Home Aquaponics A Wonderful Strategy To Grow Plants And Fish

What is Home Aquaponics?

Home Aquaponics is truly a viable indoor gardening alternative and it has become increasingly more popular in the last dozen years or so. Because it is a sustainable way of growing vegetables and fruits its popularity increased among urban gardeners. If you are interested in growing vegetables and fruits in a sustainable manner in your home garden, then this is for you. Not only can you grow your own food but you can save money in the process.

Home Aquaponics combines the best strategies of hydroponic gardening with aquaculture. In this manner, you will be able to implement the techniques of Hydroponics gardening,  which is pretty much the ability to grow your own fruits and vegetables without soil and then combine them with the techniques of Aquaculture, which consists of raising fish.

In this manner, you will have the unique benefit of having the fish essentially provide the nutrients that your Hydroponic plants need to grow and be healthy.

Similarities between Hydroponics and Aquaponics

Both of these gardening techniques use water in a closed environment and do not use soil. Hydroponics avoids the use of soil and focuses on growing plants with nutrients. This has become very popular amongst many of the DIY Hydroponic gardeners. This can be done in both indoor gardens as well as in outdoor gardens.

Aquaponics takes this concept one step further and provides a system for growing vegetables and fruits in a water system. It has become popular because in this aquatic environment it can provide for vegetables and fruits to be grown in fish tanks. The plants thus receive the nutrients they need in the water where the fish residue is produced and provides the nutrients needed directly to the root of the pants.

Home Aquaponics – Who knew fish and vegetables?

Amazing as it may seem to someone hearing about this technique for the first time Aquaponics works in a very efficient and sustainable manner, and the vegetables grown this way are not only safe for human consumption but are very tasty. Plants grown through Aquaponics consume much less water than plants grown through conventional or organic gardening.

The practice of growing plants hydroponically in conjunction with aquaculture (raising fish) is a very efficient way of growing plants indoors. In this day and age of uncertainty, many indoor and outdoor gardens are producing more and more vegetables and fruits this way.

How does Home Aquaponics work?

Another great feature of growing plants using Home Aquaponics is that it truly is efficient and sustainable and in the process, it creates a symbiotic relationship between the plants and the fish.

In this method of gardening, the technique allows the fish to provide the essential nutrients needed for plant growth directly to the roots, where efficient nutrient uptake can occur.

However, in Aquaponics gardening, you won’t add fertilizers to the water to provide nutrients, like what you would do in Hydroponics, In this system, the fish are grown simultaneously in the aquatic environment. Both systems work together.

Best Fish to Raise in Home Aquaponics Gardening

Among the best fish you can raise in an Aquaponic Garden are:

• Tilapia
• Salmon
• Bass
• Catfish
• GoldFish
• Koi

These fish tend to grow well in an Aquaponic environment and can be used in conjunction with your hydroponic garden plants.

We will discuss these fish in greater detail in another blog post.

Best Plants to Grow in Home Aquaponics Garden

Among the best plants that you can grow in an Aquatic garden are:

• Lettuce
• Tomatoes
• Cabbage
• Kale
• Arugula
• Mint
• Watercress
• Leek
• Spinach

Marriage of Hydroponics and Aquaculture.

This is a truly great marriage. By combining the techniques of Hydroponics and Aquaculture we can simultaneously raise fish that in turn will provide waste that contains the nutrients necessary to grow our vegetables and plants hydroponically. Thus home aquaponics is a very effective and safe way to grow plants in an indoor or outdoor garden, and most importantly, it will enable you to grow your own vegetables at home. There is nothing like the pleasure of enjoying a salad with vegetables that are homegrown.

We hope you will share with us some of your own tips on what vegetables you grow in your Home Aquaponic garden.