Here’s how you can use fish waste to grow over 40 vegetables in a rice box

• There’s a very simple and inexpensive way to beat inflation— by growing them organically with fish — at home.
  
• Azlan Shakib — a former engineer who quit his job and indulge completely into agriculture — explained how can people do a DIY project and grow almost all the vegetables and fruits.
  
• The process saves 90% of water as people don’t need to clean aquarium everyday either.

Do not fret over soaring prices of fruits and vegetables. There’s a very simple and inexpensive way to beat inflation— by growing them organically with fish, at home. And you don’t need a large farm for it either. All you need is an aquarium, a rice box and less than 2 sq feet space.

Azlan Shakib — a former engineer who quit his job and indulge completely into agriculture — explained how can people do a DIY project and grow almost all the vegetables and fruits including lettuce, bananas, capsicum and other leafy vegetables right at home. It doesn’t require soil either.



“The process I am talking about is called aquaponics where we try to establish a symbiotic relationship between fish and plants,” Shakib told Business Insider.

The process saves 90% of water as people don’t need to clean aquarium everyday either. Vegetables grow 30% faster than in traditional ways as they have constant water supply. For instance, if lettuce takes 3 months to grow, using aquaponics-- you can grow them in 2 months.

“The process is faster and hence we can actually get more time to plant an extra crop,”, said Azlan.

So how to do it?


To start with, you need some fish and an aquarium. It can be done with a single fish too but having more always helps. People can create one using a rice box by turning it upside down.

Create a bed and plant the seed in water. Then you will need an aquarium water pump with a motor. Set it up by connecting the aquarium and the plant bed using motor. The system is automatic.

It’s actually quite simple---all you have to do is take out 5-10 mins in the morning and feed the fish. The fish will eat the food and pass on the waste in water. This will be passed on to plants which absorb the nitrates recycle the water and send it back to the aquarium.

Aquaponics doesn’t need much space. It can be done in 2 sq feet space also and can expand upto 10,000 sq feet too depending on what’s the purpose behind growing.


The investment required in doing a DIY project is as less as ₹5,000 or as high as ₹2 lac. But if people want it to be fully automated, they will have to foot a bill of ₹3 to 5 lakhs.

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