How the Idea of My Aquaponic System Appeared

About a year and a half ago, I read on the newspaper about the hydroponics system of a pot grower.  I was extremely interested by his water-only garden (not by the marijuana!).  I later thought about it again and understood why hydroponics is so popular: the vegetables in hydroponics need less care since you can't forget to water your garden or if you leave for a long amount of days (which is often my case) the plants will not be dying when you'll come back

Later on, in a science class, while the teacher was explaining the nitrogen cycle, in which animal wastes gets decomposed by bacteria and fungi into ammonium.  Ammonium is later transformed into nitrites, which becomes nitrates.  Nitrates, can be absorbed by plants and this helps their growth.  I instantly thought about modifying an hydroponic system into an independent garden by adding fishes into the reservoir.

After the class, I spoke about the cycle with my teacher and she saw that I was interested.  I explained her my idea and she told me it was called "aquaponics".  This same night, I googled the subject and saw gardens that blew my mind. I started drawing sketches of a system I could do with what I had, considering that I don't have the money for a 1500$ system, neither the required space.  Also, I am Canadian.  My aquaponic garden can not be installed outside or it would be destroyed by snow 2 months after it's creation!

I showed my plans to my teacher and she suggested me to use this project as my theme for my last high school year's International Baccalaureate final "personal project".


From this moment, I started reading from all over the web, looking for ideas I could use to build my system.  I also decided to pay attention to trash and scavenge different objects that could be useful.

Welcome!

Hello everyone,

Here is where I'll post my experiments with vegetables.  Thanks for stopping by!