I use my water garden water change water on my plants (where I have 2 Comets and 2 Shibunkins in there) - particularly the muck/detrius, which is essentially nitrates. If you have potassium stuff in the water, that should be okay for the plants, particulary since it's rare to find a high-potassium (the "K" in the "N-P-K" designation) source by itself other than the oft-recommend seaweed, etc.

One of my best friend's parents have a huge aquarium in their living room. It has to be at least 500 gallons. It's heated, has live plants and all sorts of expensive fish in it. Her dad is really into fish, and has probably 15 aquariums in their house, and breeds fish, and all sorts of stuff. Anyway, I don't live near them (12 hours away), and I had mentioned to my friend that I was growing African Violets. My friend told me that her mom has always watered her violets with water from the fish tank. She said fish poop works wonders. When I visited her in August, I saw the violets sitting on a window seat. They were all gorgeous, huge violets..all looking quite spectacular. My friend told me I should get some betas and use the water from their aquariums to water my violets. I personally haven't done so, but her mom has been watering her violets that way for years, and they are quite beautiful.

No true fresh water fish needs salt. As long as you keep your tank clean and your fish seem to be doing fine, leave off the salt. A tiny pinch wouldn't harm the Plays or the Gup, but would NOT be appreciated by the Gouramis or the Tetra. One of the greatest problems with too many aquarium owners, is not understanding that not all fish have the same water parameter needs and mixing them can lead to unhappy, if not dead fish. The Platys and the Gup prefer harder water and a higher Ph than the Gouramis and the Tetra, but that can also depend on which species of Tetra you have. Generally, it's best to set up tanks by region, for instance, an Amazon tank, with soft, slightly acidic water would be ideal for small Amazon tetras such as Neons, but the best water for them, would not be good for Gups. If you want to get live plants that will do well in a 10, try an Anubas Petite and a few Crypts. They don't need a lot of bright light and won't overgrow your tank. If you can't find them locally, check out aquarium plant sellers online. Good luck.

Dogma is holding firm to the belief that something could neither be a conceptually or practically superior practice because you believe something else seems to be satisfactory - 'works for me'. Old beliefs are like a pair of old shoes - we often value their comfort so much we tend to ignore the fact they're full of holes. Almost everyone prefers the relative comfort of belief to the exercise of reason because believing is easier than reasoning; which brings us full circle to why there are so many more believers than thinkers. My $.02 I'm pretty sure you're not suggesting that a haphazard approach (a little of this and a little of that, even though I know neither what the plant needs nor what I'm giving it) is a superior approach to a well-reasoned supplementation plan. Discounting all reason because we're satisfied with the status quo is self-limiting by default. BTW - if Punky's trees are in pots (don't think that was made clear), moving closer to how nature does things is an exercise fraught with obstacles. Growing in the ground and growing in pots are widely divergent cultures. On a scale of 1-10 with growing in the ground being a 1 and hydroponic growing a 10, conventional container culture is probably a 7 or 8. Al