Really long story short: I'm debating cycling my trickle tower bins of water that I use for water changes. My well water is really frustrating. I am thinking of adding lighting and a lot of plants to help with the nitrate levels. Water hyacinth and water lettuce were recommended.
Questions:
1. I use cold water (avoiding the hot water heater) to refill the basement bins. Would water lettuce be able to handle going from 75 degree water to cold water once a week (until the water heats up again)?
2. What place would be best to look for this? I see in old posts Ritchies was mentioned.
Thanks :)
Karrie
How cold is 'cold'? I would think that water lettuce would be able to handle the shock, it's pretty hardy.
Ritchie's is a good place for it, but you can find it at any RONA or Home Depot this time of year in the garden centres. A lot of LFS carry it right now too but it's typically more pricy.
Cold is really cold - might have to use the hot water tank but I'd rather not.
Thanks for the heads up on Rona and Home depot. I'll check them out!!!
Alot of the better garden nurseries have water lettuce and other pond plants this time of year but they are pricey as PFG said. I bought lettuce and hyacinths at our local Loeb grocery store just 2 weeks ago. They had them in a trough of water.They were asking 4.99 a plant. hth :)
it needs a lot of light....but very hardy and reproduces very quickly!!
you'll enjoy them :)
I'm going to MTL in a couple weeks...I can see if I can bring some back from the pond for you if you want? no promises though...depending on how quickly you need it :)
I'd love it if you could bring some back from the pond. Let me know the cost as well.
Regarding the lighting - I have the bins in the basement which is fairly dark. I was thinking since its in the basement I don't care what it looks like. I have one of them spider arm lamps from home depot that could hold five bulbs.
The top bin where I would be putting the water lettuce is about 35 gallons. So would 5 13W curly bubls (1.86wpg) or 5 27w curly bulbs (3.86wpg) but the light wouldn't be directed via a canopy so a lot would be lost. I just don't want an algae factory. Advice????
Water lettuce is a very high light plant. It is a floating plant which normally gets direct sunlight. Noon day sunlight translates into approximately 10,000 foot candles (a foot candle is one lumen per square foot). Needless to say, its a ton of light, so having a weak light source several feet away from the water lettuce probably won't do the trick.
If you go to most LFS, you'll see they keep their water lettuce directly under a metal halide pendant...
good to know. I don't think I'll be keeping water lettuce :o
Hornwort is low light, cheep and a good nutrient export too. You should be able to find it here, at any pond plant place or the rideau river even ;)