I thought it would be interesting to see if other people were doing anything to make fish-keeping less wasteful, and I thought I'd share something I do:

When I do waterchanges on my aquariums, I used to just pour the dirty water down the drain. Now I pour the water on plants outside, now that the garden is up and running. Even the water used to rinse out the siphon is collected in a bucket and dumped on the garden! (I fill up the sink with water and let the siphon empty the water down into a bucket anyway, so it's not that much extra work).

Any other "eco-friendly" fish-keeping tips and tid-bits out there? I'd enjoy hearing 'em!

i do something similar, i use the python to just syphon out the water in the tank, i use a gravel vac to get the gunk out of the gravel.... every time i go to empty a bucket of gunky water i empty out about half and then pour all of the gunky stuff in the bottom of the bucket into a watering can, then later on when im done with my water change i water the plants(there growing like weeds with all that fertilizer)

Thomas and I use the water from our small tanks (with the fry) to water our potted plants.

You can use unwanted gravel for potted plants

A friend of mine also uses fish water for her hydroponics system, which works great as well.

hehe I use it to flush toilets after cleaning them (if I'm cleaning tanks at the same time ) for plants ..or I even added wash soap to the garbage can I use to collect tank water and washed dog blankets ..

We also use the water as fertiliser (apart from phosphates, it's got almost everything that plants need to do well).

(edit: well wadda ya know, the unstretched avator was apparently on a time delay )

My house plants look SOOOO much better since I started watering them with used tank water. I also have a pothos house plant emersed in gf tank. It grows down the outside of the tank and looks lovely, while removing nitrates from my water (hopefully)! It doesn't reduce the amount of water changes I need to do, but it looks good!