Hi all
I'm very new around here, and overwhelmed with info, so please excuse my ignorance and confusion!
We are building a house off the grid, with a composting toilet (rotaloo) and a reed bed to manage our grey water.
I've been doing a bit of research on reed beds but I'm getting so lost and confused in it all! Please help! 
I've worked out that we'll need 12 sq m of reed bed at 0.5m deep. I'm planning two terraced 3x2m beds and want them to run into a frog pond. But I'm confused with the following, and would be so grateful for any advice
- do we need a grease trap? I think so, but I can't find much info on them. Can anyone recommend one?
- do we need a holding tank before the first bed? We'll have about 15-20m in pipe from the house to the first bed (and probably another 10-15 from shower)
- do we need a holding tank after the frog pond?
- I'm concerned that if we have run off from the frog pond straight into the sub surface irrigation that we'll end up with one wet patch that it always dribbles in to... We're on a sight hill so can gravity feed, but I'm worried about getting sludgy spots or uneven distribution ? I plan or planting fruit trees over this area.
We're also running on a seriously, seriously tight budget, so everything needs to as low cost as possible.
Despite this, I'm seriously considering paying someone to design the system for us. But I don't even know where to start! We're in north-east victoria (indigo shire, but are currently based in albury wodonga), so if anyone can make any recommendations, I'm all ears (well... Eyes). But given the tight budget, I'd be after someone just to consult, but we need to do all the dirty work ourselves. I've seen places that assist in design, but it's part of labour/installation/products. At the same point tho, I'm sure reed beds can't be that complicated, but I can't figure it out.... Argh!
Thank you in advance for any hints, tips, ideas, recommended reading, etc... Really appreciate your expertise and experiences.
Cheers
Felix
