Monday, February 4, 2013

The Beginning of Our First Aquaponics Adventure...

Today has been a very low key day.  My husband is home, and since he is an OTR trucker, it is a relief to have the flexibility to let the kids relax with him on a Monday. 

Since Daddy is a good fixer/ builder, I enlisted his help in getting us started with our aquaponics experiment!

Aquaponics is an arrangement where the ammonia from the fish in a tank feed the plants, and the plants relieve the ammonia load in the water for the fish.  I had read about an aquaponics farm in Michigan or Wisconsin, that was providing organic veggies and trout and tilapia to restaurants in the area.  I thought it was a brilliant idea for sustainable farming, and I'd like that kind of sustainable living to be part of our household, and our kids education. 

At first I was bummed out, because we don't have the disposable income to buy a greenhouse kit, or pond set-up stuff, or any of the stuff I had envisioned us setting up in our yard.

Then I walked by my fish tank and thought, hmmm... we could start small and build on it!  Why not start with what we already have, which is an aquarium with three goldfish and one kooi fish.

I had saved some screen from when my husband repaired the screen in one of our doors, ordered some heirloom lettuce seeds, and bought aquarium gravel and a plastic bin to affix into the top of the aquarium, and support the weight of the gravel. 

Handy hubs drilled holes into the plastic bin, which we lined with screen and filled with aquarium gravel, and we planted the lettuce seeds on top. 

Cross fingers!  If this works, it'll be really neat :o)





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