I have some Speedy Bush Beans left over from a packet I bought this year, and I would love to trade for some morning glories. Email me if you are interested!

I didn't realize such large changes were beneficial - as a first time aquarist (?) I was worried that too much change would inhibit the growth of the good bacteria. That thinking is old school and a myth. No sucessful breeder follows it. Some pet stores however continue to tell their customers that and if they had even bothered to read the fish mags they sell they would see, 10 - 20% water changes is no longer recommended. We change 80%, cleaned the gravel and the filters at the same time and there has never been a rise in ammonia or nitrite levels. We used to worry about it in the beginning but after testing the water parameters after each change, we learned it didnt harm anything. Koi and goldfish, contary to popular belief, need alot of room. They are big messy fish. Your 40 will not be big enough very soon. You will find yourself either upgrading again to a 60, then a 100 and in time a 200 just to keep the koi in the tank or you will need to trade him back to the place you got him. They get big, to about 2 1/2 feet long and grow up to 4" a year. Another myth is the fish will not outgrow the tank. What happens there is the water pollution gets so bad that the fish gets stunted, sick and then dies. (think goldfish in a bowl). With proper nutrition and a clean healthy enviroment they will grow and grow fast and live 50 - 100 even 200 years. The record holder koi is 230. You will need to clean the gravel with every water change, get a siphon with a gravel filter. If you have sand in that tank, get rid of it and switch to a thin layer of gravel or gravel and an under gravel filter plate. Personally we got rid of the under gravel filters and went with a thin layer of gravel as that easier to clean. You need super filtration even on your 40. Do you have a hang on filter and a cansister filter? You need them. And as for your original question, is the water good for the compost heap? Your going to generate too much and it will make it too wet. Water the lawn or your plants with it, they will love you for it!

Substrates that provide nutrients are typically a non issue. Some of the plant substrates (I believe the ada among others) will leech ammonia initially. With some planning, you can avoid issue. For an example, I have a 10g tank at 4+wpg with 2-3" of high humus topsoil covered with 2-3" of pea gravel that grows anacharis, corkscrew val, and algea very quickly. I throw cuttings from both into lower light, inert substrate tanks with some success. Both types do better in a 55 with an 80watt shoplight at 6500k. The amount, and temperature of light matter quite a bit for plants (And algea. Expect to have a bit of both) Your best bet may be duckweed - Common Duckweed, Lesser Duckweed, Lemna minor(resembles tiny lily pads ~1/4" across ) . Many aquarists hate it, but supposedly goldfish/koi/omnivores love it. Odds are you can get enough to seed the tank for free (It won't take much at all, and is near impossible to get rid of - just a heads up come transfer time ;) ) It's a small floating plant that grows beyond fast with good conditions. Being on the surface allows it to utilize much more light from your fixture (PAR values drop fast as you go deeper into water). Might be worth checking into. 1 small duckweed lily is capable of reproducing, so odds are your lfs wouldn't bother charging more than a buck or two for a whole bag. (Read, I've known people to dislike it that much. They'd be scooping it out weekly because they had fish that ignored it for tastier foods - though the dangling roots are great for fry) Hope it helps. ^_^

I agree with shrubs_n_bulbs and dcarch. While it is useful to study the aquarium community, because they are very obsessed and very knowledgeable, you do definitely learn a lot. Unfortunately there are just not too many people participating in this forum and some of the people just seem to be here to sell lamps and spread misinformation. Our local lamp salesman should have banned long time ago. (New lamps for old! New lamps for old!) FWIW in my other life, I'm a senior pathologist, who is rather obsessed with perfection himself. In my professional life and in my hobby life, I like to go all the way, understand it all to the maximum that I am able to, and apply my knowledge to the utmost. My most inspiring person is Henry Kuska, who is a member of this forum, and who applies theory, scientific method, painstaking dedication, sweat, and generosity, all tempered with what is practical, and how can resources be applied most efficiently. Henry got me started on indoor gardening, and I have been going strong ever since. I think I started out with germination of rugosa achenes about 6 years ago. For that reason I commend shrub's comments most highly, please take 100% heed of them, because I completely endorse them. My viewpoint is also a very practical one, and although I am blessed that I can afford just about any gizmo or setup my heart would desire, I restrict myself however, I don't just go out and get the "newest and the best", don't play into manufacturer's hype, learn how to recognize real data from bogus. My holy grail is "most bang for the buck". I work hard for my money, and I try to spend it as wisely as I am able. The aquarium community is very good at evaluating reflectors, that's why I bought myself some lumenmax reflectors, although they're bent metal, the bends to the first approximation if a full parabola. I recommend them. Choice of lamps: Pulse start metal halide, blows away conventional halide by a country mile, there is absolutely no reason why anyone should use probe start for growing on land. Venture lamps sold by businesslights.com have a perfect spectrum for vegetative, can be run continuously, and in that mode last up to 30,000 hours. For general growing, a ratio of 2 x HPS : 1 x MH maximizes the terrific growing power of the sodium lamp and adds the blue spectrum that is critical for synthesis of chlorophyll and to discourage stem elongation. Try to design your garden so that it has at least 3 "sides", and cover the sides with mylar. A garden illuminated by 2 lamps, and surrounded by mylar, due to reflection, is equivalent of a garden out in the open illuminated with 3 lamps. For example I built a grow-closet, and lined all 4 sides by mylar, but my next project is to have a garden across the short dimension of a room that has kind of a 8' alcove. The back and sides of the "alcove" are covered in mylar, and the front is open, for general viewing, and access to work on it. Practical things and attention to detail is always critically important. The aquarium community must grapple with very high scattering losses of water. Scattering is proportional to wavelength (why the sky is blue), and for any useful light to reach the bottom of the aquarium, it must be top heavy with very short wavelength (blue violet). Aquarium owners also grow beautiful ?coral or other vegetation, they have colorful fish, and the extremely high color lamps are essential for the esthetics. Remember, the aquarium owner is buying it for pleasure to look at, we are buying for maximum size of crop for us to eat (vegetables and fruits), admire (various ornamental plant), or smoke, as the case may be. So while I am grateful to the aquarium community, and like yourself have read over extensively the forum discussions, the bottom line is I adapt what I learn there and apply it to land farming. Also why I study the cannabis growing forum, but due to LEO, the best forum overgrow.com was shut down. If you visit plantlightinghydroponics.com you will even notice that under their horticultural lamp selection, they superimpose the photosynthesis activity spectrum with the spectal output of the lamps they sell. However, the regular horizontal 400W pulse start Venture metal halide lamp sold in the sister company businesslights.com has the exact same spectral output as a SunMaster "horticultural vegetative" lamp, but has higher lumen output and longer lumen maintenance.Paul Mozarowski.