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Moderator Comment by Bob Terrell on August 24, 2012 at 2:27pm

Picture 5

Moderator Comment by Bob Terrell on August 24, 2012 at 2:26pm

picture 4

Moderator Comment by Bob Terrell on August 24, 2012 at 2:25pm

picture 3

Moderator Comment by Bob Terrell on August 24, 2012 at 2:24pm

wick bed picture 2

Moderator Comment by Bob Terrell on August 24, 2012 at 2:23pm

test wick bed   picture 1   comments welcome

Comment by Richard Mong on July 11, 2012 at 2:50am

Hello all,

It was pretty easy to fall in love with wicking beds. I intend to incorporate them into the aquaponic system I'm building in Laos at this very moment. I don't think I'll need to use water from my system, but it will be available if necessary. I don't know if the photos came with what I copy and pasted from my website/blog. If not, check out my somewhat convoluted post with a strange title. It also explains about my aquaponic system: http://www.wrongwayhome.com/2012/07/construction-begins-wicking-phi...

Wicking Beds

Lateral drift is my best friend. The world is, luckily, full of lots of clever people. I’m not going to bore you with the science behind wicking beds; if you want more information, try reading this. From the same source, “The wicking bed system is a way of growing plants in which water wicks up from an underground water reservoir. The major advantage is a significant increase in production while water use has been shown to be reduced by up to 50% of conventional practice.”

Step 1: Wrong Way Wicking Bed

Here is how I’m intending to make my wicking beds for potato production. I will discuss potatoes at length in a later article. First, dig the reservoir pit. This is about 20cm deep. The reservoir should not be deeper than the capacity for water to wick, which depends on the wicking media, but coir can do about 30cm. Next, line it with leftover greenhouse plastic. Then put down the perforated wicking pipes. These are just fairly large diameter PVC pipes with lots of holes drilled into the sides. They are about 20cm long, too. Then lay the irrigation pipe. This can be perforated or just slotted along the bottom. The inspection/refill bit allows you to check the level of the water in the reservoir. A normal wicking bed would just use boards or something for sides, but I’m going to use old tires because I hope to get them free and worms cannot escape easily (I dare them to try!).

Step 2: Wrong Way Wicking Bed

The pit then gets filled in. I’ll probably use river gravel because it is roundish and facilitates a large volume of water. The whole reservoir then gets a layer of shade cloth. This is to keep the grow media in the tires separated from the reservoir. It has to be pushed into the wicking pipes to allow the coir-based media to get down to the bottom of the reservoir. I think this is fairly clever, but I welcome any suggestions. Other wicking beds that I’ve seen just have a corner or two of the reservoir devoid of gravel so the wicking material can be fully immersed in the reservoir’s water.

Step 3: Wrong Way Wicking Bed

The tires can now be placed on the wicking bed with the wicking pipes at their centers. As the potato plants grow, more tires are placed on top and grow media added. Potatoes are cool; the right ones will just keep producing potatoes at higher and higher levels, to a certain degree. When the stack reaches about 3 layers and the plant decides that things are going tits up, just kick over the lot and separate the potatoes from the worms and grow media and start again. I could use water from the aquaponic system, but I probably won’t have to. With worms continuously feeding on the fish poo and producing castings, there will probably be enough nutrients in the media to support a crop to maturity. Carrots, radishes, and other such things can be grown this way, of course.

Comment by Chris Smith on May 14, 2012 at 11:37pm

TC, I have found out, through experimentation, the same conclusion. The best I can consistently achieve on a regular basis is about 12" of wicking. Mostly I have been playing with coir but I have tried some soil mixes too. I have a bed that is beeper than 12" but I have to keep the top watered regularly to keep it from drying until the plants roots grow into the moist zone. A 48" tower might be more effective buy simply top watering instead of trying to wick it.

Comment by TCLynx on May 14, 2012 at 6:45pm

I believe the highest that compost sort of wicking bed soil layer can really be is about 12 inches so for a 48 inch tower you would need a water reservoir about every 12 inches or 4 of them along the tower.  To hydrate the polymer, you need to really saturate it and once it drys out, it will be tricky to re-hydrate so I'm not sure a "vertical wicking bed" really works very well.

Comment by Robert Rowe on May 13, 2012 at 7:30pm

@Max . I am using PVC 12" pipe with Mel Bartholomew's "Mels Mix" formulae which is 1/3 Compost, 1/3 Peat moss & 11/3 Vermiculite. This is my second year and has been very successful. See Arizona Aquaponics.

Comment by Max In Missouri on May 13, 2012 at 4:01pm

great info here, I will apply what I learn... Also, has anyone experimented with Sphagnum Moss (Dry coarse, fern looking stuff)... I used it and have been successful with lettuce in PVC pipe system, plugged up ends and am feeding them straight rain catchment water only... I have not connected fish effluent water, YET... but man these buggers are growing good on algae tainted rain water...

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