Living Furniture - Aquaponic End Table
- AquaFarm Aquaponic Aquarium - $52.71
- Miracle-Gro AeroGarden 7-Pod Indoor Garden - $148.00
- ZeroSoil Mini Indoor Garden - $45.99
- Cuisipro Herb Keeper - $20.95
- Miracle-Gro AeroGarden Seed Starter System - $29.95
Tabletop aquaponic systems--aquariums with plants watered and nourished by the fish and their digs growing soillessly above--have been making the rounds, but Green Towers' Living Furniture might be the first to expand this elegantly symbiotic duo into a trio with the addition of a usable end table to house the system.
Living Furniture is Green Towers' attempt to contribute to a healthier, more sustainable world. The company's floating island gardens (the Aztecs called them chinampas) suit both urban and suburban homes, consuming no more space than a standard end table, yet turning what was formerly a single-purpose piece of decorative storage into a multi-purpose purveyor of charming aquatic life, low-maintenance pets, and deliciously fresh cilantro for piling on my fish tacos. What's that? No, calm down, Living Furniture inhabitants. As long as you keep up the good work I won't eat you...just other members of your phylum in front of you.
According to Green Towers, Aquaponics as a food production method has been shown to boost crop yields using about 90% less water than other agricultural techniques. As the fish provide the plants overhead with nutrients, then plants serve as living filters, cleaning the impurities from their gilled friends' water. With a Living Table, human responsibility, as per usual, is to give very little and take a lot. Seed planting and fish feeding are the only 2 ownership duties required.
Living Tables accommodate up to 6 freshwater ornamental fish and can grow most kinds of produce. Green Towers suggests herbs, sprouts, leafy-greens, or household plants, namely mint, basil, cilantro, sage, spinach, sprouts, and leaf lettuces.
Living Tables seek Kickstarter funding through July 30, 2014. Backers will receive a fully assembled solid cherry table (29" tall; 16" x 15" footprint) with:
- A glass or wood tabletop
- A table garden (120 square inches)
- A 10 gallon aquarium
- Plumbing and pump
- Recycled glass Growstones media
- A garden starter kit
- An aquarium light
Living Furniture owners will need to supply their own water (tap water is fine, but needs to site for a day to filter out the chlorine), fish, and fish food.