A Rosebud from the Guppies

A Rosebud, a Few Guppies, and a Quiet Little Ecosystem

Something small but quietly miraculous is happening in my basement apartment.

Okay, maybe the hand of God didn’t reach down and -well- do anything, but a rosebud appeared! That miniature rose plant is not in soil. There’s no potting mix, no fertilizer pellets, no bottled nutrients, no chemical additives of any kind. What it’s growing in is an inert, drain-and-flood gravel bed that’s part of a tiny aquaponics system.

Here’s how it works.

Water from my fish tank is pumped into a gravel bed where the plant’s roots live. The bed fills, then drains back into the tank. Over and over. No soil involved. Just gravel, water, and biology doing what it’s been doing for millions of years.

The only “inputs” are:

• Tap water. I let it sit 48 hours so the chlorine has time to evaporate. Otherwise, the fish would be killed. That would be bad.
• A small daily feeding of the guppies. The guppies use the pronoun they/them. They are many.

That’s it.

The guppies do what guppies do. Their waste becomes nutrients for beneficial bacteria that have grown on the gravel in the bed. The bacteria convert that waste into forms the plant can use. The plant absorbs those nutrients, growing leaves and now, somehow, a rosebud. In return, the plant helps clean the water before it cycles back to the fish.

A closed loop. Fish feed plant. Plant cleans water. Everyone lives and my apartment has a tiny slice of nature in it.

This particular rose started as a rescue. It was almost dead when I got it, cut back hard, roots washed clean of soil, and split into multiple plants. One didn’t make it. Three survived. And now one of them has decided to bloom.

All of this is happening indoors, in a basement apartment, under a grow light.

I feed the guppies once a day. I top up the water as it evaporates. That’s the full maintenance routine.

And now I apparently have a rose to thank the guppies for. 😍

There’s something deeply grounding about watching a tiny ecosystem find its balance. No force. No optimization. Just patience and observation. It’s a reminder that when systems are designed to cooperate rather than dominate, growth happens quietly… and sometimes beautifully.