# Using drained water of EI method fertilized planted tank for vegetables irrigation



## Flukeworld (9 Feb 2021)

Hello,
I was wondering if its a good idea to use the excess water of the EI fertilized planted tank for vegetable garden irrigation, or it could have too much fertilizers in it and the vegetables would be harmful for humans. I hate to waste resources and purring enormous amounts of fertilized water down the drain each week is a bit panful. I was thinking - why not making a small garden on my balcony. The pandemic keeps me at home almost all of the time - I would enjoy having more living things to carry for. And I love "home grown stuff".
Anyone with expertise to advice - would the vegetables be safe to eat? If the fish lives in that water, then may be we are not putting so much elements to harm a human. For example as far as I know the fish is more sensible on nitrates than humans.. So I am looking for some expert opinion.

I apologies if the topic is not for this section.


----------



## John q (9 Feb 2021)

There's a bit of discussion here about the subject Watering garden vegetables with old tank water...

I also use it to occasionally water orchids and they seem to thrive on it.
Regards nasties harming humans~ My father used to urinate on his rhubarb and it grew like... Rhubarb... Seriously it grew so quickly and tasted fantastic and to the best of my knowledge it did me no harm.

Cheers.


----------



## Flukeworld (9 Feb 2021)

I am not sure how much nutrients, trace elements and Fe has the human urine, but may be your father was "Estimating the Index" 

Anyway, I also water the flowers at home with the excess water on Sundays. I even have Spearmint plant on my balcony which thrives on my aquarium water. Here I more likely ask for vegetables which absorb a lot of what's in the dirt, like carrots, cucumber, tomato, pepper, I don't know what other vegetable idea could hit my head. But I am planning this. I could just mix tap to aquarium water with some proportion, but I believe all of that nutrient energy we purr could be utilized in a cool exciting way.


----------



## Flukeworld (9 Feb 2021)

John q said:


> here about the subject Watering garden vegetables with old tank water...


Thank you for the link, it was useful. Seems may be I am on the right path.


----------



## John q (9 Feb 2021)

No worries.

Going off topic but around 5% of urine is supposedly made up of N(urea)PK calcium, magnesium and other plant helpful nutrients.


----------



## Simon Cole (9 Feb 2021)

The types of salts we typically use for planted tanks are unlikely to cause problems in most terrestrial "brow earth" soils. Fertigation is a huge topic. I have read for months if not years on the subject, but I never worried about adding tank water to the veggies. You could say the same thing about choosing soils and composts, and my view is that much more knowledge is to come as people utilise green waste compost for growing, notably on the carcinogenic contents.


----------



## Karmicnull (10 Feb 2021)

My partner is a gardener and after I gave her a chemical analysis of the tank water she started getting really ratty if I discard any of it rather than keeping it for her to use when watering.  Apparently it's good for leaf growth.


----------



## Simon Cole (10 Feb 2021)

Karmicnull said:


> Apparently it's good for leaf growth.


On a side note, there are also special concentrations and application techniques for foliar feeding in terrestrial fertigation. When I get back to my house in about a month, PM me and I'll dig out my experimental results. Foliar applications are very under-researched in my opinion. But I would be reluctant to ditch the water too.


----------



## rebel (10 Feb 2021)

One word answer.

Hells YEAH!

I chuck it all on my lawn but in reality I'd love to collect it and irrigate it out to my rest of the garden.


----------



## ian_m (10 Feb 2021)

I empty 90litres odd onto my front lawn each water change. The grass is definitely a lot greener where the waste water hose reaches and grows taller than the rest of the grass. Being doing this for years, front lawn is still there, just need a longer hose so I can reach the rest of the lawn...


----------



## zozo (10 Feb 2021)

There is no difference in the elements used to make fertilizer, other than in aquariums we rather do not use urea and ammonia-based nitrogen products. For the rest, it's about identical. In aquariums, we also dose in much leaner concentrations than recommended for fertilizing terrestrial plants.

Thus absolute no problem to use old tank water, depending on the soil it could be you need to fertilize the garden or pots additionally a bit extra on top.


----------



## zozo (10 Feb 2021)

John q said:


> No worries.
> 
> Going off topic but around 5% of urine is supposedly made up of N(urea)PK calcium, magnesium and other plant helpful nutrients.


 Could be that since we keep cattle in stables we started scraping the crystallized cattle pis (Urea) off the walls to use it again on the crop fields is ancient practise and likely the mother of dry salt fertilization.


----------



## Flukeworld (10 Feb 2021)

Thank you all for the answers! 
Hopefully next month I would start the realisation of the  "balcony garden" idea. I will post pictures.


----------

