Review on 🌱 AquaSprouts Garden: Transform Your 10 Gallon Aquarium with a Self-Sustaining Desktop Aquaponics Ecosystem by Corey Krull

So I've spent enough time on it before writing a review have written. My aquarium is immature (hence cloudy water), but I think I understand how it works. It was really fun and interesting, but frustrating at times (like any other project). Now that everything is settled, I like it. At the moment I have Spire Snails (5), Mystery Snails (2), Killer Snails (2), Devil Snails (2), Dwarf Shrimp (there are 10 or more of them, they reproduce like crazy), Crab with Pom Poms, Clams, Plecco, a shoal Neon tetras (6), cockerels and roosters (4 adults, many juveniles) living happily and feeding on mixed flowers. Here are some tips I learned along the way. First off, the kit is NOT all you need. Someone else said you need another filter, and I completely disagree - doing it naturally is surprisingly effective. I was worried it wouldn't be as effective as a regular filter but it's actually the best filter I've ever used and now I want to install aquaponic beds on every freshwater tank/paludarium I've installed. My tank is full for a traditional setup, but this setup handles waste well. However, instead of a mechanical filter, you REALLY need a gravel filter. Without them, your substrate will become anaerobic and toxic as dirt builds up. You can just siphon it off, but it gets tricky because of the tiny gap at the back, and I also recommend planting an aquarium, which means you can't siphon it off without ruining the plants. Then why plant? Because the pump is easier to hide, decomposing plant matter helps feed your plants at the top, your fish love it, it helps oxygenate a stagnant environment, and it helps absorb anything aquaponics don't care about. In addition, the materials you use in a planted aquarium also help your plants to thrive. I use and recommend Seachem products and nutrients and aquarium foods that are safe and healthy for plants. The stability of Seachem will make the cycling that is so important here practically reliable. You will also need an LED in the tank and a way to mount it (I used external velcro to mount it under the grow bed), a heater, an air stone and an air pump to run the UGF and oxygenate the water in between enrich times. The pump works but the grow light is up - putting it in front of a sunny window doesn't work. The main disadvantage of this system is the inaccessibility of the reservoir. So there are several ways to help with this. One is to make it as self-sufficient as possible by automating it as much as possible and carefully choosing life forms to reflect the real ecosystem, thus minimizing the amount required to get inside. I have used more invertebrates and herbivores than higher organisms - the main predator in the aquarium is the betta, which eats betta brood, and betta, which is omnivore. Since a 10 gallon tank is tiny, I would prefer peaceful fish that don't mind being cramped. Technically gourami, rainbow fish and some small cichlids could work but I think they will be stressed and tense. I would recommend tetras, platies, guppies, zebrafish, goldfish, female bettas or a male betta. Such things. Even small aggressive fish like barbel may not like such an environment. Anything that requires direct current will also not please this tank. They want simple little fish that basically can't hurt each other and live in stagnant or near-stagnant water in the wild. I've also planted ground cover in the substrate, aquatic moss and plants like swords which are root plants that take up a lot of nutrients and some stem plants like tomentosum that need attention. Quite a diverse range of plants, and they all do different things. Above I collected decorative flowers. Why? Because the garden bed is too small to be really productive, so if it's just for beauty you can still do it, but more importantly, flowering plants absorb vaaaaah more nutrients than herbs or herbs. Tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries (or other berries) will do if you really want to make a meal. Anything that makes a flower and a fruit (fruit in the botanical sense) is a much better filter than anything that doesn't. In terms of automation, I bought some smart sockets that I could program with an app so I rarely had to fiddle with lights and a pump (for fun I put a blue LED in the back that lights up at night) and an automatic feeder. because it's quite a hassle to get to that tiny gap in your back. Once everything is set up, I hardly have to fiddle with it. Another way to deal with lack of accessibility is to make disassembly easier. Because it is almost impossible to disconnect the pump and remove the growth bed to get more than a few inches into the aquarium. So I bought some large (clear) pipes from Home Depot that just slide off and used a hose clamp to secure them at the top to prevent leakage. If I want to go there now, I simply loosen the hose clamp and it comes off immediately. The last thing I would recommend is to definitely go to the manufacturer's website. They sell light wand extenders not found at Revain which you will likely need when the plants grow and the forums are great. BUT, I wouldn't recommend anything else they sell as an accessory - the grow light sucks, buy a good one (mine is for growing in a pot) and the bottom gravel filter is overpriced and doesn't match the brand. Some complaints made me think twice before buying. this and why they're wrong / how to fix them: It's cheap flimsy plastic. Or it's not nice. Yes, it's thin plastic. But it's structurally perfectly sound, durable, and if you find it ugly you should look at a real aquaponic rig. Compared to anything you could do yourself, this is very attractive. It's noisy. When the pump is on, the water level will drop for 15 minutes every hour as water from the reservoir fills the bed. When it coalesces, the spray is quite noisy. It's quieter if you put something on top of the drains - either aquarium decorations, or a pipe at the bottom of the bed so the water doesn't just splash. The filtration is not strong enough. It's just not right. People saying this must either have heavily stocked tanks or didn't start their plants before adding the fish. If you want to circulate water and anchor plants with fish, you can do that, but you'll need something to detox the ammonia, as well as live nitrifying bacteria. I like the stability of itself and prime or guard. If you don't know what you're doing I would suggest starting with snail and algae pills when cycling. The snails will produce a small amount of ammonia for nitrifying bacteria to grow in and the algae tablets will feed your snails and provide some nutrients for your plants until their root systems have developed enough to be an effective filter. proper lighting for cultivation. Go to the manufacturer's website and order light bar extensions. Start the light on the kit at the height it is at and go higher as needed. Simply hang your grow light with the included hardware, zip ties or whatever, and instead of fiddling with the light itself, add or remove extensions. Plants don't grow. If you've never grown anything hydroponically, it makes sense to expect to plant seeds in soil and let them grow in water. However, there are no nutrients in the nutrient medium itself. Just like any other hydroponic system. So if you plant the plants before you put the fish in, which you should do, the plants will sprout, but they won't survive and thrive for long because the water has no nutrients until the fish go in. . . Even if you don't want to plant your aquarium, you should use some Seachem flower for really strong plant growth. It is a nutritional mix that is safe for fish. Seachem also manufactures selected nitrogen, potash, iron and phosphate fertilizers to address specific mineral deficiencies that may be beneficial. To be honest I don't work for Seachem or anything like that, but I can't recommend their products enough, especially for this setup. If you try to buy regular hydroponic nutrients and look at the ingredients on the back you will find arsenic, mercury, cyanide, lead, all sorts of nasty things to animal life as many hydroponic nutrients are made from seaweed or kelp which binds these toxin materials (which is why it's good to have them in your real marine ecosystem, but not great to grind them up whole and disperse them in your terrestrial ecosystem). Fish emulsion doesn't contain the same toxins, but adding it to an aquarium is obviously not a good idea. These are crushed dead fish and fish droppings. Ammonia emissions will occur very quickly in the aquarium environment. Overall this is a great introduction to aquaponics and I learned a lot and had a lot of fun doing it. It's nothing fancy, but it definitely works, and setting it up taught me how to build my own larger system. If I do I will definitely do something different (maybe build a freshwater refugium on the side to work with a pump, heater, skimmer etc and 2 stacked beds for more access) but that should with one non-standard system work, and it definitely does. I would definitely recommend it to any biology fanatic or experienced aquarist, but if you have no idea what you are doing you can always find out, you might lose some of the fish first. I haven't lost any snails or shrimp yet and it's not that easy in a new aquarium, as a working filter system it certainly works. The fish seem happier at higher concentrations than in a regular tank and I used far fewer chemicals. You should never, repeat NEVER, do the water changes that almost broke my brain. Filters do not need to be changed. If you test the water every day like I do, you'll tire of its consistency. Pour the vinegar into the reservoir and it will be back to normal within an hour. All aquariums should work like this. As it turns out, nature knows best again. Highly recommend, just do your research and understand that like all aquariums this is an expensive and time consuming project. Edit 2/1/20 Still working great. Over time I made some minor changes – I switched to herbs at the top because it turned out I really *don't* need* to get as many nutrients as I originally thought, so I gradually switched to herbs and that works great. I've had rosemary, basil, sage, and flat-leaf parsley, all of which work well and provide all the filtering I need. My crab probably escaped through a pump tube after about 6 months - so maybe the aquarium isn't safe enough for animals like him or African dwarf frogs or some snails that are known to run away. I recently added sea catfish to clear the sediment. About once a year I have to take out all the plants and wash the growing medium. - Otherwise, the drains and the water inlet for the pump will become clogged with roots and dead root debris will accumulate. I just put everything in a bucket and use a colander to rinse a spoon down until the water runs clear, then put it back in the garden. After this treatment I use a little Seachem primer to dechlorinate water clinging to it and a little Florish Advance sachem (basically a fish safe root stimulant) to help the plants recover since you have to do a lot of damage to them to separate roots. them from the media balls. I call it the annual ball wash (I'm a woman). It's a bit painful, but I take it lightly. So yeah, I still love this thing.