Water Hyacinth Greenhouse

[Mucky_Waters]

I'm pretty sure the PH down stuff I have is sodium bisulfate http://en.wikipedia....odium_bisulfate which is the standard chemcal they use for pools, but it doesn't say on the container I have, just says PH down, PH reducer.
At least some sources say it is safe for aquatic plants. http://www.ehow.com/...ate-plants.html
I'm not sure yet if the PH is going to go back up or I'll have to keep adding more, time will tell.
It's has been a while since I did any ph testing on anything, and I'm just now finding out how high the ph is in our tap water. It's well water and I knew it was fairly hard, but have never done any tests on it since I haven't had a reason to until now. Now that I have I'm thinking I really need a proper complete water testing kit. The only test kits I have on hand are at least 5 year old and for pools, they just test for PH and chlorine levels.
My pond hasn't been testing nearly as high PH as the hyacinth water was, which is good, although it is a little high as well, I'm not sure why that hyacinth water was so high, maybe that concrete block that I have in there,,,, I dont know.
Anyway, I will be watching things a little closer now. I hope to have some fish in my pond by the end of the month.

Know of any good complete water test kits I can purchase.?

 

[addy1]

http://www.drsfoster...cfm?pcatid=5367

http://www.shopwiki....Master-Test-Kit

I use the api when I test

 

[Mucky_Waters]

http://www.drsfoster...cfm?pcatid=5367

http://www.shopwiki....Master-Test-Kit

I use the api when I test

Thanks Addy, that kit isn't quite "complete", it's missing KH and GH, but the price is right and I suppose I can get a separate kit for water hardness.

 

[Mucky_Waters]

To update, it's been 17 days since put the water hyacinth in my little hyacinth incubator, they were growing, but they started turning yellow. I was pretty sure it was because of the high PH of the water, so I started adding some PH reducer. That helped, the green started coming back into the plants, although the yellow leaves started developing brown spots probably because of their weakened condition. Next problem was the PH kept rebounding back up and I had to add more PH reducer almost every day. To try and fix that I put some peat in a plant pot and stuck that in the water, so far it seems to be working to stabilize the PH and keep it nearly around 7 and I haven't had to add any more PH reducer.
The new growth on the hyacinth is nice and green, not yellow, and they seem to be multiplying pretty good again. I started with 6 and now have 24, of which most have small offshoots growing off them.

That's pretty interesting, good growth but yellowing. Normally you don't get those two things together.

Waterbug if you are still following this thread, there was a noticible slow down in growth after the yellowing and the leaves developed the brown spots. It probably would have been much worse had I not taken steps to adjust the ph.

As a side note: last night we got frost again. Had I put the original 6 water hyacinth in the pond they may have survived, but they would likely have been very weakened, and they most certainly would not have multiplied at all.
At $4 a piece, the original 6 cost me $24, I now have 18 new ones, 18 X $4 = $72. That more than covers the cost of my little greenhouse, and I'm not done yet.

Updated picture

https://www.gardenpondforum.com/gallery/image/1853-may11-24-hyacinth/

 

[j.w]

That's good news Mucky! Sounds like you have it under control now on how to get them growing good!

 

[Waterbug]

Good info, thanks

 

[Mucky_Waters]

May 16 2012
Another update:
We've had some very warm weather here last few days and the hyacinth in my little greenhouse incubator have taken full advantage of it, in fact one of them even decided to send up a bloom. (Never had that happen so early in the year before)
The water in my pond also warmed up to a record high temp of 20 C (68 F), so I took one of the hyacinth out of the greenhouse and put it in the pond. The way they are growing in the greenhouse it won't be long before I'll have to be removing a lot more and putting them in the pond. "I love it when a plan come together". :claphands:

April 24

https://www.gardenpondforum.com/gallery/image/1810-greenhouse6-hyacinth/



May 16

https://www.gardenpondforum.com/gallery/image/1870-hyacinth-bloom/

 

[pecan]

This thread has been very helpful. My WH turned yellow and brown last summer. The question on my mind was is it lack of moving water or high ph? My ph is at 8 in the mornings and close to 9 in the afternoons. Everything else including fish have done well so I have not messed with it. This year I put them in the top of mty skippy like Koiguy to see if that would help but it is too soon to tell. I bet it was the ph all along. Hmm interesting.

 

[Waterbug]

A bloom is impressive.

 

[addy1]

So neat, mine did not bloom until july or so.

 

[j.w]

That is more great news on your experiment!

 

[Mucky_Waters]

That is more great news on your experiment!

It was a pretty weak looking bloom as far as hyacinth blooms go, I notice I have another one coming up this morning.
To tell you the truth, I'd rather they didn't bloom in there, I know any plant blooms rob energy from the plant and slows growth, right now I would rather they put all their energy into mutiplying, not blooming. Funny thing is these may be the only blooms I get, I have my doubts that I'll get any blooms in the pond itself because I don't think the water will get warm enough in there.

 

[j.w]

Sometimes plants feel the need to bloom under stressful conditions. They think Hey, somebody's trying to kill me so I better raise a family by putting off seeds............but then I thought they multiply by just making more attached to them so what are the flowers for? Do they also grow from seeds?

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Wiki quote "One of the fastest growing plants known, water hyacinth reproduces primarily by way of runners or stolons, which eventually form daughter plants. It also produces large quantities of seeds, and these are viable up to thirty years."

 

[j.w]

Well there ya go then! 30 yrs..........wow!