Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi folks.

I've recently built a Koi pond. I won't bore you with the filter/bacteria process, but the end result is water that has a certain amount of nitrate present. This is currently being flushed away to waste (normal practice to keep down the excessive growth of algae). My question is, could I use this waste water to water my leafy veg?

Cheers...Freddy.

I'd try it, is it possible to construct a storage tank on the route between koi pond and sewer so any excess still goes to waste?

Hi peter, thanks for your reply.

The thing is, my veg patch is around 125ft from the pond, so it's a bit impractical to do as you suggest, I'd have to carry the water up the garden. I do however have a spare submersible pump. It would be a fairly straight forward task to pump it up the garden, I'd just need to buy some more hose.

Cheers...Freddy.

So a tank between koi pond and waste pipe would be the ideal point to put the submersible pump.
What I mean is that you introduce into whatever pipe pump whatever between the mains drain and where your waste water is produced a holding tank from which you can help yourself when you want, by whatever means you prefer, and that when it is full up any more waste produced continues as before to the drains. For example during winter.

Hi Peter.

I really don't have the space for a container in the area you suggest as this is just a walkway around 6ft wide. My thought was that I could simply 'dangle' the pump in the pond and take out 10% (220 gallons) of the pond capacity in one hit.

Cheers...Freddy.

Your plants are going to just love your interest in fish.

Unless you end up drowning them.

hi freddie

i have been putting my waste water from my large tropical tank into my water butts and i have to say the veg are loving it, all i would say about the waste koi water dont use the water when you have recently salted, but you probably knew that anyway.

have you thought of irrigation channels !

the custodian wrote:have you thought of irrigation channels !

Hi there. It's not really a goer, as I have raised beds. I have however being trying to think of a way to make things a bit more automatic. Doing it cheaply and easily is the problem. It's not big deal though, as I will only need to do my partial water changes every week or two.

Cheers...Freddy.

it would cost a little bit but.....
you could use plastic pipe from your pond conected to your spare pump, all the way up to a header tank by your veggies, either lay pipework under ground or along a wall to the headrer tank, then from the header tank to seep hoses useing gravity as the supply pump.

the custodian wrote:it would cost a little bit but.....
you could use plastic pipe from your pond conected to your spare pump, all the way up to a header tank by your veggies, either lay pipework under ground or along a wall to the headrer tank, then from the header tank to seep hoses useing gravity as the supply pump.

Hi again.

Yes, I could do that, but I have 11 raised beds. For now, I'll just water manually by holding the hose, but it's something to think on.

Cheers...Freddy.