aquaponic organic

If you're itching to grow some of your own fruits and vegetables, but don't have any space than indoor aquaponics is a perfect fit for you. The great thing about an indoor aquaponics system is that even if it's very small you can still grow a lot of fruits and vegetables with it.

As an example... imagine you had a 2' x 3' garden filled with a couple plants. An aquaponics system can easily grow 10x as many plants as a normal soil garden can and because it fixes the watery taste problem of hydroponics whatever you grow tastes great!

The other great thing about indoor aquaponics is that it doesn't take very long to setup and doesn't cost very much (if you go the DIY route which is recommended because kits cost too much). You can be setup quite quickly and after you let the system cycle once (which is important) you can start growing whatever you want.

In order to get started you're going to need an aquarium that's 20 - 30 gallons (or bigger if you have the space). On top of that you're also going to need a watering trough (they look pretty good and can be bought at your local hardware/livestock store). Once you have those two parts you're also going to need a small aquarium pump and some PVC to plumb everything together.

To put it together you put the tank on the bottom with the pump in it. You attach some PVC so you can pump the tank water up to the grow bed. In the grow bed you add a drain so that the water you pump up drains back down into the tank.

Once you've done all of that you're ready to get started with the first stage. In this step you simply fill the system with water and add a couple of fish. If you want to speed things up a bit you can also add some nitrifying bacteria (which will help speed up the first cycle). You'll need to let the system run for 2 - 3 weeks, but once that's done it's time to grow some plants!

What to plant can be a hard decision to make. My recommendation is if this is your first run than plant some lettuce. It's very easy to grow and will give you confidence to grow harder plants (such as tomatoes or herbs).

If you're interested in growing a lot of organic produce with an indoor aquaponics system than get started today! Food tastes so much better when you grow it yourself!