Anyone use pond water to water or mist with?
 

If so, do you treat/filter it in any way?

I have water lilies growing in a stock tank and a medium size goldfish pond. Seems like that would be some tasty stuff for orchids and other plants, but it does have creepy crawlies and god knows what else living in there.

Would love to hear any experiences with it.

You need to define pond water more precisely. If your tap water is 300ppm TDS, and that's what you fill your pond with you might not want to use it, particularly for sensitive species. You can bet that the water in the pond has a higher TDS than the source water. On the other hand, I maintain a 180 gal aquarium outside during warm weather which I fill exclusively from my rainwater collection system. I use it as the main source of water for my potted plants while they're outside enjoying the warm weather. Creepy crawlies are obviously a big concern of yours. Not so much for your plants.

I fill my pond with tap a couple of times in the summer if it gets too low. The rest of the year it's rain water. I also collect rain water in another stock tank, so maybe that would be better, but I still have critters (tiny garden snails, frogs and toads, water striders, etc. who make a home in there.

I normally use distilled or RO water for the orchids and other plants.

I guess I got to thinking about it because we're having very spring like weather here. Rainy, warmer (in 50s), sunny. Pond is thawed out and fish are active. Usually in Feb. I start getting the gardening bug BAD! I'm itching to get out and get muddy.

Edited to add: Have phals, paphs, 1 dend, 1 cym, 1 neo
Water TDS is 333 ppm. Used to always water phals from the tap, but since getting the other orchids, switched to distilled/RO to be on safe side. Pond is around 800-900 gals and (2) 100 gal stock tanks that are all rain water.

Oh and the critters don't bother me. Long story, but I embrace all life.

You may only add water from your tap a couple times, but the minerals that were in the water that evaporated are still there, and the minerals in the water you add to make up for evaporation are still going to be there too. Some of these minerals may be exported from the system through plant growth, but don't forget that it's a closed system. If the plant materials which incorporated the minerals aren't removed by physically removing plant material from the system they're still mostly there too. Plus I assume you do feed your fish, and that will add to your TDS in the pond. My customers often find it very enlightening to test the TDS of their tap water and that of their ponds for comparison. I guess I should mention that I design, build and maintain ponds as part of my aquarium service business.

I use the water from my aquariums and turtle tanks for most of my plants when I do water changes. For the record, I have hard water with plenty of calcium, magnesium, and other ions in it. I do cut it 50/50 with rainwater/RO when I have it available, and water at least once a month with straight rainwater/RO to flush mineral deposits from it.

It all comes down to looking at the risks versus the benefits and finding what works for your plants. I do know I don't try to mist with "used" water as I can never seem to filter it enough and it tends to clog the spigot on my pump sprayer.

FYI, there's more to look at than TDS in your water. TDS measures total dissolved solids, but not necessarily what those solids are. IMO, if the TDS is high due to organics (ie nitrogenous wastes and such) that is much less problematic than a high TDS due to such things as sodium. Also, even in a closed system, organics (such as peat and decomposing plant materials) can sometimes bind those problem ions and remove them from the solution.

Hope this helps.

Catherine

Subrosa - Thanks for the info. Very useful and I admit I haven't had the pond water tested for a few years. The last time I did, I had the pond, tap and nearby creek water tested by the local pond shop. The creek came out on top as far as overall quality for filling the pond. But it was a hassle to do.

Just a pond FYI if you're interested: The comets and plants are self sustaining. I don't feed them, and don't scrub the pond. Just net any excess leaves and overgrown plants and muck out if necessary. It's moderately shady so not a problem with algae. Enough for the fish to eat but not stringy. Never pea soup. No fish diseases and healthy plants. The lilies overtook the pond so gave them their own stock tank where they are very happy to share their space with tree frogs and toads. And there's a good size waterfall which draws an interesting assortment of wildlife including the dreaded great blue and (even worse) green back herons, common snappers & other aquatic turtles, and fish eating frogs. But that keeps the fish population in check. On rare occasions the creek floods the pond. You are probably having heart failure at my sloppy fishkeeping attempts. It seems to work for me, though. I agree that it's not the best way. I've had the pond for probably 20 years now.

Anyway, I get what you are saying about the water quality issues and will just stick to my present watering of houseplants. I really appreciate the quick reply and info!

If you mist, my advice is get an RO setup. We have hard water here, and using that would be like packing the nozzles with cement.

Thanks! I have only used distilled in the mister. I have extremely hard water which crusts everything. But have been looking into smaller RO systems.

Before I knew any better I built my pond. It evaporates 2% of the water per day during the summer, and much less in the winter. Our average annual rainfall would add 17% of my pond volume. After 3 years of continuous refilling with no water exchange, my lilies stopped growing. I finally figured it out and did a water exchange. The lilies took off again like the rampant weeds they are.

Now, once a week in the summer, I put a hose on the circulating pump and pump 25% of the water into a nearby garden bed or my citrus orchard. I refill with collected rain when my covered storage is full, to empty the outdoor collecters, and tap water if needed. Our tap water is ground water mixed with dehydrated Colorado River water.

A textbook example of the concept of a limiting factor. Something the lilies needed got used up and tap water top offs didn't provide enough of it to give good growth. Rainwater likely provided none. All the fertilizer and sunshine in the world won't make plants grow under those conditions, unless the fertilizer adequately replaces the missing component. If that pond was around here I'd bet my house and truck that it was iron that was depleted, but that would be different from place to place.