Something is happening in my bed of river-rocks. The seeds have started to grow their first tail like root, and my re-planted lettuce and leek are growing! Its only been a few days, and I am checking up on the progress all the time. I am completely fascinated by this.

I am obsessing with my seeds, seeing them grow, coming to life! I just want them to continue, and not give up, and this time I wont forget to water them, which has been the biggest reason of plant death in my care so far. I suppose that is why I love Aquariums.

Even a small evidence that there might be something happening in the peppermint area, but I found it hard to capture that on picture.

The tomatoes and cucumbers are doing very well, I can almost taste the harvest already.

And there it is, right there in the foreground. Can you see it? The tiniest life left from the "aquarium plant", that in fact was never meant to live under water, has now taken its place in my wonderful life-giving bed.

The set-up in the dirt and 'green house' box let me know the day after that it was not the way to go.












One of my small plants died shortly, though I  had not much hope for it in there anyway, the second one is now slowly having its life ebbing away too, but this one, just there in the foreground is doing well! I packet both stems in moist cotton ball, hoping it will tempt the roots out and get good hold. It is my final hope to save this lovely houseplant.

The newest attempt was set up yesterday. I have no plans for anything to live in there, my conciousness can't make justice to buy a fighting fish for this tiny little water home. Perhaps some cherry shrimps, but I am not sold on that Idea either. It will all depend on how the water quality is holding up if I am to put anything living in there.

For now I am planning to transfer dirty fish poop water from my fish tank filter, hoping that will do the trick. I do have air bubbles in there to push the water around and give some air to the roots.

The strawberry plant is drooping a bit to day, and I stuffed it a bit further down into where the water meets the rock, though this plant bit came from the mother plant with no roots. It just sort of broke off and I'm seeing if I can fix it.

We have plans to make garden-beds alongside our house, on the sunny side, to grow 'veggies' and herbs. Lately I have been picturing setting up a big long-stretched aquaponics system there instead, trying to figure out how I could convince the husband to agree with me. Only thing that worries me with having life fish outside here, is that during the Australian summers, it can get quite warm. And even if the idea of growing my own fish is appealing too, I do not want to cook them while they grow. I continue to watch videos on YouTube and found this one very interesting:

Backyard Urban Aquaponics Farm Grow 3000 Heads of Lettuce a Month. 

(It is not my video, and I own no rights to it.)

I want more liter of water with fish, and more grow-beds!

I have long wanted to do some Aquaponics. The idea of combining aquariums and growing food appeals to me, so I thought I should give it a go and keep a little journal of how this attempt goes.

I have had aquariums on and off through most of my life, and there is something serene about watching fishes swim around, hopefully enjoying their life in the watery home I made for them and I hope that the food I try to grow will help keep their water super nice.


My current aquarium are 29 cm x 29 cm x 50 cm, not very large at all, and is a home to two gold fish and two algae eaters who do not mind the cold water. I have a waterfall filter, and it is surprisingly good at keeping the water clean, and I also run an air-pump to help move things around and add oxygen to the water.
As all who are bitten by the aquarium interest, I want more liters. I want bigger tanks, and perhaps one day I will have my dreams come true. To be honest I would prefer to build my house underwater and look out into the real underwater world, but alas, it is less expensive to putt water into aquariums.














The grow bed onto of my tank is a colander bought at IKEA, and it fits and sits well. I use river gravel as growing medium, and planted my seeds onto cotton balls that I placed above the waterline, but close enough to be moist. The bed isn't very deep, but here is hoping it will work well enough.








I spent all of yesterday watching all sorts of aquaponics videos on YouTube, trying to figure out how I could do the same with out an elaborate setup. I will post some external links to some of those video's that inspired me to make my version at the bottom of this post If you are interested to check them out.

I also put down the left over 'butt' of a lettuce, and the end piece of the leek. I am curious to see if they will grow more or give up. By the look of it the leek has already started 'something', the cut was clean yesterday when I put it down in the bed, but it could be just normal behavior from cut down leek. I am going to follow it closely.






















I bought some plants for the aquarium when I first set it up, and found out just recently that it was a Pilea Cadierei, and not really a underwater plant at all. It lived quite well for several months, but once we moved the tank, they never bounced back up. I have now taken them out of the water, and placed them in soil, hoping they might survive still. Trying to revive these plants are project two, and I will keep a journal to see if they make it or not.





It looks like something other than the plants lives inside of this container, making art with its tracks.


I wish my self luck with these experiments!

YouTube video's:
Cheap and Easy $35 Aquaponics / Hydroponics Setup
DIY Indoor Self-Sufficient Aquaponic Garden For $10!!!
Miniponics DIY Aquaponics for under 10$
(None of these video's were made by me, and I own no rights to them.)