In 2009, Ilima met Dr. Clyde Tamaru and Dr. Kai Fox from Windward Community College who were working on aquaponics technology. She collaborated with them to bring aquaponics into Waimānalo and began running workshops to teach families how to build and maintain backyard aquaponics systems. She also taught the families how to cook the plants and fish grown in the systems as well as to make lāʻau with the herbs. Since then, she assisted over 200 Native Hawaiian families with building backyard aquaponics systems to increase their access to fresh fruits, vegetables, and fish.
Dr. Jane Chung-Do and Dr. Phoebe Hwang, who have been working with Ilima since they were public health graduate students, supported these aquaponics efforts in Waimānalo by conducting surveys, interviews, and focus groups with the participating families to document the benefits of this initiative. They found that aquaponics resonates with participants because it resembles the ahupua‘a, a system that ancient Native Hawaiians developed to sustainably grow plants and fish, which ran from the mountain to the sea.