Re: POND life vs. aquarium life

["James Purchase" <jppurchase at rogers_com>]

Poor Stephan Mifsud is feeling undersized:
"Everybody out there is calling a 6 ACRE BODY OF WATER a
pond!, so what's my 6 feet pond called in the US? a puddle?
a drip? : )

Hahahahahah! Your 6 foot pond is no bigger than my main living room display
tank, but I'm sure that it still gives you a great deal of pleasure. Its not
the size of the truck that matters, its the skill of the driver.........lol

Generally a "lake" is any body of water in which wind-induced turbulence
plays a major roll in the mixing of the water column. In a "pond", a more
gentle, temperature-induced mixing is the rule. Also, lakes quite often have
several inputs and outflows - streams/brooks/rivers running in or out of the
lake; ponds commonly have none or only small brooks providing fresh water
input. A lot has to do with size and depth but very few people would attempt
to make a lake - it would be a really big task. But a six acre pond, while
still a daunting prospect, could offer an aquarist with an interest in
aquatic plants a very nice challenge.

In a backyard pond, such as yours, you can safely use regular aquarium
plants, if you're careful that they don't escape and invade surrounding
ecosystems. But in something that covers 6 acres, an invasive exotic could
quite easily get out of control. And if you really think about it, there
really isn't any need to resort to non-natives for such a project. You
mentioned growing several species of Echinodorus. In a temperate zone pond,
this could be replaced by Alisma, the water plaintain. They are in the same
plant family as Echinodorus and Sagittaria, but occur in more northern
latitudes than Echinodorus and are winter hardy. A mature plant in full
bloom can look very impressive and is just as nice as a big Sword Plant in
an aquarium. Vallisneria (same species that we grow in aquariums), could
also be useful - and would be nice if it took over a large portion of the
bottom (imagine snorkelling over a bed of Vals on a summer afternoon). There
are several species of pond weeds (Potamogeton) which would also be
suitable. For floating leaves and flowers, both Spatterdock (Nuphar) and
Waterlily are winter hardy (and native). So you need not give up any beauty
nor variety by confining the selection of plants to natives. But I also
doubt that using one or two tropical water lilies would hurt anything, since
they couldn't survive a Pennsylvanian winter. Exotic tropicals only pose a
threat if they are winter hardy, but they are expensive to replace every
year. And in something as big as six acres, water birds like ducks are sure
to be frequent visitors. They could transfer seeds and even plant parts to
other bodies of water.

Its a "problem" I'd love to have........

James Purchase
Toronto