The Aquaponics Plant Farm, aka Water Garden or AquaFarm, is a really cool invention for plant lovers. I'd never heard of it before until my very intelligent, creative daughter, gave me one as a Christmas present.
She was aware of my love for plants and always having at least one aquarium, going back several decades, to my childhood. I always had one, sometimes two aquariums. As an adolescent my mother and I would breed live bearing fish, mostly Black Mollies and Sword-tails.
Going back to my early 20's, my affinity for horticulture - indoor and outdoor flower and plant gardening - became evident as soon as anyone set foot into my home or apartment.
I call it, my "organized, mini-rain-forest," because everywhere there was a window or florescent lighting, you would see several beautiful plants. My aesthetic goal was, where ever a visitor would sit in my home or apartment, they would see a lovely arrangement of live plants (never been a fan of any type of artificial plant).
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The mini aquaponic tank is a closed-loop ecosystem — the betta fish waste fertilizes the plants on top, and the plants filter and clean the water for your fish.
Aquaponics is the combination of aquaculture, or fish farming, and hydroponics, or growing plants in nutrient-rich water. The fish excrete ammonia that would become toxic to the fish in a regular fish bowl. In the Water Garden, the ammonia-rich waste is pumped up to the grow bed and absorbed by the plants, helping them grow twice as fast as in traditional farming.
The clean water is then filtered back to the tank, creating a low-maintenance, self-cleaning cycle to foster a healthy fish and herb garden.
