Best Aquaponics Kits

aquaponics kitsIf you want to reap the rewards and outstanding benefits of an aquaponics system but don’t have the time or patience to set one up from scratch, getting a home aquaponics kit is the perfect solution. Besides giving you access to beautifully fresh food, they also offer you a tried and tested design, a fully functioning system and some excellent looks as well – all while saving you a ton of time and work.

They come in a variety of sizes, adapting to any available space you have, and some even have visible aquariums to give you an extra visual boost that makes them fantastic to use indoors as a decoration piece. Whatever space you’ve got available, I guarantee that you can find a home aquaponics kit that fits perfectly.

Now while there are quite a few of them on the market, only some home aquaponics kits are actually good enough to be considered “the best” and we’re going to be taking a look at the ones that, in my opinion, are exactly that. Without further ado, let’s dive in!

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Index


Best Aquaponics Kits for Sale

These are, in my opinion, the best home aquaponics kits I’ve tested that are for sale on market right now, thoroughly compared for you.

Aquaponics Kit AquaSprouts Garden Kit Back to the Roots Mini Aquaponic Ecosystem
Picture
Price $$ $
Size (WxLxH) 10″ x 28″ x 17″ 9.5″ x 13.4″ x 13.4″
Water 10 Gal 3 Gal
Capacity Medium + Small
Fish Tank Included
Special Feature Smart and Sleek Design + Impressive Quality Compact but Effective
Availability Shop Now Shop Now

Top 5 Best Home Aquaponics Kits

Here you can read in-depth reviews of all the home aquaponics kits featured in the table above. These detailed analysis will tell you exactly what they have to offer and make it easy for you to find the perfect one.

AquaSprouts Garden Aquaponics Aquarium Kit

Offering beautifully slick looks and excellent performance at an impressively affordable price, it’s easy to see why the AquaSprouts aquaponics gardening kit gained so much popularity. It’s an add-on that fits perfectly on any standard 10 gallon aquarium and instead of just sitting on top like most do, it actually covers the sides as well, giving it its trademark elegant look while also creating more space above for your plants – it’s a fantastic design choice.

The kit has everything you need to get started. Besides the aquaponics garden structure itself, which has a great looking matte black finish that matches with any decor, it also has a removable light bar, a pump and a timer, the hydro clay pebbles grow media and as expected, a leaflet with detailed instructions and tips. It’s also extremely easy to set up and requires no tools to assemble.

Overall, it measures 10″ x 28″x 17″ (width x length x height) without the light bar and the extra large grow bed coupled with a nicely inhabited 10 gallon fish tank allows you to grow a fairly large amount of plants such as herbs and a couple of vegetables with ease (which is not typical of 10 gallon kits).

While writing this AquaSprouts garden review I noticed that it not only looks great but the craftsmanship itself is outstanding too – everything fits perfectly and there are no visual or mechanical imperfections, demonstrating that true care went into making this. As a bonus, it also comes with a 1 year warranty and the price is incredibly attractive. It’s easily one of, in my opinion, the best 10 gallon aquaponics aquarium kits you can get.

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Back to the Roots Water Garden Aquarium, Mini Aquaponic Ecosystem

The new and improved version of the insanely popular original, the Back To The Roots mini aquaponics kit is a simple and compact aquaponics starter kit that perfectly introduces you to the wonders of this revolutionary type of gardening. The fish tank that can hold a few small fish and the growing bed on top has 3 slots that allow you to easily grow herbs.

It’s very well-built, super easy to set-up (taking around 10 minutes) and even though its size 9.5″ x 13.4″ x 13.4″ (width x length x height) and capacity are fairly small, it’s still a great source of fresh aromatic herbs and spices or even small greens that you can use for smoothies, salads and to give your food a punch of flavor and aroma. You can place it absolutely anywhere with ease and like any aquaponics system, all you’ve need to do in order to maintain it is to feed the fish.

Everything is included in the kit – aquarium, grow bed and media, water pump, microgreen seeds, fish food and even a coupon so you can get fish for it at a lower cost. It’s also affordable for the value you get out of it and comes with a 100% satisfaction guarantee (free replacements if needed). While it won’t provide you with a lot of fresh vegetables and fruits like a traditional aquaponics garden, this little home aquaponics aquarium kit is a charming and useful introduction to the concept!

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Currently Unavailable:

ECOLIFE Conservation ECO-Cycle Aquaponics Indoor Garden System with LED Light

Ecolife’s popular Eco-Cycle aquaponics kit is a simple, effective and very well crafted product that’s large enough to grow a whole lot of herbs or even vegetables effortlessly while still being fairly easy to place in any room. Unlike the options above it doesn’t come with its own fish tank as it’s designed as an add-on that fits the commonly used 12″ by 24″ aquariums.

It combines the good looks of the traditional 20 gallon aquariums with a 13 slot raft grow bed, allowing you to grow plants with ease and have a lot of small fish swimming around. It also has its own programmable LED lighting system to ensure that your plants grow adequately indoors and its focus on simplicity makes it extremely easy to use and a fantastic way to introduce people to the concept of aquaponics, sustainable farming and the rewards you get from them.

It’s sturdily built from top to bottom, comes with everything you need except the fish tank itself and it even includes a remote control for the lights and step-by-step instructions so you can assemble it quickly and properly.

All of this coupled with an attractive price tag makes the Eco-Cycle a great way to turn your aquarium into a fully functional aquaponics system and even if you don’t already have an aquarium, it’s worth it to buy one just to use it with this. Highly recommended for both personal use and educational use as well.

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Currently Unavailable:

Springworks Microfarm Aquaponic Garden

Springworks’ Microfarm is another add-on home aquaponics kit that turns any standard 10 gallon aquarium into a fully fledged aquaponics garden. Much like the one above, you simply install it on any suitable aquarium and can instantly start cultivating some beautiful plants.

It comes with a pre-built growing light and the grow bed is large enough to either fit several herbs or around 3 small vegetables. It uses the classic clay pebbles as media and the built-in pump will properly water the plants, which will in turn clean the water and send it back down to the aquarium.

Like any good aquaponics system kit, it’s outstandingly self sufficient so everything you need to do in order to maintain it is feed the fish (and you can even install an auto-feeder if you want). This is made easy due to the bed’s design which allows for simple opening and closing.

It’s straightforward, well-built, compact and works wonderfully well. It’s also very easy to set up and fairly priced too.

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Currently Unavailable:

EcoQubeC Aquarium – Desktop Betta Fish Tank For Living Office And Home Décor

The EcoQube mini aquaponics kit is different from the others as it focuses more on the fish instead of the plants. Its whole goal is to use the benefits of an aquaponics system to effectively and effortlessly clean and maintain the fish tank by having the plant clean the water. It’s super compact, very good looking and while it doesn’t have enough space to grow much of anything, it still allows you to have one little plant like an aromatic herb on top.

As mentioned above it’s very compact, measuring only 8″ x 8″ x 8″ (width x length x height), which makes it easy to place anywhere and a great little decoration piece for your room or office desk, for example. The tank holds around 1.5 gallons of water and it’s completely made of acrylic, making it crystal clear, durable and safe. There are 3 versions of this kit available, all of which you can choose on the page, that have different items included. The basic one has the tank, lights and remote, a pump, a mountain ornament, aquarium gravel and a glass cover while the other versions come with seeds included already, more ornaments and even an UV sterilizer.

It’s extremely easy to set-up and works very well, requiring only that you feed the fish for it to continue running perfectly. You should also age the water for around 2 to 3 weeks before using it as it gives enough time for beneficial bacteria to grow, making the little betta fish more comfortable in his new home. Finally, the EcoQube is fairly priced and a great little decor piece that has the awesome benefit of also providing you with the visuals, aromas and tasty rewards of growing your own plant.

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Aquaponics Kit Buying Guide

Now that you know which aquaponics kits are in my view the best, let’s take a look at how their unique types differentiate from one another. This will make it easy for you to know which type is the best for you, your space and your goals.

Home Aquaponics Kit

This type is mostly represented by the popular indoor aquaponics kits which while producing a solid amount of greens and fish, still remain fairly small sized and easy to place at home. Some are more focused on design and looks, since they’re going to be used at home and will be seen, while others focus more on being extremely compact solutions that can be placed anywhere, commonly in kitchens or desktops, while still producing a handy amount of herbs and spices.

A great example of a mini aquaponics kit is the Back To The Roots Mini Aquarium:

Back to the Roots Mini Aquaponic System

There’s yet another type of home aquaponics kit that differentiates from the ones above. Instead of having their own fish tanks, they use a pre-existing aquarium as theirs and simply add the other aquaponics components on top. Take a look at them below:


Aquaponics Fish Tank Kits

Aquaponics fish tank kits use pre-existing aquariums as their fish tanks instead of coming with a built-in one themselves. They focus on combining the visual beauty of aquariums with the outstanding rewards of aquaponics. They’re also usually referred to as an Add-on Aquarium Tank Kit and they easily fit on any standard size aquarium tank (usually in the 10 to 20 gallon range).

These Aquaponics aquarium kits are meant to be used indoors and as such often have built-in lights (or a support to install them) to mimic natural sunlight. They aim to deliver a pleasing, easy to use and very straightforward experience contained in a typically small aquaponics kit that can be placed pretty much anywhere.

While they don’t produce nearly as much vegetables, plants and fruit as the other type we’ll see below (fully fledged aquaponics system), they’re a popular choice due to how simple, versatile and affordable they are. This also makes them perfect aquaponics starter kits as they effortlessly introduce people to the concept.

Here is a fantastic example of the model that is, in my opinion, the best aquaponics fish tank kit you can get:

AquaSprouts Garden Aquaponics Aquarium Kit


Backyard Aquaponics Kits

The so called backyard aquaponics kits or full home aquaponics kits differ from the ones above in both design, size, capacity and price. This type focuses on the more classic and useful rewards of aquaponics – such as fresh, free produce and fish – and does so in a typically larger manner, with kits usually having much larger fish tank capacity and expansive grow beds.

These larger dimensions of both the grow bed and the fish tank gives them the power to grow a lot of plants (even more demanding ones such as large vegetables and fruits) while also hosting bigger, edible fish. These two qualities combined are what makes these aquaponics kits so enticing – they make it possible for you to regularly eat beautifully fresh produce and fish that are grown naturally by you. Not only is it economical and excellent for the environment but it’s also unbelievably delicious and healthy.

While they’re often more expensive than the other smaller, more portable type, they’re essential for anyone that wants to get serious production out of their home aquaponics kit. Plus, they quickly pay for themselves, especially if you sell your excess produce.

I had a great recommendation for this in the past, but it has since stopped being sold on Amazon and all over – the company halted production. I’ll keep an eye out for alternatives and let you know if I end up getting and reviewing one.

Finally, there are also other more specific types such as diy aquaponics kits and even aquaponics greenhouse kits but those are more used by either enthusiasts or professionals and due to their complexity, they’re a topic that we’ll cover in another article.


Conclusion

Ready to use right out of the box, easy to maintain, good looking, durable and incredibly effective, the units above can truly be considered to be – in my opinion – the best aquaponics kits for sale on the market and they’ll surely impress, as well as giving you a touch of aquaponics magic – all without much effort and in a highly entertaining way.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases so you’ll also be helping me to keep the lights on (at no cost to you). I hope you’ve found the right one for you and as always, thanks for reading!




3 comments

Kelsey December 14, 2021

This may seem like a dumb question but why can’t I just use my Aerogarden baskets and cut holes in an acrylic lid and plop my desired veggies and herbs through the holes so the roots touch the water?

John Wiese April 16, 2019

Beautiful choices Frank, I've been meaning to get one of these for ages and your in-depth reviewing finally tipped me over. Got the Eco-Cycle and it's fantastic, fits the aquarium like a glove and just a couple of weeks in I'm already seeing my little lettuce heads coming to life. Just had to come back to say thank you for the recommendation!

    Frank April 17, 2019

    Thanks for the kind words John, I'm very glad I could help. Great choice on the kit, the Eco-Cycle is one of my favorites and lettuce is a wonderful plant to start with. Thanks again for stopping by and have a great one!




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