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  • cacophony5never [they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    Everyone's going off on the food angle, but let me give a different take on beans. Or rather, Legumes in general, which in addition to beans also includes peas, chickpeas/garbonzabeans, lentils and various other plants such as clover. Shoutout to my boy Kropotkin on this one, cuz legumes are special in that they have a mutualistic symbiosis with bacteria that coinhabit their root systems, which allows them to fix nitrogen. Aside from Carbon (the primary bulk of of what makes up life, which is fixed through photosynthesis in all plants), the biggest 3 elements required for plant growth are Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium: these are what most fertilizers provide. You might be thinking, "But wait, isn't nitrogen what makes up a majority of the atmosphere" Yes, it does, in the form N2, which has a triple-bond holding the pair together, and as such is very stable and unreactive, making it a pain to do anything with. The bacteria in the roots binds the nitrogen into ammonia, which is a useful form a nitrogen for life, and shares it with the plant, and in return the plant shares some of its carbon and energy. Since the Haber Process (the normal way nitrogen is created to supply to plants as fertilizer) can be incredibly bad for the environment, lets take a moment to appreciate this often overlooked aspects of beans.

      • Neckbeard_Prime [they/them,he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Real talk, if you use a sump system with an aquarium with larger pet fish (e.g., fancy goldfish or maybe tiger oscars), and run the sump into an aeroponic grow system, the plants' roots will soak up a lot of the ammonia from the fish, leaving you with happy plants and cleaner water for your fish. That said, I'm not sure that the plants would be safe to eat, given how nasty some aquarium chemicals are. It could work for something like flowers or maybe hemp, though.

        • GrouchoMarxist [comrade/them,use name]
          ·
          edit-2
          4 years ago

          In large scale operations, this is completely safe, they monitor the water heavily and the fish are kept on a specific diet to avoid contamination of the water, and then everything is cleaned off at harvest. It's pretty doable at home provided you do your research and get everything set up properly. If you just slap some plants in a fish tank with some goldfish you'll have a bad time

        • Biggay [he/him, comrade/them]
          ·
          4 years ago

          This is how traditional chinese/asian rice paddies were kept. A population of carp were kept in the paddies to keep the water clear of pests and to offer another food source.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice-fish_system

          • Neckbeard_Prime [they/them,he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            That's awesome; thanks for the link!

            This reaffirms that my idea of doing a Walstad-style natural planted tank with an aeroponic sump isn't completely mad scientist talk.