seedsvr - the Pondmaster 190gph pump/filter/filters pads and sponges, and bell fountain kit cost about $50 to $60 (today). Don't remember what it cost in 2002/2003 when I bought that one. All plants are in small pots except the floaters. No soil, only aquarium gravel. I am in MD and I throw my WH on the compost pile at the end of the season where it continues to bloom and then dies either from drying out or if cold weather comes. I haven't had any WH for 3 or so years now. I'd actually like to get some more but I refuse to pay the high prices people ask for that weed. I have two other ponds now and the Pop-up sits in my garage as I don't feel like fooling with it (or my ponds for that matter:-) It was fun and I enjoyed it while I had it up and running for two seasons. I'd get a big tub if I had it to do over again (like suggested by another poster). I've never seen a clear pop-up before. When they first came out they were copper or dark like mine. Clear I would think would encourage algae with the light which means you probably won't see the plant roots or fish for long unfortunately.

I didn't realize such large changes were beneficial - as a first time aquarist (?) I was worried that too much change would inhibit the growth of the good bacteria. That thinking is old school and a myth. No sucessful breeder follows it. Some pet stores however continue to tell their customers that and if they had even bothered to read the fish mags they sell they would see, 10 - 20% water changes is no longer recommended. We change 80%, cleaned the gravel and the filters at the same time and there has never been a rise in ammonia or nitrite levels. We used to worry about it in the beginning but after testing the water parameters after each change, we learned it didnt harm anything. Koi and goldfish, contary to popular belief, need alot of room. They are big messy fish. Your 40 will not be big enough very soon. You will find yourself either upgrading again to a 60, then a 100 and in time a 200 just to keep the koi in the tank or you will need to trade him back to the place you got him. They get big, to about 2 1/2 feet long and grow up to 4" a year. Another myth is the fish will not outgrow the tank. What happens there is the water pollution gets so bad that the fish gets stunted, sick and then dies. (think goldfish in a bowl). With proper nutrition and a clean healthy enviroment they will grow and grow fast and live 50 - 100 even 200 years. The record holder koi is 230. You will need to clean the gravel with every water change, get a siphon with a gravel filter. If you have sand in that tank, get rid of it and switch to a thin layer of gravel or gravel and an under gravel filter plate. Personally we got rid of the under gravel filters and went with a thin layer of gravel as that easier to clean. You need super filtration even on your 40. Do you have a hang on filter and a cansister filter? You need them. And as for your original question, is the water good for the compost heap? Your going to generate too much and it will make it too wet. Water the lawn or your plants with it, they will love you for it!

I put a few bucket fulls of pond weed on my heap a few days ago. My son had accidentally dropped the donkey's water bucket down the well and when we fished it out with a grappling hook we caught a load of weed with it, so we fished up as much as we could fill the buckets with. It seems to be rotting down well! In southern Portugal they use ox drawn carts to haul seaweed for use as fertiliser so I guess it's good stuff.

Generally blackberries, and other brambles, seem to like the same soil conditions that Camelia and Rhododendrons do so unless you eliminate all the roots from them you will see them forever. The single best method of control is to keep the green above the ground part of the plant cut off so the roots do not get any nutrients and eventually starve and they die. We should not be poisoning our planet with weed killers. http://www.guarding-our-earth.com/aggrand/roundup.htm Compiled by Caroline Cox, Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides- (NCAP) Roundup, and related herbicides with glyphosate as an active ingredient, are advertised as products that can "eradicate weeds and unwanted grasses effectively with a high level of environmental safety." However, an independent, accurate evaluation of their health and environmental hazards can draw conclusions very different from those presented in the ads. Consider these facts: 1. Glyphosate can be persistent. In tests conducted by Monsanto, manufacturer of glyphosate-containing herbicides, up to 140 days were required for half of the applied glyphosate to break down or disappear from agricultural soils. At harvest, residues of glyphosate were found in lettuce, carrots, and barley planted one year after glyphosate treatment. 2. Glyphosate can drift. Test conducted by the University of California, Davis, found that glyphosate drifted up to 400 meters (1300 feet) during ground applications and 800 meters 12600 feet) during aerial applications. 3. Glyphosate is acutely toxic to humans. Ingesting about 3/4 of a cup can be lethal. Symptoms include eye and skin irritation, lung congestion, and erosion of the intestinal tract. Between 1984 and 1990 in California, glyphosate was the third most frequently reported cause of illness related to agricultural pesticide use. 4. Glyphosate has shown a wide spectrum of chronic toxicity in laboratory tests. The National Toxicology Program found that chronic feeding of glyphosate caused salivary gland lesions, reduced sperm counts, and a lengthened estrous cycle (how often an individual comes into heat). Other chronic effects found in laboratory tests include an increase in the frequency of lethal mutations in fruit flies, an increase in frequency of pancreas and liver tumors in male rats along with an increase in the frequency of thyroid tumors in females, and cataracts. (ne fruit fly study used Roundup; the other studies used glyphosate.) 5. Roundup contains toxic trade secret ingredients. These include polyethoxylated tallowamines, causing nausea and diarrhea, and isopropylamine, causing chemical pneumonia, laryngitis, headache, and bums. 6. Roundup kills beneficial insects. Tests conducted by The International Organization for Biological Control showed that Roundup caused mortality of live beneficial species: a Thrichgramma, a predatory mite, a lacewing, a ladybug, and a predatory beetle. 7. Glyphosate is hazardous to earthworms, Tests using New Zealand's most common earthworm showed that glyphosate, in amounts as low as 1/20 of standard application rates, reduced its growth and slowed its development. 8. Roundup inhibits mycorrhizal fungi. Canadian studies have shown that as little as 1 part per million of Roundup can reduce the growth or colonization of mycorrhizal fungi. 9. Glyphosate reduces nitrogen fixation. Amounts as small as 2 parts per million have had significant effects, and effects have been measured up to 120 days after treatment. Nitrogen- fixing bacteria shown to be impacted by glyphosate include a species found on soybeans and several species found on clover. 10. Roundup can increase the spread or severity of plant diseases. Treatment with roundup increased the severity of Rhizoctonia root rot in barley, increased the amount and growth of take-all fungus, a wheat disease), and reduced the ability of bean plants to defend themselves against anthracnose.