I’ve always been fascinated with eco systems – or more to the point, trying to create them. As a child and into my college years, I have had MANY fish tanks.  All shapes, all sizes.  My goal with everyone was to create a living ecosystem for the fish and their healthiness…plus I’m lazy and didn’t want to have to clean the tank that often.  I figured if nature could figure out a way to not “vacuum her gravel” than I could to.

For the most part, it worked.  I did have to use many things that I didn’t want to though – activated charcoal, zeolite, chemicals, back of tank filters – all very unnatural things that I couldn’t help but wonder if they were REALLY needed to maintain a natural environment.

Flash forward to my big Seattle move almost 10 years ago.  No more fish tanks – they didn’t fit in my car, LOL, and lost my interest once I got here.  Recently, however, I’ve been reading about hydroponics, aquaponics, and vermiponics.  All of them an ever-increasing way to use mini ecosystems to create food.  Hydroponics is costly and actually produces a lot of waste water which can be harmful to the environment.  Aquaponics is a combo of hydroponics and aquaculture and has recently caught favor by people finding ways to implement small systems on their rooftops and in apts.  Vermiponics is the addition of earthworms to the aquaponic system to further enhance the quality of the growing media.  Generally the idea is this: Produce organic food that is as self-sustaining as possible with as little impact to the environment as possible.  In the case of aquaponics, the food is fish and veggies.  The ecosystem we take advantage of is the nitrogen cycle.  The fish live in the tank and produce waste in the form of ammonia.  The liquid/solid waste (yes, fish poo) is then pumped through plant roots.  The plant roots/planting media (lava rocks in my case) grow bacteria that convert the ammonia to nitrates that the plants can use as food.  The water is thusly cleaned by the plants and returned to the tank for the fish to live in.  Then the cycle starts all over again.  The only thing we need to put into the system is fish food and a small amount of water to replace loss from evaporation/respiration.

I have started an experiment for the winter months of Seattle in my room.  The initial phase will be to see if i can effectively create the ecosystem I need with a few cheap/recycled materials I have in order to grow vibrant houseplants over the next few months.

Just started aquaponics tank

This is ugly! Organic doesn’t mean it can’t be pretty, LOL, but his will take time and some development.   This is the basic idea and just set up last night though.  Placement and decor will change over the next few weeks.  But you can see the vase with the two plants (ficus and schefflera)  and lava rocks.  The black tubing goes to the bottom of the vase and is pumping oxygen rich water up through the rocks and the roots.  This water then cycles back to the tank.

Water flowing out through rocks and roots

Nothing much is happening right now, there aren’t even any fish in here.  It will take some time to establish the right kind of bacteria needed to get the nitrogen cycle going so that fish can live in the tank.  The idea is to not use any chemicals to do this (even the chlorine in the tap water will dissipate after 24 hours) The plants also need some time to acclimate to their new home after a bit of a shock.

As the weeks continue I’ll make the tank pretty, add some fish, and add some more plants like mosses, ferns, philodendrons & creeping vines.  If by spring I have a happy, healthy, vibrant houseplant aquaponics tank – then I can start thinking about a window garden where I can produce organic veggies (though probably no edible fish – I need more room for that) for me and my clients! For much cheaper than a grocery store.

Check out this link – http://farmfountain.com/ff4mov1.html – it was meant to start people thinking about these ideas and how to implement them themselves.  Should the houseplant experiment prove succesful, I want to do a much smaller application in front of my huge window in my bedroom.  If anyone has any interest in starting one as well and needs help, let me know – or if one of you has one going and can offer advice, I’m open.

Chef Ricky