Vegetable/herb garden, worm bin, and fish tank all rolled into one

Wouldn’t it be great to have a vegetable/herb garden, worm bin, and fish tank all rolled into one?  Such an invention already exists, and the easy at-home version is called a Fishy Farm.  I like the littler version for a fun take on indoor gardening with fish tank aquarium, but in the bigger outdoor version you can grow rainbow trout or tilapia for consumption as well.  The fish wastewater is piped up to the veggies/herbs to be used as fertilizer.  No soil is used, only clay type balls and volcanic rock, and around those balls are red worms that eat anything that the plants don’t use.  The water then drains down into a filter that puts it back into the fish tank. One system’s waste is another’s food.

The directions say you can add a little new water occasionally, but other than that you get to pick fresh herbs/veggies from the top without weeding, watering, bending over, or any work at all. The smaller indoor tanks can house goldfish, tropical fish, or koi.

We currently have edible plants outdoors, but I haven’t been able to grow anything edible indoors (I don’t think plants get enough light).  If I had a grow light indoors, this just might work for us.  I currently have a worm bin hidden in our unused fireplace (a silk scarf on a rod hiding it from view) and feed the worms kitchen scraps and paper from our basement shredder.  I use the worm castings to strengthen and fertilize the edible outdoor plants.    No one even knows I’ve got worms in my fireplace unless I tell them.  Hope I haven’t freaked out my neighbors now.

It would be SO COOL to have year ‘round veggies and/or herbs in the living room.  Eventually it would be nice to get the worm bin out of the fireplace.  I’ve also been thinking about how relaxing it would be to have a fish tank again.

This particular invention would be for family food production and entertainment value.  I like the simple idea of one system’s waste as another’s food, and the idea of working smarter, not harder.  The Fishy Farm is a tool worth looking into. Check them out on Facebook.