I'm really trying to stick with natives and/or non-invasives since we are so close to a cove and the bay.
We didn't get an algae bloom this year, but my husband just cut down some junipers that were shading almost half of the water garden, so I don't know what to expect for next year.
The unshaded half of the water garden is covered with pickerel weed and one struggling yellow waterlily--no oxygenators that I can see. Filter is a bio-mechanical filter.
Should l add some oxygenators in anticipation of an algae bloom next year?
We have several apparently hardy goldfish and some trapdoor snails and I am concerned since I read several places that while oxygenators give off oxygen during the day, they take it up again during the night.
Any suggestions or experience on the following three:
Dwarf Sagittaria (Sagittaria natans)
Hornwort (Ceratophyllum demersum)
Eel grass (Vallisneria americana)
Where is the best place to get them--garden centers and nurseries, aquarium supply places, or some place 'online'?
Is there a way to 'disinfect' them so I don't introduce anything unexpected when I add them to the water garden?
(Almost seems silly considering the ducks and birds that visit undoubtedly introduce all kinds of things I'l never know about!)
Thanks for your thoughts,
Teresa
(zone 7, Chesapeake Bay region)
Favorite native oxygenators?
Teresa,
I found the best oxegenator to be Anachris. This is a runner that floats freely with neutral bouyancy in the water. It oxegenates and cleans the water of fish poo. It does not, however totally eradicate fish poo. Good thing too because I pump the stuff out of the bottom of my pond to feed my brugs and elephant ears with.
I also have hornwort in my pond.
Both of these plants can be bought at any aquarium store including PetSmart and the other big one.
But both can over grow your pond or aqaurium and must be thinned out periodically. Like mine needs to be right now.
As far as the lack of oxygenating during the night, it hasn't seemed to be harmful to the 5 goldfish I have in my stillwater 350 gallon pond.
Molly
:^)))
My best experianse has been what they call parrots feather. My two small ponds are mostly shady and that stuff just grows and grows. I just lay it in the water and I have to take bucket fulls over to the nieghbors big pond for the koi to eat. I used to have koi but they ate my parrots feather and river snails and dig the dirt out of my lillies and muck up the ponds. My ponds are crystal clear now.
If your pond gets real warm and is overstocked with fish, yups a low pressure system might cause a mass kill. If you see fish gasping at the surface at dawn oxygen levels are low. A trickle or mist spray to top the pond at dawn can be quite a treat to oxygenate the water
Anacharis, Hornwort and Cabomba are oxygenators I've grown to like over the years, easy to control in the confines of a water garden, very reliable, quite attractive in their different ways.
Plantings prior to Winter are not a bad idea where you keep fish, decent clumps make great cover for them to hide from Mr. Herons beady gaze, very effective.
By the time Spring arrives, Submerged aquatics are poised to take control of water quality, making it difficult for algaes to get going. With no submerged aquatics occupying that niche, algae has a free reign and conditions to rule the roost...
The pro's and con's of disinfecting fish has been done on other threads, I find a spoon or two of bleach in a bucket of water effective, cheap and readily available.
Regards, andy