JCO - Well I haven't a fish death in a couple of days. I think the ammonia was a little high, but any number of things may have attributed to it:

- Lack of initial water change
- Overfeeding

I think my over aggressive water change also did more harm than good by disrupting the bacteria cycle, and also shocking some of the fish, resulting in more deaths.

In the past couple of days, I have simply ADDED treated water (no more than 10 gallons a day) until the ammonia appears to be diluted a bit. I am also applying Stress Coat to the newly added water (which helps get rid of chlorine, chloramines, etc), and I'm also putting in aquarium salt into my sump to help treat the system for any parasites.

My question for you is this: I have NEVER cleaned out any of my grow beds, so I am sure there may be sludge and god knows what else at the bottom of them. But how can you clean a grow bed which has established plants already in them?

For example: In one of my growbeds, I have Serrano pepper plants. They're pretty established (being two years old), and they are great producers during the season. I fear that if I try to pull them out in order to clean the grow bed, it will damage the roots and they will never recover.

So are there any tips on how to clean a grow bed which has established plants in them? Someone on another forum suggested that to clean a grow bed, you can FLOOD it, try to swirl all the media around, and then drain it a few times until the water being expelled looks clean.

My only concern with that is:

1. Will that damage any plants which are in there?
2. Will that kill off any bacteria in the system (thus disrupting the nitrification cycle), or will all the beneficial bacterial still remain in the Hydroton and pick up right where they left off?