herbology

[nosnitram]

my wife and I are planning on going a little into herbology, this is because out here herbs are a little expensive and extracts are even more expensive and you don't exactly know what is added to it when you buy it from the store, does anyone here grow their own herbs for their uses? we plan on converting an old 10 gallon aquarium that we have kicking around which gives us a area of 10 inches by 20 inches (approx 171 plants) we are planning on using the aquarium as the entire "herb garden" as it gives us an area to place the put the substrate and it has a lighting system which should be more then sufficient for plant growth in that area... if anyone has any experience in this we would like to hear some suggestions on what herbs are most used, easiest to grow, good starter herbs to grow, trimming techniques, life span etc. etc.

[nosnitram]

my wife and I still havent setup the tank as a herb garden, some of the fish ended up having a couple litters of fry so we have had to push off the herb garden for now, unfortunatly with winter comming we arent sure where we can get the seeds for it, but anyways, since then we have decided to down size our aquarium amount (3 tanks, 10, 29, and 75 gallon) we just cleared out our 29 gallon tank today and have decided to use that one as a herb garden instead of the 10 gallon, now instead of having a footprint of 20"x10" the footprint will be 30"x12" that will give quite a bit more space, we plan to use approx 2" aquarium gravel that is rich in nitrates and 5" potting soil, it will be a bit of a project but i like projects :) i will list the order of the project that we plan to use

1) remove fish from tank - done
2) remove ornaments from tank - done
3) run filter for a couple days to clear ammonia and nitrites (not nitrates) - in process
4) remove snails - in process (may take 1 month to complete)
5) clean fish waste and debris from gravel - in process
6) give the gravel a salt bath to kill any living organisims in the gravel - in queue
7) purchase desirable herb seeds - in queue
8) purchase potting soil - in queue
9) build watering system to automate watering (will recirculate water from the bottom of the tank) - in queue
10) test water system to confirm functionality - in queue
11) plant seeds - in queue

I am not sure if i missed any steps in it or not, but if i find any missing ones i will append them to the list, when i get some time i will take some pictures of it at various stages and post them, if you have any questions about any of the stages feel free to ask, i should be able to explain them further more in detail.