Hydroponics indoor garden

[Anonymous No.1217301]

Newbie here, I want to get into indoor gardening and hydroponics so that I can go full hermit if the need arises (coming here from /g/, you understand)
Here's the image I have in my head right now: In my room I have a fish tank, the fish eat their fish food and produce waste. This waste feeds the plants whose roots are extending into the tank and water.
Is this at all viable? Basically I want to create some kind of contained ecosystem for the sake of minimal intervention or tending required.
Again, I'm very new, so I don't know a lot about the sciences behind gardening and such, nor do I know a lot of lingo or buzzwords.
Any help would be appreciated, and I guess anyone else looking for help can post here too.

[Anonymous No.1217310]

Resources and tools available are very minimal, but I things like drills, hammers, saws (my brother's a carpenter), but nothing like pbc piping or the such.

[Anonymous No.1217312]

>>1217301
>fertilizing your food with fish poop
theoretically sounds like a reasonable idea, but it sounds gross

[Anonymous No.1217319]

It's 100% viable, many commercial aquaponic farms operate like that.

There are some things you need to watch out for. For example, if there's too much ammonia in the water then you either have too many fish or too few plants.

You use a simple pond pump to circulate the water, and build a waterfall somewhere to oxygenate it.

That will make the plants grow. You only need to read up on how to actually breed the fish.

[Anonymous No.1217320]

>>1217301
dude weed, lmao

[Anonymous No.1217334]

>>1217301
If you want to grow food for sustenance and self reliance indoor gardening makes no sense.

The electric bills for running lights prices you out from saving money instead of buying from the grocery store on just about any item on the produce aisle save for micro greens and marijuana.

Besides if you were going hermit mode how are you paying these high electric bills?

If you buy LED lights to save on the electric bill the huge price hike relative to Industry standard HPS or MH bulbs keeps you from saving money until you've used the LEDs for 3 years. Average lifespan of one of these is 5. That doesn't even take into account the ballasts.

I've heard sprouting barley for animal feed in the winter is one of the few lucrative ways to employ indoor gardening.

Aquaponics outdoors can be a better use of your time. If you live in a place where in the winter the lows don't regularly reach below 50. So if you live in the US, Florida, Texas, or Southern California would work.
If you build a greenhouse and use a heater you could feesibly do it anywhere in the world-- but the colder your environment the less efficient your system will be.


Tilapia are the fish you want to use. Some people use gold fish on a hobby scale.

If you want to build your own hobby aquaponics system I suggest you have a tank for the fish and a tank for the plants.

The plants sit in gravel with a drain at the bottom. Use a sump pump on a timer to pump water from fish to the plant tank.

Leave the plant tank higher than fish tank so you can gravity drain on a timer valve that opens after a short amount of time and feeds the clean water back into the fish tank.

[Anonymous No.1217340]

>>1217334
I live in Minnesota, so outdoors is out of the question.
As for money I can do free-lance development and programming (/g/tard)
Thanks for the info.

>>1217319
Focusing on balancing fish and plants: how could I achieve a balance where I could cook some of my fish every once in a while for meat? Or more specifically, is that even possible?

[Anonymous No.1217379]

>>1217301
>>1217310
Danger close.

[Anonymous No.1217436]

>>1217340
>how could I achieve a balance where I could cook some of my fish every once in a while for meat? Or more specifically, is that even possible?

Just monitor the ammonia levels, when it starts getting too high remove a few fish and that's it.

[Anonymous No.1217437]

BTW, aquaponics is essentially the same as fish farming with a few grow beds working as ammonia filters. You will need to remove fish every now and then, otherwise they'll keep breeding untill the water becomes too toxic and they die.

[Anonymous No.1217457]

>>1217437
>>1217436
That works pefectly.
I can grow fish and potatoes.

[Anonymous No.1217482]

>>1217379
Fuck off with this cancer you zero contribution cunt.

[Anonymous No.1217868]

How do you plan to get food for your fish, in hardcore hermit mode? If you intend to keep a closet full of fish food, you might as well keep instant food.
>>1217457
>potatoes
I'm growing potatoes at home on like 5 square meters and that can't sustain you for a week. They'll start loosing flavor too, even if you turn them into chips, not to mention you'll get sick of the same taste every day. Also you can't harvest potatoes all year

[Anonymous No.1217881]

>>1217379
Why is hydroponics lumped in with drugs? It's a cultivation method used by industrial tomato farmers, lettuce farmers, kale farmers, basil farmers, literally every single herb and most vegetables.

[Anonymous No.1217893]

>>1217868
Delivery's always an option. What do fish even eat anyways? It's probably something I can grow too
As for potatoes I just said that cause they're known to be an incredibly hardy plant that can grow almost anywhere. But yeah, I'd probably want some variety.

[Anonymous No.1217933]

>>1217301
When you have fish & plants together, is that not aquaponics instead of hydroponics?

[Anonymous No.1217988]

>>1217312
as opposed to fertilizing your food with cow poop and phosphate

[Anonymous No.1218004]

>>1217340
How does freelancing actually work out?

[Anonymous No.1218106]

>>1218004
Startups and random normies that need someone to do something for them
Mainly web or app development or FOSS (free and open-source software)
Linux is great for this because I could start writing bash scripts for like fifty bucks a pop for those who don't want to invest the time

[Anonymous No.1218289]

>>1218106
May look into it, I have free time. I got a lot of books on penetration testing and kali or parrot setup, is that freelanceable?

[Anonymous No.1218291]

>>1217482
Let's see what the OP brought to the table...if only he was doing this in an underground/on a trailer/in a container house.

Seems like the best place to post this is in the containment thread: >>>/out/1067867

[Anonymous No.1218328]

>>1217379
>Super Secret patent idea, don't steal!

Why have I never seen a thread like this?
Also 60-70% of /diy/ threads fill in some cathegory by default

[Anonymous No.1218340]

>>1217379

That could use some improvement. There is nothing inherently wrong with arduino, raspberry pi, or beagle board, or 3d printing. As long as you are not an evangelist and are realistic and you are not a raw beginner, why can't someone discuss these topics?

Hell, I'd put leatherman/multitools on there before I'd put the ones I listed, as well as "which is better, makita/bosch/dewalt etc."

[Anonymous No.1218341]

marwana
*dabs*

[Anonymous No.1219950]

>>1217301
So aquaponics is fun for a hobby, but not lucrative at all. Anyone that says it is has a greenhouse in Florida or SoCal and a trust fund. It works great for large scale certain things if there is a market for that "PURE ORGANIC NON GMO" hippie stuff. There are several parts to it and I guarantee your first crop will be godawful with a few successes.

That said, if you want the absolute minimalist entry into the world of water gardening, I recommend hydroponics(not using fish yet) and utilizing the Kratky method, as it doesn't require a pump or really anything once you plant the stuff. Just some light.

This guy is fun for intro to that method. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zdi4KM3ewwfYMNo_KnU0A

It's way cheaper and easier to set up to see if you legit like growing things indoors. And it'll be easier to upscale that than if you bought a bulk container and sawed it up and filled it with water and fish to realize you put it on the wrong side of the room and all the fish are dead because you didn't wait 2 weeks for the bacteria to establish for your nitrate balance.

[Anonymous No.1219985]

>>1218328
Because you are new and don't remember the early days when /diy/ was made. Thankfully, most of that shit disappeared for some reason, maybe they went to /biz/ or /adv/.

>>1217301
Stay in your containment thread: >>>/out/1067867