Recommendation for bio balls and ways to oxygenate water?

[Gary Zhang]

Hello Everyone,

I have about 500 gallon tank in the backyard and plan on expanding it to 2x or 3x that in the coming year.  I'm looking to getting some bioballs to help promote the beneficial bacterias. Any recommendations -  cost and efficiency? 

I'm also looking for methods/ideas to clean and help oxygenate(ie. venturi) the water with the least amount of equipment - ie. no. air pump.  I've seen some videos online, and am looking into swirl filters.  Just curious if other people, online, have some high efficiency system they don't mind sharing.

Thanks,

Gary Z.

[cameron]

What is the plan for the 3 500 gallon tanks? Fish tanks? Do you have a sump tank? What are your grow beds? If you're grow beds have hydroton, lava rock or some other rough surface rocks. bacteria will thrive on those surfaces. And it's okay to do a couple of grow beds with that type of media and the rest as float raft or deep water culture. Mine is that kind of combination so I have best of both worlds. As for oxygen in the water. Having more than what you need doesn't hurt. Just not too crazy. You can have water going to fish tanks with pressure and they act like injectors pushing air into the water. Just enough pressure like it was coming out of your faucet is strong enough to help, also they have commercial air pumps that can treat 1000+ gallons and only use couple of watts. Gather total amount of gallons of water in your system and double that. Plus the pressure from the water going into the tank and the drain from your grow beds it will be plenty for both fish and plants. Especially for the plants. Keeps roots moist and well oxygenated. My plants roots are well beyond healthy and I'm able to grow very difficult, delicate and rare peppers in this system with ease. These pepper have a very demanding on how they grow. I also grew tomatoes in the same system and have very high yields of the best tasting tomatoes in years

[cameron]

Sorry for the long comment trying to be detailed. Hope this helps