setting up a line of media beds and I...

[joe apicella]

have a question.  I have noticed that most people have bell valves on each bed. My plan was to plumb all of my beds together and have one bell valve only in one of the beds. Wouldn't this work just the same? I am also considering what way to go with the beds. I can either build custom boxes and use pond liner (I think this will look the best and last the longest), or I can get tubs or kiddie pools. Not sure yet...Thanks guys.

[TCLynx]

Welcome Joe,

      I think you mean bell siphons and yes it is possible to plumb all the beds together and use one external bell siphons to drain them all together, just make sure you use really big pipe to plumb all the drains together (and you still should use gravel guards so you can access the drains of each bed for cleaning out roots and stuff.)

I will caution you against lumber and liner grow beds in Florida and here is a post to explain why

Granted those beds were not pressure treated but even my lumber and liner beds that were made of pressure treated stuff experienced problems.  See the outside of the liner is going to be cool from the water flooding the bed and condensation will form between the liner and the wood in our humid climate.  That moist dark space is very enticing to creatures such as termites and carpenter ants and they both might occasionally decide to install indoor plumbing into their new nests because they can tell there is water just the other side of that wall there and you wind up with a leak.

Termites can also eat right through a wood pallet or table into a cheap kiddie pool.  I trialed some kiddie pools on my duck a ponics system and they didn't even last 10 months sitting on wood pallets.

Now I do have some ideas that might help you but they will probably only work with light weight media, I'm not ready to recommend it for full weight gravel.  Send me a message if you want more details.