AQUAPONICS! My garden MIGHT be cooler than your garden...

The aquaponics system!  

Saturday I finally set up my aquaponics system!  What's aquaponics?  Great question...

Derailed By First World Problems

Aquaponics is a closed system where you grow both fish and vegetables.  Basically... you grow fish in the tub, feed them daily, then they produce waste, the waste water is pumped up into the beds above (which now have gravel in them)  which waters the plants roots and filters the water to send fresh water back down to the fish.  Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it.  

This system uses bell siphons so that when the water hits a certain level in the beds it sucks out all of the water and flushes it back into the 110 gallon fish tub below giving the roots oxygen as well.  

I think I first heard about aquaponics when I was in Kenya.  One of our team members struck up a conversation with another westerner in an airport and who was there doing aquaponics.  But he might have just been doing hydroponics, now that I think about it, I don't remember.  Anyway, I got really excited about it when I heard that my friend Joby was doing it last year.  

When Joby left the island he generously donated his whole set up to me!  A huge thank you Joby!  

A HUGE thank you to RK Castillo from Aquaponics For Everyone for helping me set this up Saturday and part of Sunday.  

And a HUGE thanks to Jonathan Oliphant from Aquaponics for Orphans for being an inspiration. 

I'll keep you posted as things progress!  

Engage:  Do you have a garden?  What are you growing?  Let us know in the comments!