How fast does water hyacinth multiply?

Hello! In April I made my first water garden; it's still a work in progress but it holds water and the fish and plants are happy so I like it. Over the weekend I added two water hyacinth to give the fish a little more shade and to help keep the algae down. The guy at the water garden store said that two would be more than enough as they multiply quickly. I was wondering if anyone in the Massachusetts, zone 5b area, has experience with how quickly they multiply? I can't wait to see the top of the pond covered in vegetation!

Also, it might be a coincidence but I had my first frog visitor after the hyacinth was added.

The guy at the water garden store was correct, they reproduce very quickly. I started out with two a month or so ago and now I have several. They like a spot that gets a lot of sun. I think you will enjoy this plant. It has beautiful bloom stalks with several flowers that look like the eye of a peacock feather. The fish will like it too. The long feathery roots give them shade, a place to hide from predators and a food source. Enjoy your new pond!

The water hyacinth also make an exelent system to catch and hold fish eggs. You can then just pick out a few with the most eggs on and place in a pot or tub and watch for them to hatch. you may want to use a mosquito dunk tho as that is the same situation those guys like. I just brought five in and put in the aquarium and now I have about 70 transparent little bodies less than 1/4" long. Whoops that was last night. I can't count them now. I enjoy watching them break loose from the egg, It will take about another week to start to see color in them.
My experience with the W/H is that it is so late when I can get them that the pond would start turning pea soup green before they offered enough shade to help . But then zone 4 is a little severe for the Hyacinth but it still remains as my favorite filtering plant and for a fairly quick pond cover.

I'm in zone 5. I purchased 2 healthy water hyacinths and put them in our sunniest pond. In only four days there was a baby on each one. The weather was cool and now that it has warmed up they are growing and reproducing like crazy.

Thank you for all the replies! The water garden is in full sun so I think the hyacinth will be happy.

I was watching the fish last night thinking it won't be long until I see eggs. I have just two spotted goldfish, and they play together constantly in what could be called a flirty manner. My husband calls them Mr. Limpit and Ladyfish :)

You will have so much hyacinth that you will be shoveling it into your compost heap, begging neighbors to take some, and looking for recipes. There aren't any. Been there. The plant is exceptionally good at aiding water quality. Enjoy!

How Fast?
By the time I saw this thread and was able to answer......you should have full compost bins and be giving it away :)

Ric

I would only hope; I had it reproduce that well every year as I do have a rather large garden that could use the compost. Only one year out of 6 has it done that well. I think it has something to do with the condition of your water,nutrient wise. My Koi like to eat it. so they also help to keep it under control. But then not every one has a large number of 26-28" Koi. plus about 30-40 smaller ones. I think they like the lettuce better tho as that don't seem to be doing anything, as far as multiplying.
I got the W/H the 23rd of March, I moved them in & out a few times as it was too cold for them at night. They have just now doubled in number. Of course the next time they double??? there will be about 40 plants. which is about where I think I should start with. I normally just wait for them to reproduce. It's cheaper that way. My water lilies are doing well and they also help with shade and removing nutreints from the water. If I the time this year I may build a green house, and attempt to over winter a few. A G/H would also help to get a better start on the garden. I think also that a little zone difference probably makes the biggest difference in how soon they really start to multiply.
Snapple I was just thinking ( dangerious) wife and I are planning on a trip to Marrion OH. in July. Might be willing to take a pickup load back home. lol
It would be a little out of the way but we are visiting a couple water gardens any way. I think I was kidding about the pickup load. But I would take some if you didn't mind. Well gotta go as a neighbor wants some help on some plumming for his pond. He also has a rather large pond and is putting a 10'000 gph pump.

Oh my gosh, randbponder. I didn't put any hyacinth in this year. I am trying a Lotus for the first time ever. It is a Mrs. Perry D. Slocum. As my pond is 15 X 20, and the lotus under ideal conditions, can spread twelve feet I decided not to put in the hyacinth. Last year when we vacationed for a week and my daughter looked after the pond it was completely covered with the stuff, as well as water lettuce. I do miss it. It does a teriffic job with water quality and the koi loved it. You are right about the larger koi being tough on plants. This year mine are in the 12 to 20 inch range. This year they nearly annihilated the water lettuce so I moved it to a smaller goldfish pond where it is now starting to recover and grow. It looked like the koi had stripped the roots off. This is the fifth year for my big (to me) pond and the first year I havn't had any hyancith or water lettuce in it. I have some rushes potted which the koi tug at but cant destroy. I had water lillies that needed to be repotted and the koi saw to it that I did it pronto. This spring the larger ones (koi) dragged the pots off the two foot shelf and turned them upside down on the bottom. I did manage to repot them sufficiently that the koi havn't been able to disturb them, yet. Koi proofing the lotus tub was a pain but I think we have done it. I truly wish I had some hyacinth to share. Last year I would have delivered! lol My big pond is only a 2000 gal. so I have 9 koi and some comets. The comets I am desparately trying to catch and remove because they reproduce wildly. Last year we seined out over 100. I am down to about 25 now, way too many.

Yep Snapple; I understand very clearly about the Koi dumping the pots.
I needed to clean the pond this spring. The pots tthat had been dumped were floating, the rest of the small pots that the roots had went through the holes, were pushed around. I felt like they were purposley trying to build an island. I had a mass of lily roots all tangled together with mud, the pond soil for the lilies. plus the muck. After most of the water was pumped out, it was all I could do to drag it into a shalower place so I could catch the rest of the fish. I didn't know weather to call a tow truck to drag it out or get a sharp knife and start cutting. The knife won out. I made many divisions. Took some them to the Iowa round-up where they were eagerly given new homes. I did the same with about a dozen little Koi.
But it was that mess, that prompted the floating tub for the lotus. right now I have 6 different tubers in the one tub. Mrs.PerryD Slocum just happens to be one of them. I was/ ampushed for time on some of this, as I also had to rebuild my water fall. as without the water in the pond a part of the wall caved in. the rocks and all. This time I stacked the rocks all the way up the side wall where the fall is.
But the upper part is still in progress. as well as a new stream bed and another smaller water falls. The stream bed is to include a biological filter system for the lotus. I hope it turns out like I would like it to. Some of the lotus leaves are starting to stand up out of the water, up over the tub. My friend with the bigger pond wants to do the same. but only to put the eggs in that he finds to give them a safe harbor. With the holes drilled in the sides the fry can come and go as they please but the big ones can't get to them. Of course I'll have to help him . he just isn't a diys person. :-) Sometimes I think I work harder since I retired lol
Good luck with repotting the lilies. This time I used two of those big tubs for the lilies and put pea gravel in them to hold the lily root then put larger rock on top to keep the Koi from rooting, and I don't think they can figure out how to push those tubs around. LOL

Your pond sounds amazing. I hope you post pictures. Mine isn't nearly as ambitious. I have to rebuild a waterfall too, on my small goldfish pond. It has a leak we simply can not find. The water flows into an upper pond, spills into onto a stream the spills again into the main pond. The water only leaks when it is flowing through the stream. The upper pond holds and lower pond holds. We have dismantled as much of the stream as we can without a major tear out and cant find a thing. So to fix we have to just do the whole upper part over. We have a family of chipmunks that have taken up residense in the rock work. The babys are darling but I suspect they have caused this problem. They poke their little heads up from crevices and chase each other. It is cute to watch but I think they have done something to the stream. Here is a pic of the leaker.

Very impressive, I like the design.
If you can't find the leak. I am wondering about the possibility of the upper pond setteling just enough to flatten the stream some to cause the water to seep back under where you may have laped the linner , one over the other. That was just a thought as the top pond would have had a little fill dirt under it and it would also be the heavier part of the pond.
I have heard of those little guys chewing up many different things though. Had a friend lived in the city. His wife fed the squirrels. He desperatly wanted rid of them. They kept getting up under the hood of his car and chewing through the spark plug wires. Guess they wanted to cripple the car so they could use for nesting :o)
I don't have any new pics yet. but I do have some of the mess I had with this last cleaning. tho I can't seem to find them tonight. I will make it a point to get new pics and post them. Wish you much luck on finding the leak. I would be interested in what you find. Russ & Barb

Believe me, if it is the chipmunks you may be able to hear me without benefit of this forum. I really, really dont want to tear that top part out. I am expecting a savio 16 "weir tomorrow. I plan to change the top part altogether and might eliminate the stream. You are very astute in mentioning that settleing may have played a roll. There has been some, but poking around in those areas hasnt revealed any problems, yet. The liner is all one piece, no overlap. Had enough left over to supply half the neighborhood. LOL Last year we trapped 26 chipmunks that had gotton into the garage. I opened the inside door from the kitchen to the garage and several went flying in all directions! They knocked over paint cans and pesticide containers. We found a huge stash of acorns hidden in the corner of the foundation block in the crawl space. I thought that we had eliminated the problem, but the babies appeard this spring. Sweetest things you ever saw but I think I could wring their necks with my bare hands. We never found their entrance into the crawl. We crawled every inch on our hands and knees. (Between the two of use we only have two good knees!). :-) We even went down in the dark to look for a crack of light that might be an opening. Nothing. They must have tunneld under the foundation.

Our big (to us) backyard pond is holding together much better thank heavens. I dont have a good pic as I made some significant landscape changes this year. Eliminated a lot of fussy perennials and am toneing it down to a conifer, shrub eventually asian easier to maintain garden. Still have a ways to go though. Looking forward to your pics. I am sure I will be impressed and learn a lot. Mary & Vern

Since you were able to use all one piece linner- - - - -I will use ear plugs for a week - - - -Not even a chuckle. I believe you need to find where they did the damage. Unless, it only happens when there is very little humidity like hot and dry.
Our pond is some where around 3000 gal. and when the humidity is down our pond will drop 1"-2" per day, unless I would shut the falls down.
For us tho whenever that happens there is always wind with it, except in the winter. Winter time I had been putting a small pump in front of the skimmer to keep it open there anj just pump from there to the upper pond, not useing the falls. Not sure what I will do this comming, (shhhh) winter, after making all the changes. Pretty sure I will shut down the falls. I will be using two pumps, the smaller pump will be in the skimmer, pumping to a second water fall and stream bed that will flow into the upper pond. and then to the lower. Trial and error I guess.
Hey good luck on finding the leak. Hope its not too bad. Russ & Barb