinate. I'm hoping that the wet paper towels will be soft enough for the sprouts to rise through. But if not, I can always just remove the top towel and let them sit atop the bottom one. The roots have no problem penetrating a wet towel because they're designed to penetrate things.

I'll let ya'll know how it works. The seeds are kale.