Troubleshooting & Problems

DECEMBER/JANUARY in the water garden in the UK

What needs to be done with the water garden? Nothing. It is asleep. What has been done that needs to be done can now wait. As long as it is cold enough and the water is below 5°C, everything in it is blissfully unaware ofBubbles under the ice can be a bad sign. A hole needs to be made. everything, so don’t disturb it. After all you hate to be disturbed during your slumbers. Instead, appreciate the garden in its winter dress. Get into the Christmas spirit and brighten your house and the faces of your friends and neighbours with a few of the indoor plants that we have come to associate with this time of year.

JOBS LEFT UNDONE AROUND THE POND MAY BE A BONUS

In the first two or three years after planting, the more grassy marginals, particularly the Carex and Cyperus still look good in early winter. As everything else dies back to ground level, the clumpy grasses move in the wind, lending animation to an otherwise static scene.
The other tall marginal plants that you have failed to cut back may pay unexpected dividends if we get any hard frosts. Fronds of all herbaceous plants and some shrubs look stunning in winter sunlight covered in an icy hoar.
Dont go breaking a hole in the ice with a hammer. This will knock the fish senseless
What is more, even the most humble reed that has run to seed will provide excellent emergency rations for small birds and will help provide cover for any wildlife that needs a mid-sleep sip of water.
You may be able to use some of these seed heads in a dry plant display. A vogue that is set to return in force now people are beginning to forget the amount of dust that dried plants seem toInstead melt the ice with a pan of hot water. attract. The reed mace (Typha angustifolia) and even the Norfolk Reed (Phragmites australis) can be put to ornamental use. But beware they can be as much as a time bomb indoors as out, because at a certain times of dryness and humidity they can just deposit their seed head like an exploding dumper truck. Also impress upon any resident cats that a reed mace (bulrush) frond is not their Christmas present. To them it looks like a cross between a barbequed anorexic mole and a mouse kebab and definitely something to be torn apart, purely for scientific research of course!

What to do with the water garden in OCTOBER

This is probably the most important month in the UK for keeping on top of things water garden and gardening wise, so what should be done? Things can be looking a bit drab, any work done now has its dividends later on.

Any plants with leaves that are rotting into the pond should have these carefully removed. This should be an ongoing task for those of you in particular that have small ponds since they are so much more affected by the seasonal swings of growth and decay, cold and heat. With larger ponds, you can only attend to the fringes, but keeping these areas tidy and under control does make a big difference in the longer story of the ponds life.

It will be getting noticeably colder by the day and leaves have been falling for some time. This year an early quick change in temperature has started the leaf fall earnest, therefore for ponds surrounded by trees the leaf nets should be and covering the ponds already.

For those ponds too big to be netted, a bit of 'netting-off' of the surface and a bit of investigative dredging all helps to delay the day of a big clear out. Of course if the smell and the evidence on the dredging is that that day has now arrived then this is probably one of the most opportune moments to clear out – as long as it stays mild that is.

Remove any dead leaves before they sinkto the bottom of the pond.Now September is a time for clearing off decaying vegetation on plants in and around the pond. Some of the marginals could have been cut back to one third and may have flowered again. With very small ponds, if you can reach the dying leaves of the lilies or the faded flowers see if you can snip them off before they fall to the bottom of the pool. Dont tug on them too hard as this may damage the rhizome.

This year some of the trees in the UK, particularly birch and mountain ash are calling an early close to the season. This means small leaves blowing around and inevitably into the pond. Try to make a routine of netting this off.

This adventitious growth could make a new plant is removed and potted up.You can collect offcuts from the plants if you want to propagate them. Just pull them off or cut them neatly as they emerge from a basket. If they have developed root hairs then they will be guaranteed to establish in any good heavy loam set in a well-drained pot sitting in about 2inches, 5cm of water.
It may be time to replace tired and overgrown plants in the marginal baskets next month, so these will be a useful replacement.
Lilies should be the main attraction now along with the Fringe lily, Nymphoides peltata. A few bog plants like the Ligularias, the Lobelias and Astilbes may be putting on a show. This is when the robust foliage plants like the Hostas, Rodgersias,Rheums, Peltiphyllum and Petasites come into their own.

Koi keepers want to be feeding fish with good quality food to build them up for the winter. Be particularly careful not to over feed as usual. As the water cools there may be a greater susceptibility to parasites and disease. Keep a close eye on them checking for signs of 'flashing', quick movements that involve flipping onto their sides or rubbing hard against the pond sides , rocks or planting baskets. This may indicate parasites. Look also for fungal growth and bits hanging off them. Any outward signs of malaise must be treated immediately.

Even low levels of chlorine and chloramines can be extremely toxic to fish. Chlorine is a very powerful oxidizing agent and it is toxic to fish at concentrations of less than 0.05 mg/L. Water used for fish culture should not contain any residual chlorine to be considered safe. Chlorine and chloramines cause gill damage which eventually results in gill lesions. These lesions will eventually thicken the gill filaments leaving the fish unable to utilize oxygen and release carbon dioxide, thus resulting in fish death. Many of the 'Chlorine removers' (in liquid-form) from your aquatic store  will work to break the chlorine and chloramine bonds (chlorine + ammonia = chloramine) and reduce the chlorine and ammonia down to non-toxic levels.

Many of these chlorine removers contain sodium thiosulfate, which is widely used to break down chlorine and chloramines and is considered non-toxic to fish. Sodium thiosulfate was chosen because it provides a very effective solution for use in water gardens and ponds because of its ability to break the chlorine bond and chemically remove the chlorine after a short working time. Aeration of the water (which the majority of water gardens have present) will allow the ammonia, which was released from the chlorine bond, to escape as a gas over a period of one to two hours. Any remaining ammonia will be filtered out through flow through filters which most often contain activated carbon or some type of filter material.

Best used for regular water changes and when filling a new pond. Manufacturer recommends not putting in any fish or plant life until a day after treatment to be safe. This should give any residual ammonia enough time to escape or filter out.

           
     As you look down into that persistent pea soup gloom which seems forever to be the colour of your pool water and also an image of how you feel after a really bad day, just think what itsTypical algae that may populate any pond anywhere in the world like for those that live down there.
     Everyone knows that that 'peasoupy' colour is caused by millions of microscopic single celled beings classified as plants. They come in a myriad of forms; 20,000 distinct species in fact. Many of them are more like peculiar basic forms of animals, with whip-like flagellae or countless hairy cilia that flick backwards and forwards to propel them through their universe; there are some that are like threads of green hair or bristles that attach themselves to some stable underwater surface; others can be globs of jelly or even just a frothy scum that floats on the water surface. These are the algae, classified as plants because they contain the substance chlorophyll, which enables them to synthesise sugars and starches from carbon dioxide and water, using sunlight. A by-product from this process is oxygen, which is great for the animal life of the pool or pond where there are not enough higher plants in the environment to fulfil the same role.

     But life ain't all basking in sunlight and flagellating around you know. These guys have their problems. It's stressful out there and it's so crowded, crowded with fellow beings that just wont letup their none stop consuming and proliferation. And what is it like to be so small that even the individual molecules of water are like massive globs of greasy jelly that you are constantly squeezing through? What is more, in amongst it all, there are cruising huge Titanic bugs and beasties that only have algae on their minds for breakfast, lunch and tea!

Discovery of Cancer Fighting Chemical in Blue-Green Algae

This was the headline in "The Honoloulou Adviser" February 9th, 1996. Edwin Tanji reported that researchers Richard Moore and Gregory Patterson had found that a naturally occuring chemical in Blue-green algae was a very effective inhibiting agent of tumor growth.

Cryptophycin was the chemical and one of several "very powerful chemicals" that were contained in the pond scum. Work is now underway to produce it synthetically in a form for testing on humans, hopefully within two years. This is under a contract drawn out by Eli Lily and Co. The findings were further endorsed by research at Wayne State University which showed that cryptophycin "will inhibit cancer cells but have less effect on normal cells". This report came to me from an article in "The Water Garden Journal" Summmer 96 - the journal for the International Water Lily Society. In it Jack Honeycutt of the IWLS adds that blue-green algae is being used by AIDS patients and sufferers, either as a cure or to treatment for Aids. The information was available on the internet.

Here is the Wikepedia insert on Crytophycin:
“Definition- Cryptophycin is a potent cytotoxin produced by cyanobacteria of the genus Nostoc. It is also a promising drug in many cancer therapies.
Mode of Operation- Cryptophycin works by attacking the tubulin microfilaments found in eukaryotic cells and thereby preventing cell division and reproduction. The main hypothesis as to why the blue-green algae produce this energetically expensive compound is that it is used as a strong anti-fungal agent in order to prevent fungus or other types of algae from competing with the blue-green algae for nutrients and sunlight. This is necessary because the algae have no means of physically evading organisms that would settle on them or above them and block the sunlight that they need in order to photosynthesize. It has been found that the amount of cryptophycin being produced by any one alga at any given time depends on the current environmental conditions. The compound must be able to distinguish between destroying those microtubules that are foreign and its own cells so it has evolved to recognize cells which are proliferating too quickly to be its own cells by an as yet unknown mechanism. This property of cryptophycin allows it to recognize cancerous tumor cells, even those of “solid tumors” such as those in brain, colon, ovarian, prostate, pancreas, lung and breast cancers and it can destroy the cells of multi-drug resistant (MDR) tumors. These are the cancers that chemotherapy has the least ability to treat and account for eighty-five percent of all cancer deaths in the United States (Back, 2005).”

January 1954....Scientist researching for the U.S. Department for the interior reported that algae in contact with submerged concrete blocks caused their complete disintegration.

At one point the safety of the Manhattan bridge in New York was in jeopardy as engineers were being confounded bywhat was causing the disintegration of the foundations. It was algae.

Algae is a term that covers a vast range of relatively simple plants. They come as a single cell, a colony of cells in a filament, tube, strand or within a membrane. They are plants since they have chlorophyll within their cell structure. In the presence of carbon dioxide and, absolutely essentially, sunlight a process of photosynthesis is activated producing starch and related substances. Given phosphorus, nitrogen and someDifferent sorts of freshwater pollution algae other substances they can also build up proteins. During this process carbon dioxide is absorbed and oxygen is released.

All plants and animals 'respire'; that is absorbing oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide. During the action of
Photosynthesis in plants, the production of oxygen exceeds by far the normal respiration of the organism. Algae as plants also naturally produce oxygen in sunlight. This oxygen is utilised by all the other inhabitants of the environment. In the pond environment, aerobic bacteria are the first in the chain of living things to utilise oxygen. They use it to process decaying organic matter back into compounds that are accessible for nutrition by plant life and are not toxic and non-polluting non-polluting to fish and even to man. It is estimated that the algae that lives in the sea provides 90% of the oxygen for the planet.

This alone makes algae one of the keystones to the existence of life on earth. Combine this with the essential role within the food chain of life in water we will see that the presence of algae is an essential ingredient to every water world from ocean to puddle, and as it happens, even every polluted ditch to everysceptic lagoon.

Photosynthesis allows plants to produce material such as the starches and oils from the inorganic elements in the environment to build the structure for the cell walls of the plant. Animals cannot do this but need carbohydrate for their own cell growth and structure. If were a very, very small animal then the basic ingredients of your larder will be algae, algae and more algae and you in turn will be meat for a larger animal.

Our usual mental pictures of algae are through the problems they cause. We only 'see' them when they 'bloom'. At various times of year and during certain conditions different species thrive to such an extent that they discolour water, usually green, or float in mats on the surface of the water in jelly like blobs or like green soggy candy floss. These are indicative of very particular conditions in that environment to cause that effect and it when they are causing a problem. But like a headache, algae growth is generally a symptom of some other underlying cause.

Natural style stream in Forest of Dean Sandstone by Peter MayCheck when the leakages occur. Is it when a fountain is in operation?

Is it only when the waterfall is in operation?