One person's trash is another's treasure. It's true in every aspect of life. It's the basis of aquaponics. Aquaponics is a hydroponic method of cultivating crops and fish together in a controlled growing environment. The fish breed in tanks while the plants are grown hydroponically. The word aquaponics is a mix of the words aquaculture and hydroponics; it shares qualities of both of these systems. Aquaponic systems have three different yet important components – fish, microbes and plants. Microbes do most of the important work in the nutrient process cycle. Like in hydroponics, aquaponics eliminates the use of external water. Your plants can simply grow in the nutrient rich water that flows out from the fish tanks. The aquaponics system is the future of agriculture and a fusion of the vastly different hydroponic and organic methods of cultivation. Many developing countries have seen an increase in numbers of aqua home gardens and commercial farms. How does the aquaponics system work?

The Aquaponics Cycle:

Fish, like any other living multicellular organisms, are always more than happy to provide a supply of waste and ammonia, which are harmful for the fish in excess and also decrease the water quality as far as they're concerned. Try living in your own wastes. However, what's harmful for fish is nutritious for plants. Plants love nothing more than to drink up all of the fish waste. In fish farming, water from the fish tank is pumped out to a plant bed where billions of natural microorganisms break down the ammonia to nitrate ions, which are the preferred form of Nitrogen for plants. Nitrates and other elements present in fish wastes are absorbed the plants. The water is cleaned in the process. Solid, unwanted waste is physically filtered out of the water by means of grow beds or mechanical processes. This clean water is returned to the fish tank – exactly what the fish need. It's a sustainable, continuous and natural process that produces high quality food with no use of chemicals.

Aquaponic gardening requires fish foods and just a few inputs with minimal maintenance. Plus, no water change, ever! Fish are a balancing addition to any garden and help you grow fresh organic foodstuffs with great rewards with little effort while benefiting from hydroponics. Fish farming, not only grows the plants you want vigorously and quickly, but it has other different benefits as well.

Here are few of the positive aspects of using aquaponics system.


No weeding and no soil pests- The aquaponics removes the need of annoying weeding, which creates trouble for your plants to grow. No more need of pesticides and hence no more soil pests and your plants grow free of chemicals altogether while growing hydroponically.

Less usage of water- The system saves 98% of the water that's used in normal gardening. In other words, if your normal grow requires 1000 liters of water, this one requires 20. This is because the water is recirculated constantly and no water is lost to soil absorption. The plants roots are flooded in the nutrient rich solution and you don't have to worry about watering.

Sources of Income- When you farm plants as well as fish, you have both products and their derivatives as a source of potential income.