Using Fish Tank Water

Do you guys think this would work for a hydro/aero system? With all the nitrites and nitrates in it, it seems like it would be beneficial (especially adding on more nutes) and its always made a difference with my house plants (in dirt), but I'm worried about the bacteria being bad for the plants, making little nasties on the roots. What do you guys think?

its a no. you dont want light gettin to ur roots let alone a fish eating them

marksk85 said:

its a no. you dont want light gettin to ur roots let alone a fish eating them

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Im pretty sure he meant taking the water out of the fish tank and putting it in his grow setup. Not actually using the fish tank.

I use my fish tank water...but I grow in soil.

My veggies have always seemed to love it, but of course they're in soil.

marksk85 said:

its a no. you dont want light gettin to ur roots let alone a fish eating them

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that made me laugh, let alone fish eating them. Even if he did use a fish tank which possible i dont think he'd leave fish in there lol

I think you need bacteria to turn the ammonia into nitrates...too much raw fish poop will hurt your plants. That's how aquaponics works.

This is something Ive never considered or heard of..

I grow in soil.. and I have a big aquarium.. Can someone shed some light?

ohh haha well i have a small pond for my duck and i use thatto water my outdoor plants

My houseplants always loved fish tank water in soil, you can see the difference. Yes, bacteria would be needed to convert the ammonia into nitrites, and then further down into nitrates but bacteria generations cycle every 8 hours, and on top of that I would just not feed my fish 2 days before I took the water out of the tank to put in my res so ammonia levels would be at their lowest while nitrite and nitrate would be higher. Oh and if I were to grow in my fish tank (with the fish in there) the fish wouldnt eat the roots but the nutes would certainly kill them within a day, although the practicality of using a glass res is kind of counterproductive when it would come to cleaning, and as you said, light.

So just to be clear, I'm talking about taking water out of my 30 gal fish tank, putting it in my 10 gallon res and then adding foxfarms nutes to it, I'm just concerned about the bacteria causing root rot or something.

Ive got a 40 gallon right now with one fish..he's a meat eater, but he only gets fed every 3 or 4 days.

What kind of meat eater? As long as he digests his food all the way and you give it a day or 2 to break down completely then it should be fine to feed to dirt. I always take it from the top anyway (since sediments sink).

He's a Cichlasoma Grammodes.. A Central American piscivore..

look at this lol flush and flow

Okay I said screw reading the details. Simply. Yes. But you would have to have the PH buffered etc. Example: Say you have a tank with aragonite in the bottom. It buffers water PH to around 8.0. Plants like around 6.5 (middle of the zone there) So you would have to either buffer the PH or do it the way aquaponics does it. They use fish like bass and cat that you would find in a lake because the PH ranges they can survive in are so broad. So unless you consider having a fish tank dumping in $2000 for a large mouth then its not going to be simple.

A good friend of mine has a goldfish pond in his backyard & pumps out what he needs every watering.His girls are going crazy & seem to have exploded from this fishy poo water.I'd say from what I have witnessed,it works like a charm.He does PH it though.

Right now in my 30gal and 18gal tanks I have 10 Tilapia in each. Their water is usually around the same as my tap which is about 8. I'm not worried about the buffering, as I do this EVERY SINGLE TIME I do a water change anyway (don't we all)? What I'm asking about is the bacteria and if it will affect the roots of the plants. FollyFool, does your friend use Hydro or Soil? And what nutes does he or she use?

imagine that though. underwater weed plants with fishies swimming all around and eating bud. hahahaha

I would think that you would need a poorly managed aquarium for it to be beneficial on any significant level. I believe the principal of aquaponics is to have the plants act as a bio filter. If you just wanted to use the water as a base to start with, the only thing that I could see as a concern, maybe the algae.

This isn't something I have direct experience with other than dumping aquarium water in the garden, but I think adding anything you don't know the complete composition of, into a hydro system is asking for trouble.