water hyacinth

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Calling Sissy! Wasn't it you who put the water hyacinth in miracle grow to give them a boost? I should have asked how you did it first, but I decided to wing it. I may have goofed.

I got a nice shallow underbed storage tote and filled with water and some miracle grow. It was a pretty blue. I think I put in about a quarter cup of granules. I got the hyacinth out of their floating corral and put them in. I noticed that the edges of some of the leaves were starting to curl a bit. I thought I was imagining it. I looked a little while later -- nope. They are curling. Hmmmm. Too much fertilizer? So I added more water.

They were looking worse after about an hour, then I thought -- CHLORINE! I added a bit of dechlorinator, then a bucket of pond water.

It's been several hours and I'm wondering if I've done irreparable damage. I hope not!

What do you think? In the interest of full disclosure, this is also how I cook. I don't always measure or think it through when I'm making something. It seldom ends well... :)
 

cas

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tee hee...when I tried it, I put in too much fertilizer too.
Here are my notes until Sissy chimes in:
You can fertilize water hyacinths and water lettuce by soaking them in a bucket with a dilute solution of liquid fertilizer such as Miracle Gro for 5 days. You want high nitrogen fertilizer not bloom boosters which are high phosphorus. Then rinse them off and put back into the pond. The recommendation for using a Miracle-Gro type soluble fertilizer in an aquatic situation is 1 tsp in 5 gal as opposed to the usual 1 tsp per gallon.
 
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@cas - did you hurt your plants that first time? Did they survive? I hope I haven't really hurt them. The roots look beautiful, though. All fluffed out and "happy."
 

sissy

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I only put in 2 tablespoon fulls in a concrete mixing tub .I collect rain water and even when I rinse my filters off if I know they need a boost I use that .They will survive as long as you dilute the miraclegrow .When I use the 300 gallon stock tank I use a half cup of miracle grow .Water just needs a very light tint of blue
 

cas

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did you hurt your plants that first time
They didn't look too good starting off, but they looked worse when I was done. I put them back in the pond and they survived - but never looked good. As my pond has matured over the years, the pH and plants have increased and water hyacinths just don't grow for me. Here is a picture of the pond in 2005 and 2015. The water hyacinths are circled.
comparison hyacinths 2004 and 2015.jpg
 
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My pH is at 8. I have a lot of plants. I'm wondering if the pH will eventually naturally lower -- doesn't decaying organic stuff make the water more acidic? (with lower pH?) I have a skimmer, which catches a lot of stuff, but some ends up sinking. I'm hoping this will be a part of the natural balancing-out of the pond environment. None of my plants seem particularly happy, and I'm wondering if it has something to do with the higher-than-neutral pH.
 
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I've had the same thought @bagsmom - our pH did come down all on it's own over time. We don't test our water anymore, but in year 4 I was fooling around with some pH strips (doing some fermenting) and thought "what the heck". Checked the water and was surprised to see the results.
 

cas

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My yellow and blue flag iris seem to thrive no matter what. It is just the water hyacinths that I have noticed haven't liked the changes. .
Have you tried fertilizing your new plants? I think Meyer posted this in another thread and I moved it to my notes. "The assumption that the fish waste (ammonia) will supply all the required nutrients is not true. At some point the plants will slow or even stop growing due to a deficiency in one of the other required nutrients. Fish poop provides nitrogen and phosphorus, and a few other trace elements but it contains no potassium, no usable iron or magnesium and very little sulfur or calcium."
I also have in my notes that Water hyacinths like water with a PH of 7 or lower – but that is not good for fish.
 

MoonShadows

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My pH is also 8. My cattails are growing very well, but my hyacinth looks dreadful. My Anacharis is starting to look better. I think one reason is because I don't have enough nutrients built up in the water yet, and the guy at the nursery told me the hyacinth will not do much until the weather is warmer.

I was writing this while cas was posting. I clipped Meyer's remarks. Good to know.
 
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Hyacinths do love the hot weather. I can't grow them in my big pond, but they do great in my patio pond and pondless waterfall. All the same water (we fill both from the pumping from the pond). I figure it's my fish eating the roots down to nubs. If I keep them contained where the fish can't get to them they do better but it's not worth the effort!
 

MoonShadows

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My comets don't seem interested in the plants at all. I have noticed that the roots of my hyacinth look bigger and healthier than when I put it in the pond. I also notice some new growth starting right in the middle of it above water last night. Too early to tell what it is going to be, and I don't know enough about hyacinths to say.
 
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We've been pretty hot already, although not our surface-of-the-sun-summer-hot. We had a couple days near ninety and def some 80s. (Way too hot in my book. Why am I here again? LOL) But probably there will be some improvement when it is consistently in the upper 80s. I entertained my neighbors with my circus act tree trimming yesterday. I have a redbud that has gone out of control. By cutting it back some, I think everything will get an additional hour of sun. Redbuds grow like dandelions down here!
@cas -- I did give each pot a fertilizer spike -- they are kind of neat -- little torpedo things about the size of a pinky finger -- with little holes. Supposed to deliver the fertilizer into the medium without going crazy in the water and causing an algae bloom. I hope they do good things for the plants! A few weeks ago I fertilized my shrubs in the yard and you can def. tell which ones were fed and which ones I still have to do.
Time and patience will tell with everything!
 

Meyer Jordan

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This is the primary reason that Water Hyacinth is not considered invasive and banned in Northern latitude states......it is basically a tropical plant and will not thrive (or survive) in cold weather. There is no chance of this plant choking out waterways as it does in warmer climates. Same is true of Water Lettuce.
 

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