Throughout our journey, we experimented with various herbs and vegetables, most of which grew successfully. However, we encountered an unexpected cultural challenge: whenever we introduced an unfamiliar plant to the garden, like broccoli, people simply wouldn’t eat it. To bridge this gap, we decided to start with my family, hoping that neighbors and guests would learn about it when they come to visit.

We brought the experiment indoors, building a plant shelf in my house. Our goal was to see which plants could thrive indoors, safe from harsh outdoor conditions. We tested kale, lettuce, mint, tomatoes, and other herbs. While some thrived and others didn’t, the most fascinating outcome was the shift in proximity. By sharing our daily living space with these plants, My family will become more familiar with any new plants.

Eager to take this indoor experiment to the next level, we decided to create a miniature living system inside the house. We wanted to maximize our water efficiency and transform our walls into an educational, observational space. Using discarded wood, we built a shelf to hold both plants and books. On top sits a 50-liter aquarium housing tilapia—a fish we knew could thrive in this environment. In fact, the fish even survived when temperatures hit 52 degrees Celsius. though we may try other aquatic life in the future.

The fish are fed a mixture of canned tuna, wheat flour, and cooking oil. The exact feeding strategy depends on your purpose for the fish—whether you are raising them for food or primarily to produce waste for fertilizing plants. In this experiment, a single batch of this mixture, made from one can of tuna, about half a kilo of wheat flour, and twenty ml of cooking oil  fed three fish for over twenty days.

Inside the aquarium, a solar-powered water pump pushes water into a small container filled with gravel, charcoal, and growing aloe vera. As the water circulates, it carries fish waste through these materials, each acting as a filter in a different way. For example, larger waste particles are trapped by the gravel, while microscopic impurities are caught inside the charcoal’s tiny pores. Meanwhile, beneficial bacteria living on the wet gravel convert toxic ammonia from the waste into nitrates—a form that is safe for the fish and easily absorbed by the plant roots. We also added a floating piece of polyester to grow mint directly on the water’s surface, hoping it will prevent water evaporation and further help clean the water.

If this system works well, we’ll eventually enjoy fresh herbs and fish. But more importantly, it will give us a chance to witness how nature works—watching plants, animals, and bacteria collaborate to create a living ecosystem.

We created this system to bring our community closer to nature, allowing them to observe, interact with, and learn from it. But this experiment has sparked profound questions for us: What will our houses look like in the future? Is it wise to leave our walls empty? or to fill them with objects purely for aesthetics? Or is it better to cultivate micro-living systems within our homes—systems that boost our health, provide daily joy, and offer tangible benefits?