Mamuang, It sounds like you know I'm a big proponent of mounds. Please let me take a moment and explain why. In my location I could never get peach trees to do very well when planted on flat ground. I used to loose lots of peach trees. I'd read in the literature that peach trees need well drained soil, but the literature makes that statement for pretty much all fruit trees. They don't tell you peach trees need it much more than most other trees (about the only tree that needs well drained soil more than peach is apricot). At some point I visited a commercial peach orchard in the area. He told me to grow successful peach trees in this area they must be planted in a mound/terrace. The combination of loosing lots of peach trees, watching many of them languish, and visiting with the peach orchardist finally made me realize I needed to do something about drainage. Still, I resisted mounds at that point because I already had many trees planted. Instead, I ended up tiling the orchard area. We dug a 4' ditch around the orchard area and put in gravel and field tile to drain the water away. This helped quite a bit, but I noticed some of the trees were still water stressed (too much water). I spent a lot of money, but it still didn't completely solve my problem. That's when I decided I would not plant another peach tree unless it was in a mound/terrace. For existing trees I didn't want to remove, I started mulching very lightly (vs. heavy mulching) which seemed to reduce the stress of water logging. But still trees in mounds outperform trees in the ground. That's why I think I can say in this area mounds are the number one cultural principle to having healthy peach trees. Probably the second most important is mulch. Peach trees are not generally all that competitive. Their roots are fairly shallow and so have to directly compete with turf and weeds. Some other fruit trees (like apples and pears) send down deeper roots and don't have to compete as much with other plants. Mulch reduces the root competition as well as foliage competition with weeds/grass. It keeps the soil temps more stable and keeps the soil moisture stable. Lastly, mulch is a constant slow release fertilizer. If you think about it from the plants perspective. Mounds provide perfect drainage (It's impossible to water log a mound regardless of how much rain you get.) Mulch reduces all competition, provides a uniform soil moisture and fertilizes at the same time. It's the ultimate protective environment (Only a well managed green house provides more protection). One other thing that reduces stress (and consequently increases vigor) is that I thin early. I have a lot of trees to thin and regardless that we work as fast as we can, it still takes a while to thin all the trees. I notice right after I thin, not only do I see an immediate bump in fruitlet size, but the trees will start putting on more vegetative growth as well. Removing 80% of the fruit takes a huge load/burden off them and they respond accordingly. I'd guess I'd sum up my response to your question as mounds, mulch, and thinning without delay. All that said, I actually have more vigor than I want. It's not that I think mulch reduces fruit quality. I don't know if you saw it, but there was a good thread on this forum a few days ago about the effect of N on fruit quality. I think it was pretty much agreed too little or too much N reduces quality. I think the removal of competition the mulch creates, as well as having a healthy root structure (from the mounds) naturally produces trees with lots of vitality. The N from the mulch adds to that. Only once have I noticed the fruit suffer from too much N, and that was when I was mulching heavily with fresh grass clippings. I've sold to many customers who have their own backyard peach trees (they don't get fruit from them routinely because the trees are pretty much unmanaged). As a general rule they tell me my peaches exceed theirs for flavor. One customer told her husband they need to just cut their peach tree down and buy my peaches:-) My biggest problem with all the vigor is it causes too much pruning. I have to remove about 50% of the canopy each season to keep the trees at the height I want. I prune in the summer, but I'm trying to get more aggressive about it to see if I can't slow the growth down a bit.

My first guess on the Clown with the missing fins would be a bacterial infection, not attacks from the other Clown. But water changing only every other week may be the real cause of your problems. The best means of mantaining a healthy tank is frequent water changes, the more frequent the better. If you think about the total, a 10% change daily is better than a 50% weekly. Or, a 25% change 2 X wk, is still better than 50% 1 x week, because the fish are swimming in their toilets and toilets need to be flushed after every use. That's why breeders with many tanks eventually go to flow through systems with automatic drain-outs & refills, as it allows the "toilets" to flush on a continual basis, just as it does in nature. As for cooling down the water: A bag of ice cubes made from fresh conditioned water is always handy to have around when the ambient air gets hotter than the desired tank temp. Or, fill a bunch of small heavy weight zip bags and stack them in the freezer until you need them. Just open the bag and set it in the tank and as it melts, the ice will slip out, melt and add some fresh water to the tank.

You could soak the ground with water first and then try to dig them out. But if you want to use herbicide, just scratch the bark until you see green and then dab herbicide on the cuts with a foam brush. I think that would work better than drilling holes. The living layer is just under the bark's surface. Layer of compost not needed (use that for plants that you want to thrive, not kill). You could cover with wood chips for appearances. Fall is a good time to plant shrubs and trees. Early November is the best in Georgia. Perennials are usually planted in spring, but now is a good time to divide them (and of course that means you are replanting them).

Ok, we bought our wave touch french door fridge on may 2010. Nothing but problems!!! First it made ice, but not consistently. It would sometimes make a batch and then just stop. you would have to turn the ice maker off and then back on (almost like resetting it?)... Then we also had issues with the LED's in the wave touch panel burning out (twice). Problem is you cant just replace the bulb. Good thing its still under warranty because they have to replace the whole wave touch panel. Then in April of 2011 the ice maker quit working completely. We had service people come out 5 times until they figured out the problem. The way these ice makers make ice, is there is a bunch of small steel cylinders in which water surrounds them. Once ice has formed the unit then heats up the small steel cylinders and the ice melts and falls off them into the tray. Well the heater broke and so ice was made but could not release into tray. Waited on parts from april till the end of july. In which I wrote Electrolux head office an email stating all the issues. I will say the customer service from electrolux was great, they replaced our fridge with a brand new one. We recieved our new electrolux wave touch fridge. And it looks like they changed the ice maker up. It no longer uses the steel cylinders to make ice. It looks more like the regular way fridges make ice now.. I have only had it for about 6 hours now, so I will update after we have had it for a few months to review again. Hope this heps.