I have Cahaba Lily and Giant White Spider Lily if you're interested in them to trade for some of your unusual stuff like the one pictured with the purple looking flowers, crocosmia bulbs or rooted brug cuttings. Obviously plants that do well in the desert, indoors or out. Info on Cahaba can be found here: http://nativeplantsfromala.blogspot.com/2010/03/most-beloved-lily-in-alabama-cahaba.html\ They do grow in moving streams and rivers and I've also seen them in a very large pond in a greenhouse in San Francisco but I and others grown them here in the desert in the ground with average water. They usually bloom here in the late summer even in high temps well over 100 deg. The plants are very impressive even when not blooming. These are pretty large bulbs. The giant spider lily grows up to 5 or 6 ft. tall and produces 12 in. wide bloom clusters of 35 to 40 white 5in spider shaped blossoms which are very fragrant. I have rooted pups of these about 6 in. tall. These do best with afternoon shade if grown in high temp areas. Let me know here if you're interested and we'll communicate through e-mail.Thanks!

Most manufactures rate their bulbs in the amount of time it takes for the output to drop to about 60% of a new bulb. Usually this is about 9000 hours of use. This doesn't mean that the bulb for your pond needs to be changed at 9000 hours. Let me give you a couple examples. Lets say you have a light that is rated for a 2500 gallon pond and 9000 hours of use and you have a 2500 gallon pond. Then at the end of 9000 hours you should change the bulb. Now lets say you have the same UV light but your pond is only 1200 gallons. In this case you could probably go close to 18000 hours on the bulb. I know you are saying how is this possible because the bulb is wore out after 9000 hours. Well at the end of 9000 hours it can handle a 2500 gallon pond but your pond is 1200 gallons and because it is smaller it only takes 30% of what a new bulb will give you which is half of what a 60% bulb will give you. Now to confuse you a little this only true if you have a flow rate half of what the max flow rate for the UV. But with the UV being twice the size that is needed than the lower flow rate will work just fine. The only problem is the bulb may burn out before that many hours are on the bulb. Mike

I use cool whites for maximum light and warm whites to induce blooming.The bulbs touted as "greenhouse" lights rarely are any better than cool whites.These days there are lower wattages available for florescent fixtures,which put out almost as much light as the previous higher wattage tubes. For example, 32 watt replacing a forty watt.That efficiency costs less money. The led lighting market is filled with snake oil and wild, wild west atmosphere. A few stable corporations are standing behind products,still made in China,at low cost,which they are greatly overcharging for.Most are either direct marketed from China or by small local entrepreneurs and vary widely in honesty in marketing,quality,detailed capability information(specifications),and actual plant growing applicability. There is a new family of leds on the horizon which are greatly more efficient. They use a non silicon base.even better and farther in the future are leds made using a carbon base ((OLEDs).I'm waiting.Unless the disposal costs of fluorescents start making them cost prohibitive, I am sticking with cool whites for now. Del

Soultan/palmcoastgarden: These are the small fridges that people use either in dorm rooms, apartments etc. They are about half the size or less than regular fridges. So far I have not had any problem with anything freezing as this fridge does not have a freezer in it and as I stated in the first post, I use a timer to cycle the power on for an hour and off for two hours. I have a maximum/minimum thermometer in the fridge to monitor the temperatures for me and have found that they have not gone lower than about 9ºC. So far there have been no problems with mold etc. I even had one variety (Gilmar) left in the pot with soil etc (couldn't take it out and wash the soil off because it was fairly rootbound) and it is actually growing gangbusters now (leaves, no flowers). I've since pulled out the first batch of bulbs and have had them planted for a few weeks now. They are putting on various rates of growth with the Gilmar being the fastest and having the most growth. I found that the humidity in the fridge was 70% or so. Some of the bulbs had fair sized roots going into storage but have found that even with the high humidity, those roots have shriveled beyond recovery. I'm going through all of this trouble because I have found that in the past, just drying the bulbs off for a few months didn't result in very fast growth upon starting them up again. I've seen several threads of people like yourself palmcoast, who just treat their Amaryllis as houseplants allowing them to grow and flower when they will. That is definitely an option which I may try down the road (and I know it works just fine :-) ) but for now, I'm just tweaking and experimenting. According to some sources of information, putting the bulbs through this cooling period results in faster growth when the bulbs are taken out, watered and placed in a warm spot.