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Another perk is the connection it can have with children. It can teach them the importance of fresh food as well as taking care of the fish—feeding the fish is just about the only real responsibility here. "Our goal was to center around the idea of beauty through simplicity and ease of use. To make a system so intuitive even kids could understand it right away," Arora says.

Designing the tank brought about a few extra challenges, Arora says. "We explored various shapes—eventually landing on a pot shape icon to represent the innovation here. The geometry is more cubic than cylindrical, the most efficient use of space." The net pods on top can handle just about any small, leafy herb or spice—even flowers. Placed near a window with direct sunlight year-round, the plants can take care of themselves without the tank becoming too hot since the pods on top shelter it.

Ease of use is a driving force behind the design: not only do you not have to clean the tank, the only needed fertilizer comes directly from the fish's waste and the only water is pumped from the tank—everything about it is self-regulated. The tank comes in at roughly 10" wide, by 11" high, by 6" deep—smaller than your average toaster oven.

The final product is small enough to sit on a kitchen counter without being an obstacle. At three gallons, the tank is ideal for one three-inch-long fish or a few smaller one-inch fish. The founders recommend goldfish, betas, and other easy to care for species.

"We went into this with no preconceptions of shape, size, or materials," Nikhil says. "We had just fallen in love with this concept of aquaponics at the largest scale—visiting big commercial farms—and had this passion for making that amazing technology and science accessible to more people."

Aside from being a great example of recycling materials, the design of the Aquaponics kit is remarkable. If funded, the plan is to make the final product out of a combination of plastic, acrylic, and glass. Arora and Velez worked with a designer to come up with the form, function, and shape of the tank, ultimately finishing with a compact design.

Five "net pods" float above the tank in a small pool of water. Fish create waste that the tank then siphons up into the planters to provide fertilizer. A classic form of "upcycling," this means you don't have to clean the fish tank.

Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez left their jobs in favor of starting a project to help people grow their own food. After successfully launching their mushroom kit for a scant $5,000, Arora and Velez hope to continue to get more people to grow their own herbs and spices—this time with a fully sustainable fish tank. Arora and Velez posted their project on Kickstarter with the goal to raise $100,000 to fund manufacturing.

Here's another display of the colorful water pipes, this time in Douglas County, Georgia. The extensive network of pipes winds its way throughout the centers in a choreographed chaos. In the foreground: the "G-Bike," which workers use to move around the enormous centers.

Like a scene out of Tron, this is a rare look between the server racks. The multitude of tiny fans on the rear end of the servers channels heat into a cooling recirculation system.

To keep their loyal users and their information safe and sound, it's Google's policy to round up old drives and destroy them on-site. Thousands of gigabytes can pile up, like a microscopic metropolis.

Not all of the interesting things happen inside of the data centers, though. The economical use of water for cooling creates a soothing mountain mist when release through the steam pipes on top of the center in The Dalles, Oregon.

Each server is outfitted with a very bright, very environmentally friendly LED light that will last much longer than a CFL bulb. The shifting color spectrums are a signal to anyone walking between them about what each server's status is. It's reminiscent of a system you might see in NORAD.

Again, organization is king. It's easy to let a mess of wires distract from the overall function of the server. But these miles of cable are bundled together neatly to monitor the controls for the cooling system at the Berkeley County, South Carolina, Center.

The Mayes County, Oklahoma, center displays the uniformity that Google has come to symbolize. By connecting the same color wire to the same switch on each server rack, there's no confusion in case something goes wrong. For an organized soul, the sorted bliss these Ethernet cables provide is second to none.

We've all fawned over the comfortable accouterments of the Google headquarters before. Even the data centers are upscale. At Hamina, this bare conference table with a slatted-wood ceiling sits near the employee sauna area.

Google keeps things color coordinated better than anyone. Reminiscent of their colorful search logo, these pipes help keep the Hamina run on 100-percent unprocessed water from the Gulf. Instead of worrying about the cleanliness for drinking, Google figured it'd be easier to adapt to the resources around them.

Here in the cooling plant, the frigid waters from the nearby Gulf of Finland enter the cooling ecosystem of the data center. Seawater is the main resource for keeping the plant cool rather than other means. The methodical arrangement provides an organized flow and a pretty appearance.

At the Hamina, Finland, Google center, sprawling rows of servers line the floor of what was formerly a paper mill. The open space allowed for dozens of rows of servers.