I Grew 7 Easy Vegetables in My Aquarium! 

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!!✌️

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!

I love that I am getting into aquariums coming from a gardening background. Love seeing how to make these hobbies work together

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 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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

PARENTS!!! This is a perfect idea for a science fair project!!!

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.

Watch the video it was a impressive experiment. That the curiosity of your idea was met fully 😊. I think with a difference to planting. ✌🏾

Great Video and very interesting topic! Greetings from Germany!

Pineapple tops work as well. : )

Nice!

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!

Awesome awesome shop went there on Saturday great guys there

Great video nick! Another amazing project for keeping your aquarium water pristine! Thanks for sharing and I'm glad they are all doing well..😊

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

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!

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.

This is exactly what I was looking for! Thank you for the information!!!! :) Off to the store to try this!

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,

This is lovely!

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.

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.

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!😊

Really neat and informative video! I really enjoyed this 👍

Nick bacopa is a herb (also called Brahmi - the memory herb) It much prefers to grow emersed and will thrive in your setup.

Someone on reddit said cheap shower caddies and leca. It gives a way to protect the roots and stability

Useful information, thanks!

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...

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.

put the spider mites plant in the tank, fish will eat all the mites- Live food for them.

Trim as you go

If you don't have tools, you can use a piece of styrofoam. Cut round holes in them. Get a used plastic cup, cut some slits or holes. Get some filter material or sponge and wrap your plant in it. Stick that in the cup, stick the cup in the foam, and voila!

Tomato: try a little type of plant for balcony. The big ones need a lot of light.

First time I see this in any channel. That looks very interesting. I will try it myself.

awesome video, thank you so much!

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

this video plus all these comments is pure gold.

I like the way you think and experiment. Your a genius 🥰

I love your videos, this is so cool! Don’t stop your amazing work! ❤

You need to poolinate the strawberry plants with a small brush to make them bare fruit

Very cool! I've always wondered about this

Strawberries prefer full sun so directly under the light is best

good intention, need to put your heart to it

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.

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!👍

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 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.

Awesome

YES!

Great video,congrats

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.

Felicidades buena idea y una gran ayuda para purificar el agua de los peces

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.

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.

The perfect content I have been looking for. Looking on how to make my own aquaponics system where I can make good nutrients in my aquarium.

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.

Wow amazing

We need to do a cooking show together using all the stuff you grow in the store 😅😅

I love herbs, this would be an awesome way to have thriving food for me ❤

I'm thinking of hooking all my aquariums up to sumps, even the nano ones, and growing plants in the sumps. 😂

I'm not sure that'll work over the long term because the holes are too small. The polycarbonate will end up cutting through the plant stems as they grow. The net cup idea @Cameron_thomas 95 mentioned below is better. Something else that will also work - pool noodle cut in a disk shape with a small wedge removed - the plant stem stuck into the center, and the wedge put against it - pinch the disk closed and plug a 2" hole in the lid. The pool noodle allows for the plant's growth. Other than that, with the right lighting, this should work great. I've been growing plants out of my tanks for a while now. I did a few veggies last year to give it a try.

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.

I do this too. Drill your holes bigger. The plants will have more room to grow.

Great Vid. Very different Mate

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 😊👍

Use the sponge cut in small square and only cut in halfway in each sponge to keep the plant straight ❤

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.

Nice job brother

Ive done this before both inside and out, and I'd highly recommend picking plants based on your light intensity and height allowance. Light intensity limits transpiration and nutrient uptake as well so you'll see far more tank effect. That said, it does the same for algae, so lights sufficient to grow direct sun plants are going to gas up your algae unless you do an opaque cover for the tank. Even your lettuce successes are in obvious need of actual plant appropriate lights btw. That tomato wants full sun and dozens of feet of well lit vine room. The strawberry should have worked worth more light, ive done those, although with tons of tank aeration. If you don't want to buy a led rack you could take led household bulbs in the 2700k color range, cut off the domes exposing the Led's, and hang a bunch together. Better than flood lights at least. All of the plants you normally grow are central american jungle bottom dwellers. Crap light, crap soil straggler survival specialists basically.

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

Tomatoes are a vine, they need something to grow on. They also need as much sunlight as the sun can give them.

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.

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.

Lovely fish:)

If you put you strawberries directly under the light you will have much better results. looks good tho great idea!

Install Timers on those lights! Will Help ensure the plants and get corect amount of Light and it will make life easier!

A dish soap and water mix sprayed on the strawberry plants will kill spider mites.

keep us updated

The ornamental plants are all "indoor' plants...their characteristic is they tolerante low light. I don't think there are many food plants that can tolerate not having full sun. They would grow in an outdoor pond setup.

Potato's grow well too, fast growers in aquarium

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.

Just discovered your channel. Very cool. SUBSCRIBED HERE!

Make the openings bigger and put the plants in a piece of dishwashing sponge and then put them in the opening. It works much easier

I would have used larger holes and some spongey material so the stems have more room to grow and so the plastic doesn't damage the plants.

Can we see the updated tiger barbs breeding vid plz

I remember when this chap started.

The strawberry and tomato needs more light

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!

16.25 , the lack of green on the plant , is due to lack of fertilisers. Just add some iron and phosphate ferts into the water, and the yellowing will go away .

He's so cute... god....

get a hole saw, make the holes bigger, use a small basket and filled with gravel, yes, you need lights.

I have strawberries growing out of my pool pond diy canister type fountain filter

Next, try drilling bigger holes and use netty pots and hydroton (clay balls).

Maybe swish the strawberry in an aquarium before discarding it, the fish might like to eat the spider mites?