How I Turned My Balcony into a Farm (and Why I’m Writing About It Now)

Image Credit: Collines Omondi/Pexels

It was one fine (?) morning, and I was standing in ankle-deep water on my own balcony, staring at a siphon that stopped siphoning when I was sleeping. This was not how I pictured “growing my own food.”

That flood happened about three years into a hobby that started with four catfish and a plastic tank, and it’s still, somehow, one of my favorite memories from this whole ridiculous, rewarding experiment.

I’m Rehana. By day, I’m a content writer in Dhaka, Bangladesh. On weekends, I’m what my friends call “the balcony farmer” because over the last three years, my flat’s balcony has quietly turned into a small, functioning ecosystem of fish tanks and grow beds. Spinach, lettuce, herbs. All of it grown on nothing but fish waste and water, and a stubborn refusal to give up after things went wrong.

Which, for the record, they did. Often.

It Didn’t Start as a Hobby

If I’m honest, there wasn’t one clean, inspiring reason I got into this. It was a mix of things. I wanted to know what was actually going into my food instead of hoping for the best at the market. I liked the idea of doing something small and sustainable in a big, busy city. And I saw a video of a backyard aquaponics setup online and thought, “I need that in my life.”

So I bought a tank, a pump, and those four catfish, and jumped in with zero experience and way too much confidence.

Most of that first batch didn’t survive the month. Turns out I’d kept the tank so “clean” that I’d starved the very bacteria the system needed to function. Then came The Great Flood. My flatmate still brings it up. So do my friends, who now greet me with “any floods this week?”

But there were wins too, and they were disproportionately huge ones. The first time I harvested my own spinach, I photographed it like I’d won an award and sent it to five different group chats. It was maybe 200 grams of leaves, slightly bug-eaten, nothing you’d see in a grocery store. But I’d grown it with nothing but fish waste, water, and sunlight on a balcony in the middle of Dhaka. That felt like something worth celebrating.

Three years, two rebuilt systems, and more dead plants than I’d like to admit later, I’m still learning. But I’ve learned enough to keep things alive, and enough to explain it to someone else without making it sound like rocket science.

The Problem I Kept Running Into

While I was figuring all this out, I spent countless nights on Google and YouTube, hitting the same wall over and over.

Most of the solid content was written for people who owned a backyard, had unlimited water, and never dealt with power cuts. Nobody seemed to be writing for someone renting a flat, sharing a water line with the building, trying to fit an entire tiny ecosystem onto one modest balcony without upsetting the landlord.

And what little I found elsewhere was either painfully thin, like two vague paragraphs, or clearly written by someone who’d never actually gotten their hands wet.

Three years later, that gap still hasn’t really closed.

So I’m Closing It Myself

The guide I couldn’t find, I’m writing myself.

Today, I’m officially launching aquaponicshome.com — a resource for people trying to grow food and raise fish in small, real-life urban spaces. Built by someone still figuring it out in real time.

The one rule: if I haven’t tried it myself, I won’t write about it. Every guide comes with real costs, honest notes on what worked, and what didn’t. Because knowing that saves you time and money too.

Here’s what you’ll find:

• The basics of how aquaponics actually works
• Guidance on choosing fish and plants that get along
• Practical setup and build guides for small spaces
• Honest troubleshooting for when things inevitably go sideways

New guides drop weekly. All free.

If You’ve Ever Thought About Setting Up Your First Tank

This site is for you.

I’m not promising this will be easy. I’m promising it’ll be honest. You’ll make mistakes, I still do, but you won’t make them alone, and you won’t make them blind.

Subscribe for free to catch every new guide. Drop your questions in the comments — I read and answer every single one.

Let’s grow something together. Fish, vegetables, and a little patience with ourselves along the way. And if you know someone who’s been curious about this but thinks they don’t have space, send this to them. The more of us trying this in cities, in small spaces, in imperfect conditions, the more we all learn.

— Rehana Akter Founder, aquaponicshome.com

P.S. If this resonated, clap it up and consider following for when I publish more here.