When Jill Chen wants fish for dinner, she walks down to her basement aquarium.

Net in hand, she approaches a 100-gallon tank — about the size of a coffee table — filled with pink-bellied tilapia. Above the fish hangs a trough filled with kale, herbs and swiss chard, which feed off the tank’s nutrient-rich water and bright fluorescent bulbs.

Chen scoops up a fish, carries it upstairs to the kitchen sink and swiftly ends its wriggling it with a wooden rolling pin. After a quick steam and a ginger garnish — voila! Dinner is served.

It may be unconventional, but urban farmers like Chen have embraced the basement tank-and-trough system, known as aquaponics. The system is a combination of aquaculture, or fish farming, and hydroponics, a soil-free greenhouse method of growing plants.