- The plants are actually feeding off of just the fish waste. Once the system's balanced,
it takes care of itself. (upbeat electric guitar music) You can take care of a goldfish, you can do exactly what
we're doing back there. A lot of times people want a garden. They grow in spite of the desert. We chose to grow with the desert instead. (rock music) And that's it. That's how you transfer
a plant in aquaponics. My family's never been closer. I wish I would've started
this when I was a little kid. Think big. Don't be intimidated. Think big and think outside of the box. The beauty to hydroponics
is you can actually use the earth itself to
help you grow your system. My name is Charles Collins and
I'm a sustainable gardener. Now these are all raised from fry. This is about a 350 gallon tank. We have roughly a hundred
tilapia inside the tank and right about now I think
it's time we feed them. We feed them once a day, they
produce the pee, the poop. The water flows through the system and gravity brings it
through this pipe here. It then comes out into this upper grow bed which is about 12 inches deep. And we use 3/4 inch scoria lava rock because that brings a
really good substrates and a really good surface
for the bacteria to grow. The nitrates and the
nitrites in the fish poop get broken down by bacteria. The bacteria makes their little colonies within your substrate. The substrate then makes
that food for the plants. The plants, in return, use
their roots to clean out all of the hard and solid
waste from the fish waste. It goes through your entire system and gets put right back into
the fish tank, fresh and clean. As the water makes its way
through the first grow bed, it then comes out into
the second grow bed. The plants are actually feeding
off of just the fish waste. The nitrogen gets broken down which is what the plants
are actually eating. Once the system's balanced,
it takes care of itself. Now you might be asking
yourself, why fish? Fish are a sustainable form of protein. And in our case, we use tilapia because they're fast
growing and they actually self-control their
populations in the tank. So it's never too full, plus they are delicious if
you grow them correctly. They've got a bad reputation. And I really want to work towards helping clear that up because, guys, it's something that we could
all be doing at our homes. We don't want to rely on the big markets and the big box stores
and things of that nature. We want to know where our
food source is coming from. Grow. Be a part of the
desert, not in spite of it. All right, granted, that's an
obstentious pool back there. That's really, really big and kind of goes against
everything we're doing. But before we started gardening, we kinda lived in a desert
and we wanted a pool. So although we have the pool, that's not even a focus point, the focal point of our property anymore. You all right, guys? Yeah? You okay? Hey Kevin. Before you say, okay, how can you be best friends with a pig? Have you ever hung out with a pig? Alright, no. Hang out with a pig and
then come back to me. All right? We'll discuss
it because pigs rock. If you're ever upset, look, trust me. You can be as mad as you want but if you ever give a pig lettuce and listen to them chew,
it's freaking hilarious. (laughs) Pig poop is a tremendous
source of fertilizer. These guys provide poop for us. I get to hang out with
chickens and pigs, dude. What's not cool about that? There you go. I just knew that they
were the closest cousin as the Tyrannosaurus Rex, so if I could have a little T-Rex walking around my yard, why not? That's awesome. Chickens are the gift
that keeps on giving. On average four to five eggs a day. They also provide us a rich
source of nitrogen for the soil. These can be stored and refrigerated for up to a year without being treated. The chicken waste, we scoop that up. We put it into our
composter for our own soil. I got a pig named Kevin and Kobe that live in the house with me. I watched Justice League with these guys, the Zach Snyder cut. It was awesome with my pigs. (laughs) (plastic crinkling) Now, first off you notice that
we have a greenhouse here. Why have a greenhouse? Well, we have fruiting
vegetables, fruiting plants, and they've been fruiting
throughout the entire winter. Most of these plants
are about two years old or they're clones from plants that were two or three years old. We have a variety of peppers, which are prolific growers in the desert. We have a ghost pepper right here. We have Thai peppers, chili peppers, long hot, Italian long
hot peppers in here. These are Ukrainian peppers right here. These are shishito peppers. And right there, we have
a dwarf bell pepper plant. The idea is you have a
limited amount of space so you don't want to grow
really, really big fruit. The beauty to hydroponics
is you can actually use the earth itself to
help you grow your system. We're using a flood and drain, a modified flood and drain
system with fabric pots because it makes it easier for
the plants roots to breathe. We've also incorporated a
buried reservoir system. That way the water stays at a nominal temperature
between 70 and 74 degrees. Now, if you take a look
at our growing substrate, we use Hydroton, which are the clay balls, and we also use a mixture of coco coir which is basically the
hair from a coco plant. Leave the rest to nature
and you're good to go. I wish I would have started this when I was a little kid. Every day I wake up and I'm like, I wish I would have
just done this earlier. It's giving me a new
perspective on just my life, a new perspective on health. My family's never been closer. This is my boy Malik. This is my little girl, Charlie. And this is my son Davon. We work together as a family. My daughter takes care of the chickens, she takes care of the pigs. My son has basically
planted almost everything that you see over there. He actually built this
entire enclosure over here. Without them, I'd be nothing. With them, I am everything. So thank you guys. The best part of all of this
is absolutely giving back. We want to give back in
every way that we can. I want to have one of
these in every single yard. You know, when you leave this world, man, you leave people with memories. And I want them to remember
that I never gave up on them. I never wanted them to
give up on each other. And that, like literally,
we can make a difference. It's time for us to transfer
some plants out here. We're going to take
some starters right here and we are going to set them
into the aquaponics rig. This is a handy tool that I use. I'm really giving you
guys a tip right here because no one knows about this. It's a piece of PVC. And you're going to use
it to move lava rocks. Reach inside, move these
lava rocks out the way. Now here's the beauty to aquaponics. There's no soil, guys. There's no soil whatsoever. And now we are going to take
a squash that my wife started. We're going to set it inside. And take that PVC, we're going
to pull it out and that's it. That's how you transfer
a plant in aquaponics. This all started because we
had a power issue in our house and it costs an awful lot of money to get the wiring and
everything else fixed. The fear with me was, we had fish, we had plants and they relied
on a steady power source. If not, they could just die. Really set my mind to
thinking, how can I possibly, possibly prevent this from ever happening? Use the power of the sun. This is an 800 watt four
panel power station. We draw about 4,600 Watts a day which is about 4.6 kilowatts a day. Now the average household uses about 120 to 126 kilowatts a month. So this tiny little power
pack system right here could actually power our
house if we wanted it to. You're also going to need to be able to conserve that energy during the night. That's where a battery
bank comes into play. Now, a lot of people get
solar and they're grid-tied. Well, people don't realize this: when the power goes out,
your power is still out, even if you have solar. So we had chose to do an off-grid method to where we actually store our power so we have it in reserve when we need it. It just offers you so
much of a sense of freedom that you really aren't
aware of until you do it. I was so bad when we first started. I couldn't grow old in a old folk's home. I'm not even kidding, man. We were just awful, awful gardeners. So the first thing that we
actually successfully grew was basil, got it from Lowe's, of course. Lowe's or Home Depot,
because we were nervous. We were scared. You know, we got traditional
gardening, in-ground gardening. We did that for two years.
We got pretty decent at that. And then I started
looking into hydroponics. We ended up getting a
cheap hydroponics rig for $50 off of Facebook Market. None of the crap worked on
it, but it gave me an idea of how the systems work. Fast forward, a month after that, I built my first hydroponic system. Fast forward six months after that, we started growing things from seed. Everything you see here, except
for the ornamental plants is all from seed. Plant that first seed. Like literally, depending
on what you want to do, I would always recommend start
with traditional gardening. I mean a good test if
you're actually wanting to garden or not, are mung beans
and quick sprouting plants. Because if you can't change the
water out three times a day, maybe gardening is not for you. It's so easy. And it's a super
green, it's a super green. It's so healthy for you. If you actually want to do it
and you got that spark in you, just take that first step. Literally take that first step. You don't have to do it on a large scale. Like I said, not even an estate, not even a huge yard, not even a patio. I just showed you how to
do it on a countertop. If you can grow a basil, a basil plant in a cup on your kitchen
counter, pardon me. Or in your window sill. you can do everything that
we're doing back there. Don't be intimidated. Think big and think outside of the box. What's up y'all? Little bit of onion
action going on over here. I know a lot of people
mistake them for leeks, but they're not. These
are actually scrap onions. We got these from the grocery store. I think these are two
or three years old now. They've been transferred from traditional gardening to hydroponics and now they have their final
spot in the aquaponics garden. We have some tatsoi over
here, Asian cabbage, and this is very, very, very delicious. We also have the supergreen kale. My wife likes to make
her little kale shakes and you know, her green
shakes or smoothies. And this comes in handy. Also, I love making kale chips but that's a whole different video. This is our supergreen. And this is New Zealand spinach. Well in New Zealand, it's
just known as ice plant. And if you look at the backside, you'll actually see crystals on it. When it comes to aquaponics, it's not about how much
stuff you're growing. It's about how much space you're taking up when you're growing it because you have a very
limited amount of space. This entire beautiful New
Zealand spinach plant only takes up about this much space
in this aquaponics tank. Literally less space than one of these onion plants right here. We get to the lower grow bed and here's where we'll actually
have our starter plants. The beauty to aquaponics
is the plants grow about three times as fast
as they normally would. And they grow three times as big. Just take a look for yourselves. I was born and raised in the ghetto, was kind of rough where I'm from. I think we got like 38 or
40 clear nights a year. So the sky's always gray. Raised by a single mom. She
raised me and my brothers. I love my mom to death. She fostered my imagination
because there wasn't much. If you were to get into
anything on the streets, chances are, if you grew up with me and you got into the streets, chances are you're either dead or you're locked up and you're not coming home anytime soon. We didn't have much opportunity. So it was all on imagination. And I always wondered
what it would be like to live on the moon and live on Mars. And plus my mom always fostered my imagination with astronomy. She got me my first telescope
when I was eight years old, got me my first map, I mean,
my first atlas of a sky when I was six years old and she took me to the
library, children's library when I was like five and a half, six, and it changed my life. It made me think outside the ghetto. It made me think outside the hood and I'd basically never come
back to earth since then. I want people to dream,
man. I want them to dream. I want them to know that
things like this are possible. I'm 50 years old and I'm as much a kid as I've ever been because I get to play with some really awesome
toys back here, man. You know what they say,
man, this is so boring, I'd rather watch grass grow. Here's the thing. Have you ever watched grass grow? It's freaking exhilarating. It's one of the most exciting
things watching a plant open up, either in real time
or with it on timelapse. It's really incredible. Brother, it's an amazing life, man. And it's there for everyone. Whether you have a yard, an
estate, acres, or a patio, you can do this. (inspiring music)
I love this guy! He's so excited and he's got the smarts to make it all work. Gets me pumped!
Does this guy have a YouTube channel?
I saw this on YouTube a week or so ago.
Very engaging and entertaining chap! His interactions with the pigs and chickens made me laugh!
Some of the technicalities of AP were a little off; I’m sure he mentioned “breaking down nitrates and nitrites” - but as an introduction for someone who has not come across AP before, it’s great!
What a great dad!
really inspiring!
This was posted here a week or two ago but I'm still upvoting because this guy is so inspiring.
This man just inspired me!!!
this vid should be stickied! definition aquaponics to me
I thought this was so cool too!
Any plans to return to FL?