Most aquaponic systems tout the use of either deep water grow beds, or media beds utilizing either flood and drain or flow through water management. We have experimented with these, and found both pros and cons to them. But we have found the best general success with our EDEN UPFLOW beds. This is the name we have given to our version of a hybrid aquaponic wicking bed. These beds utilize a rock base layer which acts as an effective biofilter, a layer of landscape cloth to separate the rock from the surface soil, and an upper layer of soil. We use a mix of compost, peat, and coco coir. The results have been fantastic. We find ourselves able to grow literally anything we desire. We have very minimal mineral issues. The fish water provides the nutrients and the moisture. We include some worms in our beds as well as refreshing the beds between crops with additional compost material. The beds provide additional heat sync mass helping keep the temperatures consistent. And the flavor and vitality of these beds is amazing. We have designed all our systems to use the same grow beds, so you can experiment for yourself, and we give you all the information you need to set up your grow beds in whatever format you choose. But we strongly recommend experimenting with the EDEN UPFLOW design, as it is simply the top growing system we have found.