Integrating wicking beds into aquaponic systems

[Chris Smith]

Our success with wicking bed growing using aquaponic system water for fertilizer has led us to integrate the beds into the system. We are experimenting with techniques and interested in what others are doing. What are you doing with wicking beds? What are your ideas for integration??

[Don Stark]

Our wicking beds have as a base 3 inches of road gravel and 9 inches of Coir. we have worms in the beds as well.

Water flows from the fish tank through the media bed into the wicking bed and drains to the DWC.  From the DWC it goes to the NFT, vertical towers and fodder system.  the water overflows to the sump and is pumped up to the fish tank.

Cost to operate system heating the fish tank with a 300 watt fish heater is 37 cents a day.  No artificial light this year YET.  

[Jon Parr]

That's 5 cents per KWH, I wish I were so lucky. We are in the 44 cent per KWH range.

[Paul Smith]

Hi Chris, Rob and all,

Chris, this is a Great idea, one that I had been thinking about.  One suggestion, instead of 100% coir, why not vary the mixture, using soil or sand that won't hold so much moisture?  By varying the mixture, you can adjust the amount of moisture available to the plants.

Rob, I use smaller boxes, (27 gallon, Tough Box, by Centrex, purchased at Lowe's, Home Depot, Walmart and Costco.) similar to the grow boxes you see on line.  I have a fish pond that we inherited when we purchased our home.  So far, I have been planting gold fish because the grandkids I live with love to watch them and they are easy to see.  I have bought several pumps to use to circulate the bond water through the grow boxes. 

The boxes have soil wicks that hang down in the water.  I clip a cover over the top of the media in the boxes with a plastic sheet, actually a Hefty cinch sack garbage bag.  The heat of the sun causes the water to evaporate from the water reservoir, through the soil, coir, sand media to the underside of the plastic, condense then drip back through the media to the reservoir.  I cut holes in the cover to plant my seed and seedlings. (I will include a photo if people want.)

Anyway, I am going to circulate water from the pond through the boxes and back to the pond.  So far, I just use pond water in a can to maintain the water level.  I have had great success using this technique, but it might be too small for you guys that need a larger system.

His and Your Very Grateful servant, Paul Smith.

[Tetlom]

I spoke a friend I met on a Permaculture Course in South Thailand. I have not seen his set up yet, but he tells me it is totally self sufficient, (apart from energy input for the pumps).

He has worm juice dripping into the sump to add mineralization. He also mentioned having 3-4ft. long Mekong Catfish in the sump, they can grow to 12ft, so it must be quite a sump.

If I get a chance to visit and I will post a full report. In the meantime I should get my next wicking system set up by end of this month. Will be recycled 75-90L fibreglass Icebox shells connected with a manifold. I will run the entries at he lowest point of the boxes, joining them all together. (I will use 2 O-rings and hope they do not leak this time) I will then put a rotatable elbow on the end with a clear section of straight tube about 100mm long. I can rotate elbow up to set drain level at 100mm or straight down to completely drain all the sumps.

I am wondering if I can suck air into the soil by flood and draining the sumps of the wicking beds - bit like a rising and falling tide in a mangrove area. Of course a future step is to put a flood and drain syphon in a tank on the end of the system running on pond water. I will have worm/bacteria farms in each box and hope to inoculate with fungi also. Really do not know how many goals we can reach by trying to stack so many principles. May end up with stinky mess. 

My ultimate goal is to play a small part in out-producing chemical and hydro systems by using cheap easily replicate-able systems that use light organic soils that are hyper rich in micro organisms and fungal networks, and highly aerated. Not much time and more existing commitments than I can possibly meet in my life already, but hope I can add some value to this goal over the years.

Thanks for the excellent comments everyone

[Carl Jacobs]

I have been reading ,and reading ,I would like to run my Idea by those who have the time and interest to respond ,running a fish water sump ,with a aerated raft in the sump feeding a 4'x4'x12" gravel grow  bed ,planned to add a 4'x6'x9" wicking bed ,water from GB would cycle to wicking bed with a 1"constant fish water level under a plastic grid grate full length and width, depth set at peek of drain cycle ,1" drain set at 1" from bottom of tank ,would return to sump tank ,carpet on top of grid at flood drain cycle height would re-wet at each cycle ,square buckets 4 gal with drain holes sit on the carpet, additional nylon wicks could be added if needed, buckets abut ea. other loosing minimal space. six charged air stone, are under water at all times  in reservoir .Soil mix in buckets based on crops to be in bucket. I am trying to use supplies on hand .NOW! what is wrong with this picture ,What have I missed and how can I make it work ,Your thoughts PLEASE!!

Carl

[Tetlom]

any chance of a sketch Carl? - sounds clever

[Carl Jacobs]

I hope that ,shows enough to make sense .Let me know what you think ! Carl
Tetlom said:

any chance of a sketch Carl? - sounds clever

[Bob Campbell]

I'm doing almost the same thing but I don't use carpet or wicks .  I use flower pots which sit in a constant stream of water 1" deep.  This is where I do my cuttings.  You might be able to use a Timed Fill and Drain system, but you will have to experiment with that.

[Paul Smith]

Hi all,

Why not cut holes in the carpet and let the bottoms of the buckets sit in the water, or eliminate the carpet altogether and just pack rocks around the buckets; or use nothing around your buckets.  This way the water circulating around the buckets will get aerated.

If you use nothing, all you have to do is remove one bucket at a time to attend to replanting, etc.

I use a kid's wading pool to keep plants watered before setting them in the landscape.  They will keep great for several months sitting in a bath of water about 1 to 2" deep.

[Jon Parr]

Ditch the carpet. Who wants carpet nasties leaching into our food? I have used shallow troughs in aquaponics to bottom-water nursery pots of compost for about a year now, works great. And, as was mentioned, you can completely rearrange the planting theme by simply moving pots.

In my particular case, this bed is also my solids filtration trough, so around the pots I placed watercress. The WC grows around the pots, and the roots trap solids and give the scuds a place to do their magic. It doesn't take long before you get a living, thriving, mesh/mineralization area. The trough is made from a 2 x 4 frame and duraskrim. Is floss about 2-3" deep, originally only a skim of water was used, but the roots build land pretty quick.

To do it again, I would place the pots about 2" deep in beds at least 1' deep, so the solids would have more space to work on deeper WC roots.

[Carl Jacobs]

Jon Parr said:

Ditch the carpet. Who wants carpet nasties leaching into our food? I have used shallow troughs in aquaponics to bottom-water nursery pots of compost for about a year now, works great. And, as was mentioned, you can completely rearrange the planting theme by simply moving pots.

In my particular case, this bed is also my solids filtration trough, so around the pots I placed watercress. The WC grows around the pots, and the roots trap solids and give the scuds a place to do their magic. It doesn't take long before you get a living, thriving, mesh/mineralization area. The trough is made from a 2 x 4 frame and duraskrim. Is floss about 2-3" deep, originally only a skim of water was used, but the roots build land pretty quick.

To do it again, I would place the pots about 2" deep in beds at least 1' deep, so the solids would have more space to work on deeper WC roots.

[Carl Jacobs]

Thanks everybody, I am trying to understand the complexities of all of this ,I had thought the carpet would also act as a bio filter ,allowing additional bio cleaning and conversion of nitrates ,the influx of cycling water flow ,would allow for the submersion of the containers bottoms during the cycling  process with out the danger of soaking the soil too much ,

My ,being totally new at this ,I appreciate your patience and guidance .The carpet is new and deep knapped ,commercial ,I noticed  when I added .the aeration it drained an additional 1/2" of water through the overflow ,indicating the carpet makes a pretty good seal ,and I wondered ,If that was good  or bad for the ,supposed bio mat allowing aeration between cycles to promote increased bio action and 0f course is it or would it be helpful or needed ?  I notice improvement in my raft when I  lipped and messed the raft forcing the aeration to have to discharge at each plant and not loose most  at the edges of the raft .Thank You all ,any additional comments are appreciated .At this point it appears all this is unnecessary and counter productive , My main concern was the addition of the various soil ingredients and their effect on the system ,at this point there are no fish directly in the closed loop ,only fish waste from my pond ,from back washing my sand filter . I would appreciate your additional thoughts .Carl
 
Carl Jacobs said:

Jon Parr said:

Ditch the carpet. Who wants carpet nasties leaching into our food? I have used shallow troughs in aquaponics to bottom-water nursery pots of compost for about a year now, works great. And, as was mentioned, you can completely rearrange the planting theme by simply moving pots.

In my particular case, this bed is also my solids filtration trough, so around the pots I placed watercress. The WC grows around the pots, and the roots trap solids and give the scuds a place to do their magic. It doesn't take long before you get a living, thriving, mesh/mineralization area. The trough is made from a 2 x 4 frame and duraskrim. Is floss about 2-3" deep, originally only a skim of water was used, but the roots build land pretty quick.

To do it again, I would place the pots about 2" deep in beds at least 1' deep, so the solids would have more space to work on deeper WC roots.