New grow beds and media

[Hugo]

Has anyone ever used Sunleaves Rocks in their grow beds? 

[TCLynx]

I believe Sunleaves is just a bagged expanded shale product and yes some people do use expanded shale.

Wish they had a .5"-.75" option.  .25 is too small and 1.5" is too big.

Keep in mind that it cost a lot of money to ship rocks even if they are expanded and light.

There is another expanded shale product that is packaged in sturdy boxes for shipping called Rocks in a Box that has been double sifted to be the appropriate size for aquaponics and you can also get a small sample fairly cheap to check it out but this stuff is most appropriate for small systems where light weight is important but hydroton is too costly.

[Hugo]

I can't remember off the top of my head but I think its about the same size or a little bit smaller than the hydro. It is a little bit cheaper at the local store i get it from than the Hydroton. I've been checking reveiws but I still have yet to come across an aquaponic-related use. Hydroponic growers is all I've seen and not much on the good side of reviews. A lot of hydroponic growers have posted that they don't like the stuff because its to porus and hard to clean out bad bacteria and the such, but as far as Aquaponics, how often should I clean my media or even at all since we rely on the same bacteria to break stuff down for our plants? thanks for all the info!

[TCLynx]

I know a few people using the expanded shale.

You wash or rinse your media when you first set up a system in aquaponics.  As long as your system is designed properly with plenty of grow bed in relation to fish tank and your stocking levels are reasonably low, you may never need to re-wash your media.  This is only required if too much solids manage to clog up the bed and cause it to become anaerobic.

We do not want to get rid of the bacteria in Aquaponic media since that is our bio-filter and an aquaponic system can't function without a bio-filter.

[Matt Kobal]

Would like to open up the discussion or review of the Sunleaves Rocks media in aquaponic grow beds.  Any recent success stories, or totally hate comments?