At the 2010 Southeastern Flower Show, Earth Solutions exhibits several aquaponic systems, the Mendocino, the Little Tokyo, a DIY Farm in a Barrel (modified Barrel-Ponic) system, along side a vermiculture bed for raising fish food and a newly designed raised container garden bed. The garden planter box is made of completely sustainable cedar wood and doesn't require any tools for assembly.

Aquaponics: How Nature Does Best When We Work Less -

Aquaponics is an innovative production method that does not require the fertilizers, costs or labor associated with in-ground gardening. Farm in a Box Aquaponics tells this story by re-creating natural ecosystems between plants, plants and friendly bacteria to produce delicious organic vegetables and fish.

In each of these indoor and outdoor systems:

• Fish waste from the fish tank is transported up to a plant bed (the bog) where plants are housed in rocks, rather than soil. 
  

• The fish waste (ammonia) is produced by fish, becomes organic fertilizer.
  

• Plants and friendly bacteria, living on the rocks, make this happen and simultaneously purify the water by removing ammonia.
  

• Naturally cleansed water then filters back down into the tank, making it unnecessary to change the water or use a filter.
  

• The cycle repeats itself every 1-2 hours on a timer.

Aquaponics is the merging of hydroponics (growing plants without soil) and aquaculture (the farming of fish and/or shell fish); and because one systems waste may be another’s sustenance, putting the two together creates a permaculture relationship. Permaculture is a permanent agriculture system that relies on renewable resources, and is molded after natural ecosystems working together. Aquaponics provide sustainability because:

• When Aquaponics transports fish waste to the plant bed(s), chemical fertilizers are replaced with organic fish waste.

• The nitrogen and water of the fish tank are no longer thrown away, instead they feed the plants.

• Likewise, the friendly bacteria that naturally colonize in the rocks in the plant bed, neutralize the ammonia from the fish waste, purifying the water naturally.

• Overall combining hydroponics and aquaculture into Aquaponics conserves water, re-uses ammonia and nitrogen, and eliminates the need to chemical fertilizers.