Aquaponic combines Aquaculture (fish growing) with Hydroponics (plant cultivation in water). Fish excrete is broken down by bacteria to Nitrate which are absorbed by plants as nutrients, and plant roots act as a filter to clean the water for the fish. The water is circulating from fish tank to plant growing beads and back to fish tank. This is almost a closed circuit, you feed the fish and fish feed the plants and both feed you. This type of plant cultivation can be used anywhere (deserts, rooftops, houses...) and actually saves water as the same water is constantly recirculating (you just have to top up the tank when water evaporates), compared to traditional soil plant cultivation that needs to be watered constantly and most of the water is lost in soil. Also if all conditions are meet plants grow much faster then in soil because they don't have to develop extensive roots, nutrients are brought directly to them.
Controller is made to be plug and play, you just plug in regular aquarium water pump, lights, air pump and fan to the controller box and attach the sensors. Controller box can be hidden somewhere as everything can be viewed and controlled in the webpage on the local area network. WebApp displays the sensor data and enable users to change system settings, sensor data is refreshed using websockets (Node.js) so it has a good response to system changes.