Joe, You are right & draining was the last thing I wanted to do for that reason. Something is off in my pond that I can't figure out why. My bio filter is 50 gl skippy with water hyacinth floating on top. When I drained and cleaned the pond the filter media was not that dirty and yucky. I have a Sequence 750 3600gpm pump. I also have a small bog with floating hearts, watercress and elephant ear. I have about 5 hardy lilies and 1 tropical lily that has been blooming all summer long. I haven't really been feeding my fish cause they can't see me or me see them. This is not the usual green water/pea soup seasonal change. I know patience works best for that. It's green and rather murky with a couple inches of clarity and has been most of the summer. I noticed it started going green again late yesterday. (Now our weather here is usually sub tropic and with this darn drought it's more desert like. I wonder if that is playing a part. When I say hot, we broke records with 40+ days of over 100'.) I am thinking of taking my bio filter from my small pond and connecting it to the large pond in hopes of getting a jump start on the beneficial stuff and help combat the bad stuff that is taking over. Thoughts??

Carol, IMHO I think that the fresher the seed the higher the germination rate. I have put seeds directly into water from the pod..and I have let them sit for a few days. All seem to germinate fairly well. Now earlier, I did a cross of Limona x Shirley May and soaked about 15 seeds immediately..most of them germinated just fine.. about 3 weeks later I found a handful more of this cross and decided to soak them and they aren't doing well at all. I think I only got about 2 seeds to germinate out of about 15 seeds in the second batch. And on the other hand, I selfed my father's Samba and immediately soaked about 10 seeds at his house..they are doing fine. I brought the rest of the seeds home and wasn't going to do anything with them and then decided to try about 7 or 8 of them. At least 3 weeks later I soaked them and they immediately germinated..some seeds are surely more vigirous than others.. I know in the past Cindee found some seeds that she had forgotten about for about a year and when she tried to germinate them they did well so who knows..the fresher the seed the better I would say but I'm sure others out there have had more experience than I have..I'm not really sure whether drying for a few day is necessary or not.. Donna

Terriks, I guess I was not clear when I said membrane - I meant the pastic/vinyl(??) thing that goes down on the deckmud pre slope. Not a vapor barrier as in kerdi. Mongo and Bill, the upstairs flooring is pretty sturdy as far as I can tell (I am no expert, as you can tell :) no creaking when walked on, it is a 10 year old house. I believe what I saw when the carpet was ripped off, was plywood. I could be wrong, again. The wood was about 1 1/2 to 2" thick. I made him pull out a small portion to check for water damage, if any, which we did not find. The cement board was only screwed in, not thinsetted. So I know better, they should both be done? How about on the walls? Just screwed in to the wall studs? We are starting on the Master bath tomorrow, and want to incorporate all the changes that I have now realized are required, except for the kerdi, which I dont have access to readily. We are going to use Redgard (topical) on the walls. One more questions- as for water proofing the shower floor when builing a deck mud pan, do we use redgard on the cured floor before tiling (pebbles in my case)? My handyman has never used epoxy grout and I am not willing to experiemnt, as clean up can be a pain and if there are any problems, I am told that it can be pretty hard to get the stuff out once hardened. So I am going the tradtional route - sanded grout,(no admix) and then seal with a penetrating solvent based sealer. Is there anything that I need to do differently for a better result? Thank you all so very much, mrao77

Ask for previous work references and his installation certification credentials. If he answers, "i been doing this all my life (or for 10-20-30 years) and have way to many satisfied customers to list just one or two", then indeed do wait for the floor guy or hire another competent installer/retailer to do it. I know alot of General Contractors who "have done floors before". We repair and replace their shoddy work all the time.