Leafwatcher and I use our change water from our fish tanks to water our plants and our hostas love it when they get it. Fish emulsion should be great too.

I have just finished a major clean up in a tank that resulted in 2 1/2 gal. of really nitrogen rich water with deitrium siphoned from the aquarium sand. I am going to dump it on top of the fresh grass clippings my neighbor added to my compost bin. It should "seed" the fresh addition nicely.

Les

Well, I have fish emulsion too, which DH uses on his veggie garden. So far not used on the hosta.

But I like the idea of the odor wafting to our neighbor downwind. Might keep him off his roof and stop his peeping over our fence!

I do not have fish emulsion, but a little preformed pond with 7 large goldfish. I do what Les does with his aquarium. I dip a watering can into that greenish water and water my plants with it, know that I fed the fish and they converted it to nutrients I then can use to feed the plants with. After taking out around 20 cans of water (each 2 or 3 gallons) I fill the pond back up with a watering hose, and the fish like that. Bernd

I water my hosta and other plants with aquarium "change water" too. Been using it for years on our flowers and shrubs. My routine water changes are done on 3 aquariums every 10-14 days. With 1/2" tubing, the used fish water is drained right out the door. I run it on my hosta bed and into water cans to tote to different plants around the yard. I think that fish water is what kept things alive this last Summer.

Deb

I've used it, and think it's hilarious watching people walking their dogs by my house going from a perfect heel position to practically pulling their owners into my yard by the leash! It seems that long after the smell disapates to humans, dog noses can still smell it!

That's the nice thing about aquarium fish water, it doesn't smell and it's not green. It does have nitrates and that's why water changes are done.

I've often wondered if (store bought) fish emulsion would draw up wild animals, like raccoon, etc. Don't need any more of those type of critters snoopin' around.

Deb

They say fish emulsion will attract raccoons and other animals.

Millorganite lawn fertilizer made from processed and sanitized sewage repels deer and rabbits. However my neighbors had a Bichon Frese that used to love to roll in it...especially just after visiting the dog groomers.

Jon

Oh brother! Why do dogs like to roll in stuff like that?

Deb

Started out with fish tank water early this spring, and haven't followed thru as well as I should have!

I did manage to keep my plants alive though, and I should go splash them with some of that before the season is over.. I have a BIG tank, so if I was to do a 50 percent water change, I would have 120 gallons of FISH WATER ;)and a broken back from carrying it up the stairs and around the house !
Maybe an irrigation setup to pump water out of the tank, and out thru tubing to the plants next year ?.. heaven knows I have the tubing laying around my Moms..

LOL: I don't have that big a tank but I do total with all my tanks over 50 gallons a week in change water. When I lived in Arkansas I had a black Pacu I had turned loose in my Water Lily pond. In the fall I didn't have a big enough net to scoop it out. When it finally met its fate I buried it under a foot of dirt and never had to fertilize what was planted over it for several years. I always buried my waste from cleaning the catfish I caught and never had it dug up by critters. Maybe TJ, my dog had a say in that. She would take on a whole pack of coyotes that intruded into our property. A deer would risk eating my hostas with its life at stake. TJ was a great dog. "Old Blue" and TJ would have run neck to neck.

When I fish for salmon with my son out of Manitowoc WI we clean the fish at the dock, where there is a cleaning station with a grinder and a tank that collects the ground skin, bones, etc. Once a week farmers buy the ground waste which is used to fertilize their fields and slop their hogs. I was told nothing is better for slopping hogs.

All I know is that any fish waste, whether it be water from aquariums or remains is great fertilizer.

Les

I think I remember that the American Indians would dig a hole, put in a fish, then plant corn (maize?) over it?

Deb

Deb-the spirituality of the Native Americans normally treated everything as a spirit, and often the way they relate to each other is based on what we busy people simply call Mother Nature. The practice of placing a fish in the ground before a crop might have begun as a way for the spirit of the fish to live again in the crop, which of course is best supported when the crop flourished.

Sometimes I think we as Americans have to pay more attention to the way our Native Americans cared for our land. By the way, the spirits were not just in living things as we know it. They considered the earth as a living spirit.

We thought we knew better but now as hostaholics we realize the dirt we plant our hostas in is best treated as a living organism, being far from sterile. LOL

Les

I definitely agree Les, Mother Nature and Mother Earth, both, should be duel-y respected. They can be both amazing and terrifying in the same instant.

Mothers are like that sometimes. ;-D

Deb

Wow from ground up liguid fish parts we got this!I try to use as much organics as possible.It does help with run off and such.My run off would be in the erie canal which is down the road.But its hard to convince people that chemical ferts do hurt the enviroment.

MM, wow you live down the road from the Erie Canal? Talk about living with history--in Europe it is there for them every day, but here we must go looking for signs of it.

Actually, we wanted to take one of those packet boats thru the Erie Canal, like small floating motor homes I guess, never saw one to say, but so far have not. That and the cross-continent 30 day pass on the Amtrak, big dream vacation. If we make it, I'll holler for you when we reach the Canal!

But oh yeah, I see it in our river here, so much "bloom" of the algae, and then big fish kills because so many nutrients cause excessive algae, using up the oxygen, and then it is awful. We have up Watershed signs at any point where a canal or creek or bridge crosses beneath a roadway, to make folks aware of how they affect the waters which eventually go down to the sea where they love to play on the beaches or boat. Some of the worst pollution is, besides fertilizers and pesticides, cigarette trash would you believe? Off the parking lots where folks dump their ashtrays. Every cigarette filter is as persistent in the environment as other forms of plastic, and they cause the deaths of many marine creatures.

Ummmm, well, thanks for mentioning the Erie Canal. Take my little soapbox and walk on home. :)

mmarnold,

You are correct that run off of fertilizers is a problem. However, it doesn't matter whether that run off is from synthentic ferts or organic ferts it's still a problem.

This from professor Linda Chalker Scott of Washington State University:
Any overapplication of chemicals, whether from synthetic or natural sources, is potentially harmful to terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. To assume that "natural" means "safe" is erroneous and environmentally irresponsible.

Fish emulsion is a good choice because it at 5-2-2 it is mostly nitrogen, which gets used up more quickly than phosphorus or potash. BTW, it doesn't matter whether you apply it to the soil or to the foliage. The benefits are the same with either type of application.

Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: The Myth of Compost Tea Revisited

i always figured emulsion meant liquified parts of fish ... bone.. innards.. etc ...

not what comes out the poop chute ..

thats not emulsion.. thats 'nure .. lol ..

whats that all about ...

ken

Never used emulsion, but I do have a 450-gallon koi/goldfish pond in the backyard; I've read the water is somewhat nutrient-rich and I use that water all the time for my plants.

Don B.

However my neighbors had a Bichon Frese that used to love to roll in it...especially just after visiting the dog groomers.

That reminds me of the days my wife worked at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans here in Vancouver. One of the biologists on staff was always bothered in the spring by the neighbourhood dogs and no amount of talking to the neighbours seemed to get the desired result of keeping of keeping the canines in their own yards. Every spring he'd collect a couple of buckets of fish heads from one of the local salmon hatcheries and spread them in a few patches on his yard. The neighbourhood canines loved nothing better than to roll around in smelly fish heads and as soon as the dogs got home they were washed and kept around their own yard for a while. Once the canine issue had been resolved the heads were dug into the veggie beds...

Pieter

Pietertje, that is a great story....reminds me of the Maxine cartoon,

DON'T GO TO BED ANGRY, STAY UP AND PLOT YOUR REVENGE.

ken - I've never figured if fish pee as well as poop, but I suspect they do. We just don't see it with them living in a liquid environment. I know that I frequently test my aquariums for nitrates,nitrites and ammonia which can build up to toxic levels if water is not changed or the biofilter is damaged. (thats good bacteria consuming the waste). The value of both body parts of fish and their poop are realized after the bacterial process is complete, so the digested fish ditritus could also be considered an emulsion. It differs from pet waste in that it contains virtually no fat. Most fish food is made of vegetable matter such as soy products, kelp, algaes, etc., or small shrimp like crustaceans like krill, brine shrimp, etc.

Regardless, aquarium water is high in nitrogen in some form and does well used on plants. Fish flesh, like is ours is high in water content. When it breaks down you get emulsion, which is also high in nitrogen. So it works similarly to change water from aquariums.

Particularly when I am attempting to breed a species of cichlid I may change water 10-20% each day. People normally don't realize that even the best maintained aquarium contains polluted water (sic. high in nitrogen waste products). It can be a trigger to potential spawners that says "there are too many fish already" and they won't spawn. Frequent large quanties of water changes, and quickly loweriing and then raising temperature (which assimilates spring rain purging polluted water)will cause fish to spawn.

So there is a benefit of using aquarium change water on plants even if large volume water changes are being made in the aquaria. With the drought conditions this year its a good way to take care of two things at once.

Les

oh.. dont get me wrong ... i would also use the aquarium water .. i dont see any downside to it.. and it has to be better than tap water ... lets call it organically fortified ... lol ...

i was just debating.. humorously .. hopefully.. the term 'emulsion' ...

and let me know if you figure out how to capture fish urea.. lol ..

i have been reading some history novels on rome .. we probably dont want to discuss what they did with harvested latrine water ... well.. i will tell you ... its ammonia ... so they washed clothes in it ... had special collection toilets for such ... hows that for your useless historical tidbit of the day ...

on that note.. the OP [welcome by the way] .. will never come back ... lol

ken

While visiting Harbin in China I noticed that, probably on certain days, people put out containers with something at the road for pickup. It is a fertilizer some people use here too...

...or when some Mexicans warned that Americans should not try a certain pepper and I thought they meant it was very hot and took it as a challenge to try some....they then explained that it was often grown in wet swampy areas sometimes contaminated with human waste.

Luckily I did not get sick from "showing off".

ken-collecting fish urin is really easy. STEP 1) You get a length of pvc tubing, place one end in the fish tank and the other in your mouth, and suck until the tubing is full of urin infused tank water, remembering to stop before actually taking it into your mouth. STEP 2)Then leavig the one end in the tank lower the other towards a bucket, remembering to take it out of your mouth before actually beginning to lower it, and siphon the urin-infused tank water out as needed. LOL!

Actually, I don't suck out water any more. I heard it could contain ecoli bacteria! Doesn't just about everything? I immerse the entire tubing in the water until all the air is out of it, then follow step 2.

Have you ever considered that we might be creating such sterile micro-environments around us that we are losing our immunity to common bacteria? It is amazing how polluted the water is that fish will live and thrive in.

Les