teka2rjleffel, I'm not sure how to answer that. My tea is just part of my feeding/soil improvement program and my roses are putting out new growth pretty constantly. I can't say I see any real spurt of growth after using the tea--I do have a good number of basals on most roses, though. I do the tea once a month. Mid-month I use Miracle Gro alone and Rosetone or Hollytone in the Spring and Summer (it's on tonight's list of things to do), and compost once a year. I don't have enough compost (or manure when I have the time and energy to go get it) to put it around every rose every year, so I rotate. I've experimented this year with adding 10-10-10 in-between on roses I think I might show and those in pots, too--so something pretty much every week on those roses. One reason I feed so heavily is because all of my roses are in raised beds filled with bagged topsoil/composted manure or pots--due to my vole problem, so I feel they need the extra fertilizer. Not sure this helped, Barbara

I also anticipated this might happen to me in a certain degree. Some measures I took to avoid this problem having is: Medium: My rocks are black lava rock and came in individual bags from Home Depot (the spongy porosity of lava rock deposits lots of nitrates for roots to gravitate to). They are specifically made for landscaping and growing mediums. It is more expensive but I had a friend who picked up his rocks from one of those places where you drive in a truck, weight it (so when you weight out they know how much you picked up), and back it up into a stall with a mountain of gravel you use a motor shovel lift to fill up with. He found a lot of tainted stuff when he concluded he needed to perform an all around chemical test on the water he contaminated with this gravel. It ended up having a lot of other stuff we couldn't agriculturally test for. Introducing living organisms into new habitations: I am told that whenever you transfer primitive aquatic life into a new environment they should be stabilized from any sort of shock. Shock meaning so scared and frightened by sudden change that primitive creatures will not facilitate their niche in a routine that sustains them for the duration of stabilizing (or other organisms piggy backing). 1: I introduced 30 fish at first into a 200 gallon system, and about 10 gallons live (pipe, sump, and whatever is left in the bed below your bell siphon shut off level). The rule of thumb is about 1lb fish per 3-5 gallon, or roughly something like that. My fish tank holds about 60 gallons (growing bed is 1' by 3' by 7 1/2' with 9" cycle, and 3" water table. The fish have a metabolizing rate and this is what governs the colonizing speed of the bacteria that Hex2006 is referring to. After a week I introduced 60 more goldfish. I lost 3 fish in the process by natural selection (hypothesis based on the 3 were some of the very smallest of the group and looked underfed). >>>Do I put plants in the medium while cycling? >>>Couple of lettuce plants or something?I let my system cycle for 3 days (one cycle to fill is 12 min, and to evacuate the grow bed is 8 min). This roughly states that the speed in which I can expel the water from my grow beds will be about 1/2 as fast to fill it, after calculating out of boredom from sitting for hours calibrating different down pipes and bell siphon (i guess algebra paid off after all...). I did in fact have "some" plants in it when I did. So the methodology will seem backwards here, but I ask, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Hence I added what I had left over of "fish chum" but it was actually product vigorgro that was basically emulsion of fish from a blender, yum (I stopped using it because it stunk up my indoor HP system). This fed the plants I had in the system for three days and started the cycle. I later balance the pH before adding powder soluble HP system 'nutes'. The plants I had in first were lots of snap string beans, beets, and lots of collard greens. For time of year I was building this, I used plants familiar to me that had high metabolite and are easy to propagate in lava rock. >>>First off do you have a fresh water test kit? You should get one if you don't have one.should = MUST >>>Second how much are you feeding the fish? You should look up the proper amount for the type of fish you have.Fish in new habitats should be allowed to almost starve til the end of the 2nd week (or later if colder), until you start seeing a rise in pH above 6. Fish must actually create their OWN environment assimilated from their own feces to feed the bacterial colonies that will reside in the symbiotic niche between micro organisms, the fish, and your plants. Most your plants have much of the same chemical compounds, but fish being a carbon based organism will obviously have a more complex compound of chemicals, especially what you feed it. A. Starve the fish for more then a week B. Start feeding the fish very little once the water start to look clearer (the fish breath through their gills, and whatever small particle they filter, they eat; even microscopic beyond eye threshold. C. Always under feed the fish; if after feeding there is still food floating or at the bottom, skip a feeding (a day). D. Keep it organic, no store bought stuff for your fish that comes in a box. The fish poo > nitrites > nitrates > plants > then into your mouth... Trash in trash out. Keep it fresh. I eat a lot of rice, and always have left over rice. Cereal that goes bad (avoid honey and fruits: corn flake are ideal, bran anything). Crumple it up for the fish to eat bite sized; stone and mortar. I have built a few AP systems for friends, and even built a gazebo deck around a fish tank at a buddies. This is proven advice. I have a question for you if you still check this thread: Where is your sump? Your garden bed seems to drain right into your fish habitation. I've been told not to do this. There should be a intermediate percolation that dilutes both incoming solutions between the two. Not that it's toxic, but it does cause fish to feel shocked and imbalance within their habitation. Ammonia, oxygen, and other impurities, like living in LA then suddenly at the base camp of the Himalayan as a human analogy. I also just personally think fish would not like listening to the hum of a hydro pump (whatever size it may be) 24-7 LOL! I will post follow up links to pictures: Here is a link that might be useful:

"IT turns out that to make it 100' he had joined two 50' snakes together. (OK - SO the first thing you will all say is that was a bad idea. )" The mechanical mechanism that attaches snake section together is pretty solid, but it often takes some light hammering to engage the catch fully (and then a screwdriver and a hammer to unlatch them). The other recommendations are good. Check any clean outs you can, ten have a camera run. If the snake is in the main drain it WILL eventually cause an obstruction.

Jennifer and Tresw, Thanks a lot for your advice. In fact, we swam today in the pool, yeaaaahhhH! Well, not really swimming, because the water was cold, about 60F and because I let the garden hose running in fresh water for an hour to lift up the level, but as a side effect it got even colder... But the clarity is now great. It is amazing comparing to a week ago, when was a swamp... What a miracle. I got the 4 way test kit, as suggested by TRESW and the readings were not that bad. Chlorine was really really low 0.4-0.6, but Ph was just right 7.6 and TA was 80 ppm (could have been 70 ppm, but with the background coloring I could not really say). The leaks are really big issue though. I broke the cement around the skimmer and now I can see the top plastic of the feeding tunnel (about 3-4 inches deep down), and it has about 0.5 inches water. What is even more worrisome is that the water is about 2" above the pool level, which means that the walls are all filled up with water all the way to the concrete deck and it is overflowing from any crack the water can get through. Also, the lines around the concrete deck are wet, as I dug about an inch deep around and now water started amassing around. And this is on the other side of the pool... I am having a serious leakage, that is for sure. I will rent these days a power hammer from Home depot and I intend to break to pieces the deck. The problem is I have not decided what to do with the debris yet. Any suggestions? As for the dead animal, I am no longer worried. I cleaned, and shocked, and cleaned, and shocked and now I believe there is nothing left from it... I hope. I certainly will avoid any contact of the water with my mouth for the next month or so, but overall I think I am over this now :) Thanks for all support and advice. If something else comes out, please shoot. I am ready to make some pics and post them online for discussion. Best, Lubo