melons?

i have a bag of melon seeds that i had bought at a hispanic grocery store. it doesn't say what sort of melon, just that they're melon seeds and are supposed to be "people food". i bought them for my pacus, who enjoy them (and pumpkin seeds).
anyway, last week i dropped one in the tank with my electric catfish, just to see it he'd eat it, and forgot about it. well, apparently he had no interest in it. i was away for a 4-day weekend, and came back sunday to see something floating in the tank. turns out the melon seed started growing, a couple leaves, a stem and a root system.
i took it out, and put it into my exodon tank, which is planted, just as a sort of novelty thing. i decided to drop a couple more of the seeds into the exodon tank to see if it was just a freak occurrence or what, and it seems like they're starting to grow too!
so what i'm wondering is if anyone has had something like this happen? is there some drawback to growing melons in an aquarium? is it actually sustainable?

Well melons grow kind of vine like so I guess the roots could be in the tank and the rest of it is free to put on a shelf next to the tank....
I have no experience with this but have thought about doing an aquaculture setup down the line.



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I think it sounds pretty cool. The only things that I can see having issue with are these:

- melons need a lot of light. Probably more than you'd want on your tank.
- are any chemicals used in the tank that might accumulate in the melons that would make them unfit for consumption?
- melons are heavy feeders....it might be a challenge to keep up with the fertilizer needs for the vines if you don't manage that closely.

On the other hand.....could be really awesome!

it never occurred to me to actually grow the melons and eat them, but now it has!
for now i just want to see how they turn out in the aquarium. as far as light, the first one sprouted in a tank with positively no lighting. the exodon tank that i put it into just has a standard fluorescent that isn't on more than a couple hours per day. given that i'm in a dim basement apartment and that tank is on a top-shelf i sort of default to using it as an actual light source.
i'll try to post a couple pictures of my little incidental aqua-garden when i get home.

what a cool idea. My mom loves melons but she tries to grow them in the ground (like anyone else would) and she has little luck. I wonder if throwing some seeds in my most populated tank that gets direct sunlight 6 hours a day would result in some melons. I bet the natural fish fertilizer might do well for them. I'm going to try it too.

unknown_saint said:

it never occurred to me to actually grow the melons and eat them, but now it has!
for now i just want to see how they turn out in the aquarium. as far as light, the first one sprouted in a tank with positively no lighting. the exodon tank that i put it into just has a standard fluorescent that isn't on more than a couple hours per day. given that i'm in a dim basement apartment and that tank is on a top-shelf i sort of default to using it as an actual light source.
i'll try to post a couple pictures of my little incidental aqua-garden when i get home.

Click to expand...

Remember that the energy to sprout is already stored in the seed after the first set of leaves come out its time to start providing some light they will get food at least nitrogen based food from the tank but might lack things like magnesium, iron and other nutrients...but that's only important if you have specific plants, looking for specific balance of nutrients. I don't think melons require anything special.
http://http://youtu.be/JTwTI0csPdM
I would love to run something like this


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here's some photos of the start of my melon farm; the sprout that started it all, the bag the seeds came from, and a couple others that I dropped in my exodon that seem to be sprouting.

Egusi are gourd like melons.
They might do well if you can Float them keeping the roots in the water and the stem outside close to the light source.

Either way fun experiment


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