The horror! I too was bitten by the coir bug....fortunately I didn't obtain any until after last spring's major re-potting. But there were 4 plants I ordered online that didn't arrive 'til midsummer, and I had coir by then. I re-potted them in a mix that was largely coir. The mix stayed very wet for weeks...I was hoping that the water-logging wouldn't be a problem because of the visible porosity of the mix, but the plants started looking awful and fungus gnats began breeding like mad. So I re-potted again, still using some coir but using pine "soil conditioner" bark as the main ingredient. It didn't occur to me that the coir itself could contain something harmful to the plants, only that it was just TOO moisture retentive (but the coir advocates are right about one thing, it certainly doesn't compact, to the point where I was afraid that the roots might not be in full enough contact with it! And when you water it you can't just pour the water on top and expect it to spread to the edges, it runs immediately out of the drainage holes before wetting any areas that aren't in direct contact with the flow of water.) Anyway, after reading the USU paper things are falling into place. All of those 4 plants exhibited new growth that was yellowish and stunted. Even after re-potting them into a mix with much less coir, 1 died and the others are doing somewhat better but are still way below par. Until coming upon this thread I though maybe the problem was the just the plants themselves...all obtained from the same online vendor, in the same shipment. I have a lot of coir that I no longer have a use for, so I'll try an experiment next spring. I'll root cuttings of the plants that need frequent tip-pruning in it. I'll report back with the results.

new to this forum subject as far as posting, not reading, but plan to be around and participate�"love talking to people with common interests. my current pond i built last year. it is 500-600 gallons�"28-30" deep 6-7' diameter. it is semi-raised formal with a tiered fountain in the middle. it is plumbed like a swimming pool with a wall skimmer, bottom drain and external pressure filter with UV. circulation is approx 1,000 gph. i am in z5, but keep it running year-round. this year i covered it with a tarp to protect the fountain�"cracked last winter. short of the sun, there is not heater. the system works pretty good and the water is always odorless and crystal clear and have not had any goldfish die in the year it had been running�"this is my plug for good filtration, uv sterilizers and lots of live plants. the only chemical i ever use is algaefix whenever hair algae shows up�" 2-3 times a year. works very well, but knocks back the good algae a bit too. the pond is planted with hardy lilies, anacharis, guppy grass (don't ever put this in your pond), parrots feather, ribbon grass, and a few other aquatics that i collected in minnisota this summer (we will see if they come back in the summer). the basins of the fountain are planted with watercress adding to my filtration. have a small basin with some other wild collected bog plants and an indoor aquarium in the kids room that is fully planted. in the summer i usually add a few platys just in case any mosquito gets the wrong idea. next summer i will use golden white clouds instead as they are a little more cold hardy and tend to school giving me a better chance of getting them out alive before the winter. the pond had 3 fully grown 7" eggfish (dorsalfinless goldfish) i have collected/rescued from pet stores. 1 sold as lionhead but shaped as ranchu and 2 that look like nankin or osaka ranchu�"no photos of these rare forms on the internet, just a few illustrations. it is an earlier form of the ranchu sometimes called Korean goldfish. effectively ranchu without the headgrowth. they are effectively throwbacks to an earlier form due to poor breeding controls. when i bought them i did not like large wens (headgrowth), but i have grown partial to the ranchu wen now. i have plenty of space for more and am trying to aquire some quality seed stock on my peanut budget. local stores don't carry anything of quality. i want to start breeding, but lack any males currently. i want to breed my ranchu with tosakin and develop a tosakin tailed eggfish. i used to breed ryukin, but have fallen for the top-view fish breeds. tosakin are unable to swim in deep water�"they tend to flip in water deeper than 10" and are traditionally kept in shallow ponds and viewed from above. i think the lack of a dorsal fin would add to the form. the are a beautiful fish and arguably the hardest to keep. they can swim and feed fine in still water, but can not compete with faster swimming goldfish like, well, most others. kept to themselves, they do fine. the real trick is that that tail is like a bonsai tree�"it does not just happen. it is the combination of nature and nurture. they are feed specific foods at specific times and kept in specific size, depth and even shape bowls to encourage the right type of growth at the right time. it really is an art form. a 1" fry looks like a fantail, and is worth about as much as any other japanese bloodline fish. a 4-5" fish with a ideal tail can be worth thousands to the right person because of all the work that went into that fish. i am looking for seed material rather than a show fish. they are very hard to find in the USA and usually only as an imports which is way out of my budget. they are very beautiful though (can't be said about all goldfish). only 3 survived WWII and as the story goes, the man who resurrected the breed, when searching and only found 3 at a restaurant. he offered to buy them and the owner told him they were not for sale and he did not have enough money to buy them. in the end they were traded for a few bottles of wine�"apparently spirits were more scarce. they are classified as a national treasure in Japan. the are nothing special to look at from the side and for that reason not popular in the aquarium trade. the Japanese tend to view their fish from above rather than in glass tanks. the ranchu is more common, but quality genes are rare in this country. in Japan if you say goldfish, a ranchu is what comes to mind. a comet is a rare and unusual breed over there. the ranchu is like a bulldog and though you would not guess it by their shape, they are very strong swimmers. they are compared to and ranked in the same fashion as sumo wrestlers. Japanes ranchu keepers are pretty fanatical. they take goldfish very serious. americans do not give the poor goldfish its due. probably because we have cheepend the fish by poor breeding practices. i would compare the the asian goldfish community to thoroughbred horse community here. most Japanese breeders will cull all but 1% of the fry. in china you will find massive fish farms with lesser quality as well as some very quality fish�"all for very cheep even by our standards. even though they are cheap, goldfish are still very much appreciated as a noble fish to keep�"not a trash fish or entry level fish for children. the variety, beauty and hardiness of goldfish make them very fun to keep and breed. they are more a participation sport than other fish in my opinion. koi never interested me for some reason. i love to talk about goldfish and will happily share any knowledge i have. i am a little obsessive about things that interest me and tend to geek out�"sorry. i hope to meet some others who are equally interested. in japan ranchu clubs are common. they get together and share techniques, are tought by master breeders and share fish. i wish there was something similar here locally. thanks for your interest.

Amy!!!! I am so glad I found you. We have just ordered our plans today. I have looked and looked for a blog about the Rockin’ farmhouse for months. I found it today!! We have looked at the pictures posted on AD’s website a thousand times and have had to use our imagination. You and Crystal have answered so many of our question but we still have so many more . Are you still open to the idea of allowing someone visit your home? We would LOVE to visit and see exactly how it all comes together. We are located near Nashville. Danielle

Considering that there was a point when I was about 2-3 years old, out playing on the front grass while my mom worked in the flower beds - and some guy in a van parked across the street but not directly in front of the house...mom heard the phone ring and in the time it took her to go in and tell whoever that she'd call them back, the guy had gotten out of his van and was proceeding towards me like he intended to snatch me up and drive off...before she started yelling at him and he ran back to his vehicle then sped away...I get that parents need to be watchful when it comes to who, what, when and where their children are. It's not like I'm advocating for 6 year old kids to freely roam their street or walk 3 blocks to and from school by themselves (if the bus drops them off at the stop sign on the corner 5 houses down, depending on the neighborhood and the child, it probably isn't a big deal if you wait for them in your front yard instead of insisting on being physically and exactly there at the drop point when they get off the bus or get on the bus until they're starting high school...or maybe not before they're leaving for college - presuming they're going to be allowed to go to college that is far enough away that they will be living in a dorm - if one is a *bit* of a helicopter type.) The problem is, everyone imagines that the worst is only possible if there's a stranger lurking around to cause such things. We don't like to think of the uncomfortable truth that children are most often victimized by someone they know (sometimes it's someone living in the home, sometimes it's a neighbor, a church group leader, people the parents know and believe they can trust, even spouses and their other children...I'm not trying to scare people here, but our society currently struggles to understand that some of the problem is...we teach children to unquestioningly respect adults and do as they're told, we believe that a child molester or a rapist must somehow look the depraved, obviously evil, criminal-minded look in their eyes 'after school special depicted' part while they lurk in darkened alleys or loiter on the edges of the emptying playground as the sun begins to set, lying in wait for the 'ideal victim' - one who acts/dresses/associates with 'good' people only/never goes places where bad things could happen - and we raise girls to keep their voices down, to go along to get along, and let a guy down gently no matter how persistent he might be - but continue to teach boys that they must take charge and aggressively pursue what they want, that they won't succeed as men if they don't swagger in and take what they believe is their due, all of these things set children up for problems with self esteem, difficulty in how to proceed w/regard to their right to their bodily autonomy and the boundaries they set with others about such matters to be respected, self-doubt and issues with how to go about being an independent adult when their entire lives up until they finish college or begin working for more than just some 'pocket money' have been overseen/dictated/helicoptered by their parent(s). Basically, I think that it's not about when they can be left alone for a while, the real need is for parents to teach their kids the things that they absolutely must know for the time when they are no longer children but adults on their own - and this has to gradually happen from the very earliest point in their lives, give them the chance to take risks and potentially fail when the consequences aren't the kind that lands them in prison. If parents must work multiple jobs to keep the lights on and a roof over the family's heads then the community needs to find ways to be empowered - the proverbial village - that can help guide children and provide structure, purpose - rather than simply complain that there are too many who seek a 'family' of the sort that a street gang offers them, or looking at the issue as "not your kids not your problem" kind of thing.