So much good advice here! As a pro gardener, I'd keep it to leafy and micro greens and plants with how close your lights are. Kale, chard etc get big, unless you're harvesting ev couple days to keep it micro. And things that may be micro, like thyme don't want wet feet. So micro salad greens and aromatics like basil are a safe bet! Although if you want to go big, cherry tomatoes and celery would be safe choices on liking wet feet. You can even find wild celery growing in creeks here in California! Watercress would do exactly what you were going the strawberry would do, creep along and form a neat little mat. And watercress is great in salads or as a garnish. Parsley would be a good choice, spinach, nasturtiums, which are actually edible, borage, dill, oh there's so many!! Good luck!!✌️
Of course, being from California, you must throw “pro gardener” in there….. I’ve grown some of your “pro” tips in hydro, and I can say from ACTUAL experience, you’re better off growing bologna in your “pro” garden.
@@ghettosled1976 dude, what's with the negativity?! I'm just commenting on things that I think would work. And as far as "throwing" pro gardener "in there", yes, I will. Because that's what I do for a living, and went to school for. So I am a professional gardener, ie, I do this as a profession. To make a living. It has absolutely nothing to do with the state I live in. ✌️
Legit the absolute worst advice. Aquaponic micro greens. Please stop giving horrible, terrible, uneducated “tips” to aquaponic gardeners. you have zero clue what you’re talking about.
@@laurabustos6560 75% of what you said is absolutely wrong in aquaponics. You want people to take your “pro” advice and waste all their time and money. Hope all your customers learn you give the worst advice on growing plants. I DARE you to attempt half the “pro advice” in aquaponics you claimed here. But hey, you claim to be a “pro”. Even though most people watching this have grown more aquaponics than you. I feel badly for anyone else who takes your “pro” advice. Please, show me some aquarium grown micro greens. Typical California attitude.
@@laurabustos6560 when you throw out “as a pro gardener”, and then give your advice on things you know absolutely nothing about, you do more damage than good. THAT is “what’s up with my negativity”. You mist some substrate covered in seeds and sell it to hipsters as micro greens and you used the term micro how many times in aquaponics, which you obviously know zero about. You’re wasting people’s time, money, and minds, not to mention turning people away from gardening with your self proclaimed “pro” advice, of which you are lying about. You’re giving advice in an area you know nothing about, and using dirt farming to claim you are an expert. That’s the same as me launching model rockets professionally and giving pro tips on the space shuttle. But it’s obvious none of what I say matters. Nobody wants the truth. They just want likes from random strangers in the internet….
You should try putting 1.5 inch net cups in the custom lids! It’ll create a barrier for the roots so they won’t all get eaten right away plus add a little more stability for the plants!
Greetings from the Philippines. Just recently found your channel, excellent stuff good work and keep it rolling. Really like the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) approach. As an Agriculture Technical Consultant by profession, specialising in hydroponics, my recommendation is stick with leafy vegetables they really thrive in a water culture system. I agree with Cameron on the net cups, they will offer a lot of protection to the roots whilst the plant "settles in" to its new environment. "Jiffy pellets"{NOT A PUNT FOR JIFFY} make an excellent seeding medium for seedlings and fit great into the net cups, further reducing "transplanting shock". James has a valid point about light but your Bok Choi and lettuce didn't look to shabby so maybe that reinforces my point of sticking with leafy veggies and maybe even baby leaf. What a pleasure if once a week you can serve up a home grown salad from your own fish room? Keep up the sterling work young man, look forward to following your progress for a long time to come.
So glad you have discovered the Kratky system for easy hydroponic growing! It has been around for several decades now and is quite effective! Be sure to allow the top 1/2 or so of the roots to remain above the water as most plants need to develop "air" roots as well as submerged roots in order to thrive. Thanks.
I don't know if it would be Kratky, since we're dealing with oxygenated water, and also nutrient. This strikes me as more of an aquaponic setup, or maybe a hybrid, since the roots are directly in the tank instead of being flushed through the roots. I did Kratky a couple of years ago, if there is any light at all, you start to deal with a real algae problem!
I also have done some aquaponic experiences in my aquariums, for around 3/4 years now. - For plants on aquariums, ended up reusing net pots that came with aquarium plants. Easier to "plant" and harvest, and you dont have that issue with roots reaching water... as far as the expanded clay inside is wet, everything is ok. And there is always a good amount of root that fish cant get. You can use them on that poli-carbonate sheet and also "squeeze" them on those corners (think they can hold between those pieces of glass). - From my experiences, strawberries and tomatoes need strong light. They work great outside with direct sun light, so... i gave up from them inside! - Lettuce and bok choy does great on aquarium systems. - One plant that does really great is watercress. Great for salad but much better on soup :) This plant grows like crazy and is like a sponge, sucking everything from water and very fast :) Another way to get plants removing lots of nutrients from aquariums is planting them on a home made filter, using something similar to an ebb and flow system. I have that on my goldfish aquarium. And those fishes produce a lot of **** (nutrients) :) Built from an 50L IKEA plastic box, a 50L bag of expanded clay, aquarium return pump, hose and some diy PVC working. Plants were then planted directly on that expanded clay medium, and some daylight T5 lamps over that! Cheap and efficient way to filter a 300L goldfish aquarium :) i.postimg.cc/cJ4djYJW/1655283019642.jpg Cesar
Very nice! I built a filter from planter box with a bell siphon. I didn't do much research and just wanted to dive in so stuck some tomato I cut back from my garden. It took root but they eventually rotted. Do I need to worry about root rot with lettuce?
For anyone wondering this also works for cannabis. Atm im growing blue berry bushes in my aquarium. The oxygen part is fixable with snails or shrimp. Somehow my roots dont rot at all in my schrimp tank same for my snail bin.(i keep pea puffers) edit: its important to keep a part of the roots out of the water, this wil cause a sad looking plant. The strawberry in the video has to much water thats why it looks so sad. Not al plants like wet feet there is a chance the strawberry wil convert to better suit the wetness but i wont give it a high probability. I also recommend useing rock wool or glassfiber to start seeds in, this wil cause your plant to grow more stable and keep the rockwool or glassfiber out of the water so your plant has a dry spot.
The thing is using a dechlore you can't ingest stuff that came from the tank b3cause dechlore is toxic to humans. If you have fish in the tank you need a dechlore or tap water kills the fish.
@@wiccasdream use demi water and plant nutrients and you dont have this problem. Also depends where you are from in my country there is so little chlorine in the tap that its perfectly fine to use.
Honestly probably the best plant you could be doing this with is watercress. It's one of the most nutritious leafy vegetables and naturally grows in water anway.
Have you tried using a pool noodle. You would need to drill a bigger hole and slice the pool noodle in a way that it fits the hole and grabs the plant stem. Suits all different size plants and is gentle on stems.
I’m really interested in breeding fish, not so in the farmer stuff and the tours. Would be awesome to get an update on your fish breeding projects once in a while. A full breeding cycle of specific species would be cool as well!
THANK YOU! I have a greenhouse and have been contemplating a prototype mount-on aquaponics for an old 5-gallon tank. Your strawberry had mite spots on the 2 week check on the lower leaves. I needed to know if this was worth trying, and it appears to be. I'm going to put a basket around my root zone and use my normal hydroponic grow setup. Thanks for the data!
Hi, I used to have a large goldfish tabk by a window because it was the only place in that little house that it fit. I grew tomatoes in that 4 years in a row that did really well. I even got fruit off it when I remembered to pollinate the flowers. The basil also did well in the same tanks. It was the first time that those goldfish had mostly algae free water.
Fantastic channel. Always fun integrating emersed plants into our fish hobby. I have had good success growing mint in the low light/low nutrient/high pH conditions of the average aquarium, followed by spinach and green loose leaf lettuce varieties then . As far as nitrogen export to a significant extent goes, using submerged or emersed plants in aquariums is one of the biggest fallacies in the hobby. Not enough light for starters. I'm not sure why horticulture and aquaculture scientific data is not utilised more in the mainstream aquarium hobby. It's fairly easy to get an approximation of nitrate-N uptake by drying and weighing the plants, and the uptake is dismal! I can elaborate if anyone is interested. Nick, I recommend dosing a bit of KNO3 or upping the fish feed rate if you want a bit better plant growth but realise you are just having a bit of fun experimenting. Very cool!
Im from South Africa. I wanted some ideas for my nightmare of a fishtank that sits in my room ( and no one wants it 😂) so i decided to try something to make it 'nice' 😅. I came across your video and was keen to try, as you made it look really nice. So thank you😊
I have done this in my kitchen for years and yes you will need to get a larger light source to produce food. the leafy greens will grow but not big. 12"x12" full spec 100watt LED will work, I mounted mine 34" above the fish tank. Also I stopped doing it directly in the tank and built a grow media lava ball resevore for just plants. Great video love all the tanks, would love to be around that many diff breeds.
Plants are the key to successful fish culture I keep live plants in my black Corydoras tank and sand they love it. My wife copy you she got a lot of house plants with lights on the plants. I can't put them in the fish tank I got plants in the tank already. Nick you the best on helping me with my Corydoras video's I keep only one type black corydoras waiting for babys.
You could put the strawberry plant upside down just for a few hours so the fish can eat off all of the mites 🤔 Also I saw a video on RU-vid where a guy had all cichlid tanks, he put a fine mesh bag around the roots to protect them from the fish 🤷 It's worth the experiment. It's great fun that you try different things, I really enjoy your videos thanks 😊 P.S. the shop's looking great!👍
In addition, here in the us. Strawberries are covered with pine straw, i think they require some more acid, and way more lite! Maybe if you have goldfish try again with the stawberries. Good luck keep us posted!😊
Great! Inspires me to try it. I did try sweet potato and it grew leaves like crazy. However, the actual sweet potato became mushy and was actually rotting on the inside. I think water flow might have been the issue and I heard I could have still used the stems and keep them but I didn’t have the chance to do it. Congratulations and keep up with the experiment. Maybe focused on a specific vegetable and also not in your shop so there is less chances for the plant to be moved around. Maybe they do need to get a sense of settlement.
Roots likes loads of air :) the more air stones, the more roots = happy plants. The strawberry is drowning, because of not enough air to the roots. The same thing that happen when you overwater a plant :) Great channel
interesting experiment I like these videos you wont see fruit on the tomatoes plant or your strawberries because they need bees to pollinate the flowers. unless you manually pollinate with a Q tip between flowers. just a thought keep it up
Tomatoes don't get pollinated by bees. They're self fertile. Just tap the flowers and the flowers will fertilize themselves. Unless you are growing a promiscuous variety from the Andes. Most varieties are self fertile these days though.
Really cool !! I think the greens are doing kinda fine because the light is enough (although it is reaching to the light), whereas tomato and strawberries need a lot more of light.
You should try doing green onions next the roots are really thick and I've had success growing them in just plain water. They also provide a good amount of yield per their growth rate and the amount of space they require.
Now a veggie farmer besides fish farmer lol. Seems main culprit is lighting and space for the plants. Interesting project, just a few tweaks and it could be successful,
You should look into low stress training. It’s kind of like a super simple bonsai plant. You use strings to pull the down and in your preferred direction. So instead of growing up, you’ll be growing sideways. This will help promote growth along the stem of the plant causing new tops and will help you get a more bush like plant rather than a tree look. I’m not sure how many plants you can do this with but it could be an option for something like the tomato plant.
I started on the path of "simply growing plants out of my aquarium" many years ago and I gradually found out simply isn't on the menu. Now I have a vertical water cooled light, a dual root zone system and I add a bunch of microorganisms.
Need to try this at some point! Also, there's a few plants that grow best in nitrogen rich soil, so I wonder if plants like spear thistle or stinging nettle could be good for keeping problematic nitrogen levels in a tank in check. At least the stinging nettle can be a bothersome weed for gardens since they reproduce and grow so easy in garden conditions/composts. Definitely will be considering some hydroponic plant
This reminds me of the setup they showed us at Epcot on the greenhouse tour. They used a ten gallon aquarium and floated a piece of styrofoam on top to hold the plants. I don’t know that you’d want to do that with fish since bits of styrofoam could flake off into the water. Theirs didn’t have fish. They wrapped the whole tank in black paper to block out the light to prevent algae in the water. I like your method. Much cheaper than some of the ready made solutions I’ve seen.
This actually works really well with spring onions. Just keep the bulbs in the back of an hob filter so water constantly moves through the roots, then snip off the tops every few days to use for food. Some fish even seem to like eating the greens if you make too much for yourself.
I'm growing mint and basil out of the top of a Oase hang on back filter. I just removed the lid, and took out all the media, put the plants in, and put the media back in around the roots. They are the first thing the water hits as it comes out of the aquarium, and oh do they ever produce a lot of green foliage to harvest! Next I plan to put in a blackberry and tomatoes. Honestly, if I had a way to grow garlic in a fish tank, I'd be set with Tomatoes, basil, and garlic, but the garlic is the one I'm haven't figured out yet. If I had enough tanks, I'd also try raspberries, and if I had a method of growing root plants, I'd definitely grow Turmeric, ginger, and galangal. I have also considered growing my own lemon grass, since I always start it in water. Keeping fish AND growing food just seems logical to me.
Hey brother, great video. My advice to help this be successful would be to remember that the roots dont like the light, thats one of the reasons in hydro/aquaponics systems theyre generally grown in something like an expanded clay pellet. If you could drop a little basket for the roots with a medium like mentioned above it would help a lot i think.
First time being first viewer. I've subscribed for years now I love your videos and you've really helped me in keeping fish and especially breeding fish I've never had any luck until i started watching your videos! Thank you keep up the great work and good luck with the shop!
Hey Salad wont work in Aquarium cause its to worm. My english is too bad to explain it, but i will try. Normaly salad start growing after winter and build this big head in spring. In summer the salad will make babys and become really big. It also makes bitter substance, so u cant eat it well. Salad need cold vicinity. 15°C max. U have different types of roots in earth and water. The most plants(like strawberry) feel like u are waterboarding them.try to grow them from a seed in cotton or filter sponge. Thats how i do since 8 years in my 20 tanks.Greetings from germany:)
Wonderful, you have been inspiring me with riparium plants lately (and I required inspiration, had a bad case of burnout), & I have half a romaine already rooting in a cup on my counter.
Per tomatoes, look for indeterminate types (assuming you want a rangy climber & not a great thick bush), the cherry/grape/currant types will do best (I really wished I'd saved my gold ones last autumn)
I use a spider farmer led grow light for my plants. Sweet potato and any kind of root vegetables don't really make tubers. If they do they are small. Leafy veggies and weed do fantastic with the fish tanks. They really make fantastic filters. So much so I have to add a bunch of fertilizer to the tanks. I don't have any algae problems either. Also if your using an LED grow light put that thing 12-18 inches away from the plants or they'll roast.
Really, I have always grown weed outdoors, I didn't need to water them much, the primary needs (like most herbs) are sun & drainage? (And yup on the sweet potatoes, I grow lots of ornamental ones out the tanks)
Sunlight is about 1000W/m². That's approx 100W/ft². While the LED lamp shown has say ~20W/ft². That would have been ok for some crops. There's one important difference - electrical energy conversion to light is very poor, I don't know but say 1%. The second important thing is that plants use red light and some blue light, while most of the light produced by white LEDs is ineffective green light. Hence aquaponics folks use a dual color red/blue light that has a purplish tint.
Looks great. I would add some basic minerals since you do not get that from bio waste provided by fish. You can put plant in mineral wool and then in water and also with suninge add liquid minerals to the mineral wool and then you get lots of mineral rich vegitables 😊👍
Polycarbonate for sure to use. But I wouldn't recommend acrylic in my experience 😅 didn't research enough and found out it can warp. It was even 9.5 MM thick...
Good to see that your doing veg that love water, only trouble is how much nutrition the plants get. But great experience with growing vegetables though. Keep up the great videos.
This is great... I have been reluctant to add plants to my aquarium cuz of my cat. Most plants are toxic to cats, but green, leafy veggies? It's a win win!
Kale needs a lot more space to grow higher. This plant can grow like knee high or higher. Btw, we always let kale have at least one good night of frost before harvesting. Tomato plants have to be lead along a support as they can't support themselves as they grow when growing that tall.
Also I think the tomatoes would need more nutrients than the water would provide. They’re very heavy feeders, so you’d probably have to supplement. I think greens and herbs would be the best choice. But smaller ones like you suggested.
@@labachaterairlandesa tomatoes need a dedicated growing medium. If you want to do that on hydroponics, you'll have to feed them a lot of liquid fertiliser which might not be that good for your fish.
Your concept is definitely sound but your shortage of headroom for the plants will be an issue. The tomato probably won't do as well. They need potassium to fruit. You might try Thyme or Oregano as it would creep across the top of the tanks. Cool idea...
As a horticulturalist, your aquaponics do not produce the requisite nutrients for some of those plants you need to focus on the nitrogen heavy required green leaf plants with wide leaves used to collecting light as an under story shade plant. That is why house plants work so well. You do not have the potassium and phosphor for a well balance fruiting or flowering plant.
