Thanks everyone for your advice. I am still in shock as it happened so fast.The fish literally died within a few hours yesterday afternoon. I have been outside working on the pond. I did hook up the extra pump. I moved a water lily off of a plant stand and put the pump on the stand. It already has a 2 inch pipe about 2 feet tall and I am letting the water shoot straight up and splash back down like a huge bubbler fountain. We still have one orfe that we can not find. Water is still testing fine so I think heat and lack of oxygen did them in. The goldfish seem o.k. but I could swear I had more.This morning, some goldfish were even spawning so I hope that is a good sign. I did feed the remaining goldfish last night so I hope I did not screw up.They were begging for food and I felt sorry for them. Frogman4, Thank you for the offer. I loved the orfes. They were so fun and playful and at feeding time would corral all the goldfish and lead them to the food. I doubt I will get orfes again as we are not even at our highest temps yet this summer so I am afraid it would just happen again. ccoombs, What size air stones would I need for a 15,000 gallon pond.?Would an airstone be more effective that an extra pump shooting up water?

Hi out there fellow generator people, trysquie in South West Pennsylvania here. I have a Coleman Powermate 5000W 6250W peak generator with the Tecumseh 10 HP motor (after reading the site I wish it was a B&S motor). I have talked to a teck who works on these units and he told me that I should use straight 30 W oil. He said that when people use multi grade they blow up. I asked him what he thought about Castrol straight 30 weight. He said that is the good stuf. He also said the exhaust has female threads for npt pipe, if you remove the factory muffler you can get to the threads, and I could add my own muffler on this type of pipe. He also said to be sure to use a flexable conection on the pipe. I went on "McMaster Carr" site and found flexable stainless pipe (the lower cost unit is discontinued but if you order it they give you the higher cost higher quality unit at the lower cost). You will require some straight threaded pipe and some right angles. I found a small muffler with a heat shield at the local auto parts store (advance auto parts her in PA there part no. from the side of this muffler 18677 9 245 ) and used PC7 epoxt puty to temporally hold the corect mounting angles with respect to the muffler heat shield attaching to U shaped steel bent from 1 inch flat steel that I purched from home depo and bent into two big U shapes to mount to the bolts on the alternator (I had to put longer bolts on that side of the generator, and extend and move the ground wire to the other side of the generator). I used very long flexable hose clamps from NAPA, (two sets, each made of two of the longest they sell) to hold the muffler to the steel while the PC7 epoxy putty dried. After the epoxy cured I had a local auto shop weld the steel to the heat shield (make sure to ask them to be careful not to burn through the muffler when welding to the heat shield). I have a lathe so I was able to turn a piece of steel to make the cup shaped piece that I had welded to the end of the pipe and provide fit to the inside of the input pipe for the muffler. I now have a home made auto muffler adapted to this generator. It did reduce the noise considerably but the valve train, piston, and air intake still make quite a racket. Before it was louder than a gas lawn mower. Now it is not as loud as a gas lawn mower. The way I added this muffler it moves with the generator and motor but still has the flex pipe for extra give. I am now going to add a heat shield between the heat shield of the muffler and the generator for added protection of the generator. I e-mailed Amsoil about oil for these air cooled motors and they e-mailed me back and said that regular multi grade oil will break down and not provide protection in these motors. They said full synthetic multigrade can handle these motors and will not break down. They make a multi-grade 10 W30 SAE 30 specifically for small air cooled motors (and no, I am not an Amsoil dealer or in any way conected to them, or to McMaster Carr, NAPA or advance auto parts). You still have to change the oil every 25 hours of use. I have learned some things from your web site, and just wanted to pass on some of the things I have learned regarding generators. I use to be around boats and saw many ways that people can blow things up or make mistakes that cause big problems. I hope to learn enough from this site and others to keep my generator runing when required. Signed, trysqqire in S.W. PA

I looked at my Forest Pansy again for you - it did start budding last week (unusually warm), but I think it got stunted after that (colder now), as it never reached that full, covered in pink flowers look. Some buds look stunted, but on a couple tiny red leaves are staring to appear. Again, mine is established. As for box stores versus nurseries - I agree, the loss of nurseries royally sucks. The real problem (at least on Long Island, NY), is that the only remaining nurseries are so extremely high-end that it is truly impossible to shop there. We used to have a chain called Frank's Nursery and Crafts - they went under a few years ago, and no one has filled the void. Their prices were similar to the box stores, but their stock was in great shape and every store had a certified horticulturist on site and all managers were required to take horticultural classes. Their bankruptcy was blamed on bad management, but in reality they could not compete when HD and Lowes moved in down the street - HD and Lowes always sell their stuff well-below wholesale when they first open - forcing local businesses to go under. Today the prices are more normal. I bought a TON of shrubs from Lowes, HD this year, but only because I needed a ton (I'm getting rid of my grass, and we lost a huge tree last month). They are not the most unique, but they were too cheap to pass up. My tactic is to use cheaper plants as bulk, and then invest in unique shrubs as the specimens. I order most of my stuff from online nurseries now. Last year I got a Fernspray Gold Hinoki Cypress online for $35 (I'd wanted it for years and couldn't find it locally); before I ordered it I called the two best nurseries around, and the one that had it wanted $250 for a 30" high plant! Mine is about 24" - I ordered the 18", but they were out of that size so they upgraded me at no charge. Please tell me how one nursery can charge $35 (probably should be $50 for that size), while the local nurseries charge $250? That is why so many nurseries go out of business - they charge WAY TOO MUCH! Especially when all any customer needs to do is go online and compare prices. I would NEVER buy a tree from a box store though - I get fruit trees from fruit tree specialists, and shade/ ornamentals from tree specialists or native tree specialists. I bought a Mac Apple from HD years ago and that was the worst thing ever - it was already pruned into the wrong form, and although I have fixed all the bad branches, there is nothing I can do about the vase-shape, so I really do not like that tree (but I feel guilty about chopping it down and replacing it, since it is so large now). Prices at the box stores are not much better on trees and specialty perennials, though. By me they want $40 for fruit trees - normal price from a specialist is $20-30, depending on variety. Most perennials are the same cost as online, and online nurseries have a much better selection. I bought mostly Rhodis, Azaleas, Pieris and Mountain Laurels this year from them. But, for unique Rhodis I shop at Rhodi specialists (we used to have a specialist nursery near me, but they went out of business a few years ago :( I bought 4 PJM Rhodis ($7 small, $30 large), 5 Purple Gem Rhodis ($15 each, large size), and 5 Silver Sword Azaleas ($7 each); the prices could not be beat. Lowes had beautiful Mountain Laurels for $25, and I grabbed 2 because they are IMPOSSIBLE to find around here (even though they are native). I had purchased one from a new local nursery a few years ago, but it was so root-bound (I paid $35 during the 30% off sale), that I could not perform effective surgery, so I threw it out and replaced it this year (still no new roots). You basically have to know what you are purchasing - what to look for in a plant to make sure it is worth purchasing. All my online purchases have been great, except TyTyga (sp?) in Georgia - do NOT buy from them - bad trees.

greg_h calls me paranoid when I say that a credit-card company might find out that you lost your job. I didn't mean to say that the employer would contact the credit-card company directly. Rather, I have no trouble imagining a situation in which an employer arranges with a credit bureau to do credit checks in bulk on prospective employees, and gets a discount in exchange for telling the credit bureau whenever it hires an employee or an employee leaves. The last time I checked my credit report, it included the names of my past employers. I certainly didn't give them that information; but they got it from somewhere. Is it really paranoid to believe that a credit-card company, which surely checks their customers' credit reports from time to time, would have access to that information?