Floaters for a Temperate/Cold pond?

[Whistling Badger]

Ah, yes, knowing before building. I have learned that one the hard way, believe me! ha ha ha

So, really, they'll float on their own? With enough buoyancy to hold up the tire/wood understructure, too? Fascinating!

The reason I need to be able to move them is that about half of my pond is pretty shallow, and those parts are often left high and dry for a week or more at a time. And this is Wyoming, so when I say dry, I mean *really* dry. So I will need to be able to drag the rafts into the deeper part occasionally so the roots don't dry out and die.

Still not sure this is the way I want to go, but it's definitely a very interesting idea!

 

[adavisus]

That is the elegance of the tire structure, they are tough as boots, won't puncture the liner, will go where they are towed, rise and fall with the epic floods. Or droughts. They give the plants a stable form to mesh up over and around. Plonk a bit of decking on them and loaf, feeeel the buoyancy. Additionally they are free, indestructible, and black so you hardly notice them when they are adrift

Your fish will thank you the shade will moderate brutal water temps from 90's to 70's and Mr Heron is going to have a hard time fetching his sushi

Regards, andy
http://swglist.wordpress.com/
http://www.pinterest.com/adavisus/pondering/

 

[Whistling Badger]

Tires...hm. Have to put some plains kilifish in there to keep the mosquitoes out of them. The goldfish take care of that for the rest of the pond, but they get big enough to not be able to fit inside floating plant roots...

My water actually stays fairly cool, due to frequent influx from the ditch, and frequent emptying for irrigation. But some shade would still be a good thing.

Again, thanks for the info, everybody.

Tom

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Might I suggest moneywort (creeping jenny) around the edges of your pond? Its an amazing plant that spreads fast once it is established, and it does well completely out of the water or fully submerged, so it would be able to handle your constant level fluctuations. If you tucked it into the rocks near the top edge of your high-water line, it would probably start creeping its way down into deeper waters over time. Also any portion of it that doesn't freeze will stay green underwater through the Winter, and provide a head-start against algae in the early Spring.

 

[Waterbug]

It is true plants consume nutrients. It is true algae need nutrients to reproduce. And it is true that many, many people on the internet connect those two facts to come up with a new fact, that plants can consume enough nutrients that algae can't grow. However, if you read any, and I mean any, study done you will see that it is no where as simple as that. You will see plants can reduce algae blooms...not eliminate.

Even basic common sense doesn't support the plants starve algae theory. Single cell algae needs almost no nutrients to reproduce and both the algae and plants are consuming the same nutrients...it makes zero sense that the plants could remove enough nutrients to stop algae growth. If a person believes this idea then surely the algae would reduce nutrients to the point that the plants stop growing. If the plants are growing and the algae is starved what exactly are the plants using for nutrients? For the plant starving algae theory to be valid the algae would have to refuse to consume nutrients and instead let them float past so the plants can get them. Basically the algae have to commit suicide.

A green pond will almost always have 0 ammonia, nitrate or phosphorus. Yet the algae will continue to grow. This is because a 0 reading doesn't mean nutrients aren't in the pond. It only means there's 0 in the water sample because the algae is continuously consuming the nutrients. You can dump a bag of fertilizer into the pond every day and the nutrient level may stay at 0.

If you look at data from "constructed wetlands wastewater treatment" you will see that it takes a lot of plants to reduce nutrients. And that's only reduced. Still enough nutrients for algae and plants to grow just fine.

A pond continuously fed from farm runoff would be very similar to the same issue with wastewater treatment.

There are ways plants can clear a pond but chasing nutrients has never worked in the history of the world. It is simply impossible. Reducing algae growth and creating water toxic to algae (clear water) are 2 entirely different processes. Extremely easy to test the difference.

 

[Whistling Badger]

Waterbug, there's no need to be insulting, is there?

I see what you're getting at, but I think you might have misunderstood me. I would actually be pretty happy with "reducing, not eliminating" the algae bloom. I am OK with the algae existing in my pond. I just don't want my entire pond filled with rotting green slime like it was last summer. So if I can get enough vascular plants going in there to compete with the algae and knock it back, that's good enough for me. Basic common sense (and experience) tells me that vascular plants can often outcompete algae for available resources (nutrients, light, space) and knock it back quite a bit. That's what I'm hoping for.

Anyway, here is what my fisheries biologist friend told me. Some of you might find it interesting. Or might not. ha ha Some of his solutions obviously won't work for my pond, but it has me thinking, anyway... Cameahwait and Boysen are popular local bodies of water, just so you know.

I'm not sure what the best approach is to resolving your algae problem. Nutrients, sunlight and warm water result algal blooms. You could try, as your thinking, to tie up nutrients with a rooted vegetation. Cattails are good for filtering water but they typically surround a pond and make it less usable and would be possibly less desirable for your interest. However, if you could establish a small catchment pond just above or near the inlet of your pond, then cattails would cause silt to settle and strip nutrients from the inflowing water. Or you could just put in a control structure (like a log weir) at the inlet of your pond to widen and shallow the stream so that cattails can establish. Lake Cameahwait (Bass Lake) near Boysen Reservoir is a good example. The cattail complex turns turbid water into clear water leaving virtually no nutrients for algae. Cattails need a fairly stable water level since their roots are shallow and they grow on the shoreline. As water recedes, they eventually die. Lake Cameahwait has a stable water level where as Boysen Fluctuates. Boysen doesn't have cattails.
Your pond may fluctuate so little that cattails may establish but if it fluctuates to much then they may die. Treatment to control cattails is to drop water levels a few feet after seeds disperse to leave seeds dry along the shoreline. Eventually stressed mature plants start to die. Frequent flooding will keep cattails alive.

Macrophytes (rooted plants) will tie up nutrients also and work good in fluctuating water because they tend to establish in deep enough water to decrease the chance of dewatering. But to get macrophytes established you need clear enough water for sunlight to reach them. Eventually they will tie up nutrients and buffer sediments from being disturbed by waves. I don't know of any certain macrophyte that is best but using something from the drainage is recommended. At least you could assume if its growing in the drainage then it will survive in your pond.

Cattails and macrophytes are both resident to Lake Cameahwait. So you may consider both because the macrophytes may not establish without clear water created from cattails. And without macrophytes you may still get algae because wind action disturbing sediments may allow enough nutrients to re-suspend from sediments to grow algae even with cattails filtering incoming water.

Here is a web page that may help with plant information http://aquaplant.tamu.edu/plant-identification/category-emergent-plants/

Thanks again for the ideas and insights, everybody. I'm going to digest all this for a while and see what else I can find out before I make a plan. I will test the water as soon as the ditch starts flowing. In the meantime, have a great spring!

 

[addy1]

Nice write up