Quote:
Originally Posted by andreamore
Is this right? Off the top of my head, it seems backwards? Especially a septic tank? And just dumped on the ground, if it leached near someones garden, wouldn't it just be free fertilizer? I was intending to pump mine out the window into the rose bushes. |
There seems to be many conflicting thoughts on that and I don't even know if there is a right answer. But I do know there are many variables that will affect the results like the type of soil,
nutrient level of the soil, type of plants, pH of old
nutrients, type of nutrients, strength of the mixed nutrients. Even any unwanted microbes, algae and bacteria are possible that may cause root diseases to your soil grown plants. Also hydroponic nutrients have micro elements in them that regular nutrients don't, this is because the soil already contains these micro elements. So depending on how much of these micro elements are left in the old nutrients they could become to concentrated in your soil, especially if you dump them in the same place all the time.
Now with all that being said, I think the soil grown plants can benefit from the old nutrients. My containers are light proof (for the most part) so I don't get a lot of algae growth. I also scrub them clean along with the pump at every nutrient change to protect against any buildup of this algae and/or unwanted microbes and bacteria. If I detect anything that might be wrong with my hydroponic plants as a result of the nutrients, I will not dump them on any plants I care about. Also if the nutrients are cloudy that usually means something is growing in it, especially in cases where the nutrient temperature was to high.
I will dilute the old nutrients before pouring on any potted plants by about 50% or more. When I pour it on the trees in the backyard I don't usually dilute it at all. Every time I change the nutrients I also flush the system with fresh water thoroughly and dump this on the trees, so I figure that dilutes it enough. We live in the desert so our ground soil is not very good anyway. The plants and trees seem to be doing just fine with the old nutrients.
I wouldn't worry about dumping it in any septic tank or sewer system, there is nothing in it that would hurt them. As for ground water, the elements that make up the nutrients wouldn't be a problem nor would the pH to ground water, but I wouldn't recommend dumping them in any lakes or streams. Although that refers to large reservoir like 1000 gallon commercial operations (I am sure), I wouldn't recommend it because with smaller lakes and streams there could be enough bad microbes, algae and bacteria that might have an adverse affect on it's ecosystem if it multiples out of control.