Water Hyacinth Greenhouse

[sissy]

When you think about it all you would need is 2 or 3 plants ,thats all I bring in and by Febuary I have way to many .But I don't fuss I just have a couple of totes I throw them in .You could always use a fertilizer tank and then once they get green and healthy throw them back in your basement pond and sort out the ones that look unhealthy and put them in the fertilizer tote .This way you will not have to worry about the fish .I do that with my oputside pond now .I have stock tank and the mixing tub and keep fertilizer in them and healthy ones after a fertilizer soak go back in the pond .Funny thing is there are lots of tadpoles in the fertilizer tanks and they don't mind

 

[JohnHuff]

That's for MUCH further South, down around the Gulf states. If your hyacinths freeze, they will not come back. This is the case for most of us...

What I heard was that there are some wild water hyacinths here in the lakes. The lakes freeze and then the WH come back in the Spring. I've never noticed them wild so I can't verify the story.

 

[capewind]

Of the 250 we started with in May, with both ponds, we are just now at 50-60% coverage. I would need everything to go VERY right to get 2 to 250 by spring, and I really want closer to 500 to START with. Once I know there are no bugs (dragonfly nympths) or clean them somehow... so they cant hurt the small koi, we can fill the QT with them too... I think the surface area of that tank is 5x10'... being silly today I also stuck some water celery into a couple of the water hyacinths LOL. A piece was rooted in there on its own, I just added a few more;-)

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Well its been over a week since I started using the Flourish fertilizer, and I'm happy to say that the progression of brown leaves has completely stopped. I also believe some of the plants are looking a much healthier green now, although I'm still not seeing any new growth. The new batch of minnows are doing good, and today I added a second filter to the tub (they are fairly small in-tank aquarium filters, and the one by itself was not keeping up with the waste).

I'll keep updating, but from my limited experience, adding fertilizer is absolutely critical. I may have to experiment with other kinds and see if there is something in particular the plants are looking for.

 

[capewind]

Thanks for the update Shdwdrgn. Just went to check on ours. The leaves that were starting to brown, have continued (no where near as bad as those still outside), but the leaves that were not brown look great, and spotted lots of green babies (just a new leaf type babies, not new plants yet). We did add fert, but not nearly enough. AKA potted plants that should have gotten 2-5 "pills" only got one, and just dropped a few in the water. So for us, I am going to say we are maintaining what we started with, and seen slight improvements so far...

NOTE TO SELF: add more fert

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Woo! Did the weekly water change today, and spotted new leaves forming on at least two of the plants. Growth is obviously much slower than what you would see outdoors during the Summer, but that's perfect for my purposes... keeping them alive and healthy through the Winter and building up a supply in the Spring.

So here's what I'm working with right now...

• a 20-gal rubbermaid tub, filled to about 15 gallons (about 12" deep)
• (2x) 20 gallon in-tank water filters
• (2x) 4-foot fluorescent shop lights with 6500K bulbs, placed about 6 inches over the top of the plants
• around 18 rosy-red minnows (sold as feeder fish)
• Weekly 1/3 water change (using Prime to condition the water)
• Weekly dosage of Flourish plant food (about 1/2 cap full)

I also have piles of baby water lettuce in the tub, but as others have mentioned water lettuce is not so picky about the water conditions. Flourish is a liquid fertilizer that is safe for fish. The weekly water changes are due to the amount of waste that the minnows actually put out... That waste helps feed the hyacinths, but it collects on the bottom and could kill the fish if I didn't clean it.

So far so good... now to wait and see if I get enough growth to replenish the plants that died off when I first got started. Maybe it will pick up as the plants get adjusted to the new conditions...

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Just a quick update on my setup... The lights have been moved back to about 16" from the plants. I've lost of few of the small plants which were struggling anyway, however the rest of the hyacinths all have nice strong healthy leaves. There is some very slow growth, so I may cut back on the fertilizer (I've been giving them a double-dose at every water change). The water temp is holding around 72 degrees.

Because of the minnows, I have to do regular weekly water changes -- however they add nitrates (or is it nitrites?) to the water which should be really helping the plants.

At this point I see no problem with keeping the plants healthy over the Winter. Perhaps in the Spring when the temperatures come up, I can move the entire tub out to the patio. I think the natural sunlight would be a great boost to the plant growth, and hopefully I can have a good stock by the time the pond temperatures come up.

 

[sissy]

I went down to check mine and funny but must have brought in some tadpole eggs and tadpoles as the frog scared me jumpiing up at me .geeze .I see lots of tadpoles in there and thought i cleaned everything really good .

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Well its been three months now, and my hyacinths are doing great! Even the minnows seem to be doing well, as I haven't found any carcasses recently. I think I have somewhere around 15 plants in this small tub, which should be enough to give me a good start in the Spring. I had quite a few plants slowly die off, but as you can see below, the rest are very healthy and putting off new shoots.

I think the worst part is the weekly water cleaning... I get a LOT of roots breaking off, plus the occasional air bulbs that rot away. Its not like out in the pond where that stuff just gets flushed through the filters. Next year I might try throwing one comet or small koi in the tub to keep the roots trimmed back. It doesn't appear that the minnows have any interest in nibbling at the plants.

 

[Mucky_Waters]

They are looking pretty good, but hang in there Shdwdrgn, when I attempted to over winter mine this is the month they really started to die off.
What temp and ph is your water?

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Well keep in mind that I just did a water change about 5 hours, but currently the pH is sitting at 6.5. I don't have a heater in the water, so the temperature sits around 70F. I think the amount of plants have doubled since I started. There was some initial die-off of about half the plants within the first few weeks of setting up the tub, but now they're stable and spreading.

As we get closer to Spring, I'll throw in a heater and bring the temperature up around 76F, plus add more fertilizer, which should really kick off some growth of the hyacinths.

 

[HTH]

First I did not read the entire thread but plan to in the morning.

I played with hyacinths a bit and found that they liked C02 injection but I never had results this good.