There are a lot of different indoor hydroponic herb growing mistakes one can avoid. Setting up your own aquaponics system, whether indoors or outdoors can not only be profitable, but beneficial to our environment.
Ever since global warming strikes, the earth has brought earthlings some consciousness about the severity that the earth has to deal with. It is needed for earthlings to find many ways to redeem their greed to their land. For example, people are now modifying sustainable energy such as building a solar panel in their home or in their office.
People are now using natural gas instead of gasoline for their vehicle. Simply applying a greener lifestyle in their daily life like reducing the usage of plastic bags, using bikes as their vehicle of choice instead of motorize vehicles, or changing the shower to conserve more water on the planet, are among some of the necessary ways people conserve energy daily. Now, there’s a new way to conserving yet applying your hobby into a great deal of more greenery act, and that’s the Aquapoinc Way!
The Aquaponic Way
Conserving through the aquaponic way is the new way to conserve and apply your idea of green action. Aquaponics is the mixture between aquaculture and hydroponics. It is uniquely efficient but extremely profitable. Aquaponics was based on the principle of efficiency by using aquaculture into growing the hydroponic plants and so is in the reverse. Aquaponic is used by the fact that when the fish are being fed the food, the fish will excrete the ammonia in the fish tank, which can be pretty toxic to the fish.
Fortunately, the bacteria that cultured from the fish tank and the hydroponic plants can break down the ammonia and change it into nitrite, and then into nitrate. Nitrate contents in the fish tank will not disturb the fish whilst in the hydroponic plant’s system of life.
Nitrates can be used as the nutrients that are feeding the plants for their growth. The plant root also effectively works to filter the water in the fish tank with the help of the growth medium in the plant’s grow beds. The oxygen occurs through an air pump and thus becomes an essential substance for the aquaponics system.
Aquaponics is considered as a way to a sustainable energy. It’s because of the waste from the fish can be used to feed the plants, whilst the plants can filter good water with high nutrients for the fish’s life. Not only that, both components produce two products; the plants and also the fish. People also choose aquaponics for their no need of soil and fertilizer policy. Aquaponics also leaves no waste for their re-circulating system.
There’s also no chemical substance involved during the process of the aquaponics, which can be considered as the indicator of the food safety guarantee. Since there is no soil and fertilizer involved, aquaponics is considered as a solution for a green action in the poor soil quality places.
5 Important Indoor Hydroponic Herb Garden Tips
Since aquaponics use a basic and simple way to apply it, here are 5 easy ways to make an indoor hydroponic herb garden for fish tanks.
Collect the Basic Ingredients
You will need this basic components to make your own “hydroponic garden” in your fish tank, such as fish tanks, a place to grow plants or grow beds, water pumps, air pump, irrigation tubing, water heater (optional), filtration, grow light (optional), fish and herb plants. Some of the popular herbs you can choose to grow in your hydroponics garden include parsley, oregano, sage, basil, thyme, cilantro, and wheatgrass. Whatever the ingredients are, you need to decide the type and the size of system that you wish to build.
Arrange the Component
A homemade hydroponic garden usually needs a small fish tank and hydroponic plants above the fish tank.
Just like the big scale program of aquaponics, the main thing to make the hydroponic garden in the fish tank is the flow that connects the fish tank and the plants. That’s why it’s very crucial for us to arrange the components, especially the water pumps and air pumps.
We also can put the fish tank and the plants in the window nearby the sunlight, so that even though you make an indoor hydroponic herb garden, your plant will also receive the sunlight in the morning that can help the plants to grow and photosynthesized. After you have what you want to make, a little side tip that can be helpful: add the plants first in the system and watch them grow whilst observing the nitrification process, then you can add the fish to the system.
Regularly Check the System
Monitoring the system is the most important thing to maintaining the system. Check the air pump, water pump, and all irrigation tubing that connects the fish tank and the plants. If you’re using the grow beds, you may need to be alert a little more than before, so the grow beds can produce an anaerobic zone that needs to be cleaned.
The water can also be darkened due to the grow beds’ system of vermicompost that may produce more nutrients for the fish. With that being said, it is very important for us to keep the fish tank real clean so that the system will not be affected in a contradict way to the others, and so in reverse.
The Environment of the Fish and the Plants
We also need to keep the environment for both components viable to life. Fish will excrete ammonia which will be changed by the Nitrosomonas sp. into nitrites. Ammonia and nitrites are extremely toxic to the fish, that’s why when the Nitrobacter sp. changed nitrite into nitrates, fish can be fairly safe, whilst the nitrates is great for plants.
As much as the plants need the sunlight, keep the aquaponics in non-direct light to allow the fish to stay alive, for as they are sensitive to light. Fish also need oxygen which they can literally die within 30 minutes without it, so make sure the system is still working at all time to fulfill their oxygen needs. Finally, set the temperature for they are extremely important for the fish, since fish cannot regulate their body temperature like humans do, so they are dependable on the water temperature for their body temperature.
The Harvesting and the Feeding
In the end, you finally can grasp what you plant. By this time, you will harvest the plants and ultimately get a good some fresh fish on your plate.
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