# Hydroponics Using Fish Tank Water. Possible?



## newtripoli (Aug 8, 2009)

Just want to throw this out here and see what you guys think. I know there has to be experts on here that use fish tank water to grow plants. My dream, when I get my own house, is to have my piranha tank water totally feed a hydroponic station growing plants (of any type, vegetables or flowers).

Is this possible? Meaning, have a total circulation of:

fish tank => hydroponic plant tubing => canister filter => fish tank

Without adding any additional chemicals? Or would the hydro plants require more nutrients than fish tank water can provide? My theory is that, this will also filter out ALL nitrate! With experimentation, you could get your bio-load to equal the number of plants you have in hydro and have a perfect balance of like 5ppm nitrate.

Any input?


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

I think its a fine idea as long as you never medicate the tank with anything if it would be for growing plants for human consumtion. Ive seen people use natural plant filtration in both fresh and sw so it does work the only thing you have to be sure of is that any plants you may eat are not contaminated with any meds or something


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## newtripoli (Aug 8, 2009)

thank you so much cluster! I was also told by bullfish, that you still need to do water changes every now and then to keep mineral levels down.

I just didn't know if plants needed other nutrients that fish tank water alone could not supply. I did not want to add any ferts. I do understand that different plants and vegetables require different needs. I will do trial and error and see which plants do best! I know tomatoes wont do too well, only because they like really acidic water.


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

newtripoli said:


> thank you so much cluster! I was also told by bullfish, that you still need to do water changes every now and then to keep mineral levels down.
> 
> I just didn't know if plants needed other nutrients that fish tank water alone could not supply. I did not want to add any ferts. I do understand that different plants and vegetables require different needs. I will do trial and error and see which plants do best! I know tomatoes wont do too well, only because they like really acidic water.


Any plants that normally grow liek this im sure will gorw fine as long as they are getting good enough light but they probably won't have optimal gorwth like if you were adding ferts or something.

Im sure there are plants that could survive (like you said you must find plants who can live in these conditions) but I as long as you keep the tank natural with no chemicals (I wouldnt do chemical filtration) I think the plants would be fine for consumption

Your talking about growing plants for you to eat or just to grow plants and not eat, If your goign to eat it just keep everything natural


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## newtripoli (Aug 8, 2009)

CLUSTER ONE said:


> thank you so much cluster! I was also told by bullfish, that you still need to do water changes every now and then to keep mineral levels down.
> 
> I just didn't know if plants needed other nutrients that fish tank water alone could not supply. I did not want to add any ferts. I do understand that different plants and vegetables require different needs. I will do trial and error and see which plants do best! I know tomatoes wont do too well, only because they like really acidic water.


Any plants that normally grow liek this im sure will gorw fine as long as they are getting good enough light but they probably won't have optimal gorwth like if you were adding ferts or something.

Im sure there are plants that could survive (like you said you must find plants who can live in these conditions) but I as long as you keep the tank natural with no chemicals (I wouldnt do chemical filtration) I think the plants would be fine for consumption

Your talking about growing plants for you to eat or just to grow plants and not eat, If your goign to eat it just keep everything natural
[/quote]

Yes to eat, I don't add meds to my main tank anyway. Only salt. Anything else goes into a hospital tank, 10gal.


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