This is an addendum to the post Setting up the wicking bed with modified large capacity reservoir
There are a number of ways you can go about building a wicking bed. Many of the decisions involved are to do with what media you will use.
Living on a limited budget I spent countless hours looking at free alternatives to the many options available. Some friends had to sandbag their house from flooding so once they were done, rather than throw the bags in the tip, I asked if I could re-use it.
When the time came to start filling the wicking beds I had a quick attempt at washing the free sand as it was extremely silt & clay laden. The process took so long, used far too much water for my liking and the sand left was still not cleaned to my satisfaction. So I came to the decision that I’d have to purchase the wicking media, but how to do it without breaking the bank? Some serious number crunching was needed.
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THE LOWER RESERVOIR WICKING AREA
DESIGN
I chose to use plastic crates wrapped in geofabric for two reasons. Firstly it would create a large void where only water would sit, allowing for greater availability of water, especially during periods like holidays where I wasn’t at home for a week or two. Secondly the more space taken up by the water reservoirs meant less wicking media was required to be purchased. So to maximise this I opted for two large voluminous cavities per bed. I calculated that the double chambers would use up around 125L (33gal) which was half the volume of the reservoir area so that was pretty awesome.