Hey I just "re-finished" my pond! I am looking for others who have water gardens too! I have several lillies that are in a tub that need to be divided---I have white, pink, yellow --all are unmarked but I would be willing to trade some for other colors! I may place an order soon with texaswaterlilies.com if anybody is interested in joining me.

Hello fellow water gardener! I love to make things grow as well. Right now my challenge is growing Lotus from seed. I do have red and salmon lilies and a variety of other water plants. My yard is a mass of plants and grass as well as my three water gardens. Good to know you are out there.

i too am an avid water gardener. don't need any lilies, but would be interested in any other hardy submersed aquatics. i have some bog plants i could share including pennywart, water celery, a reed grass from MN that looks like water chestnut, and cress.

i also breed goldfish. my advice to any water gardener is don't get Koi unless you have a 20,000 gallon pond that is 3 feet deep and has no plants. koi are just not appropriate for small ponds and goldfish are just as hardy (and better looking in my opinion). i have two tanks of fry that are culls from my breeding. i have a hard time killing something that has more potential than a pet store fish. the fish i have are culls from Tosakin. they will look very little like tosakin when grown. one batch has a single tail and will look like a Shubunkin, but will be metallic orange and white another way to describe them is like a shorter and fatter Sarassa Comet. the actual japanese name is slipping my mind. these are available now but are very small, but will grow fast. if you don't have larger fish that will eat them you could throw them right in. the other batch will look more like a tosakin or fan tails, but are lacking in some way. they will be mutch slower swimmers and have a long doublr tail. they will display well from a top view and will also make decent pond fish. they are small as well. thy all will become fish food to their parents if i don't find them a home. love to trade, but will be just as happy to just give them to a good pond. don't be shy i have several hundred.

i am really into Japanese top-view fish. i keep tosakin, ranchu, and just ordered some jikin. these are not pet store breeds and can run in the thousands for a single show quality fish (mine are not that good, yeti keep hoping). i have nobody to talk fish or share stock with locally. all the guys i talk with are out of state and in different countries. if you or anybody out there is into or wants to get into japanese style fish, i really need a local support group. i can teach you anything you need to know if you are new and would lover to learn from and argue with any who are seasoned. it is a wonderful hobby that is more of an art form than anything. it does take a lot of time and can become an expensive pastime as the fish are addictive and can be pricey. please contact me if any of this interests you. if you are a ponder or fish keeper and these breeds are new to you, do a google image search for pictures or go to youtube.

i am also looking for white or yellow lotus, aquatics, water chestnuts, frogs/toads/tadpoles/newts or anything fun.

Aquawise, if you are having problems with the lotus rotting before they root, add pond snails. they will eat off any fungus or rot before you see it. if you have an aquarium with fish and snails, keep them in there until you see the first roots and you will likely not have any rotting. i have had much better success than the water changing method. apple snails can sometimes start to eat the seed, smaller snails work better. if they start to eat the seed, bury it in the gravel.

I beg to differ on the Koi part, I have a 1600 gal. pond with Koi 30" and smaller. They are all healthy and happy. I also have a few gold fish in with them. I have 3 ponds. Lots of plants in ALL of the pond, the fish do not eat the plants at all. The lotus are growing good. where do you live? I am 5 miles east of Richfield, ut. I have 4 tanks of fish in the house as well as 2 that are not in use right now. There are a lot of breeds of goldies that I have never herd of. I would love to learn of them. glad you are out there . There is a forum call utahpondtalk.com, I have some pics, on there. As pondlady. good to chat.

oops, i meant 2,000. 20,000 is a decent swimming pool! my point being that koi get big. so many people buy 6" koi for their 50 gallon pond. it is like buying an elephant for a pet when you live in an apartment.

i would defer to you on all koi matters as i don't keep them. i have heard that they can and will dig up plants if they are not potted right (with gravel or rocks on top of soil). maybe it is a generality, or based on isolated instances rather than the rule. what have you experienced?

i chat with a koi breeder who only keeps goldfish on the side. we always give each other crap about who has uglier fish. no offense intended about liking goldfish more. koi have more variety in scales and color intesity and goldfish have more diversity in shape. it is just preference and what catches your eye. frankly koi scare me. i like to know my fish cannot get it's mouth over my little finger. all fish are great. i have even kept tropicals in my ponds before. live bearers such as plattys, mollys, guppies, and swordtails make great mosquito control if anybody needs thatthey are cheap and can live in very small places, but won't overwinter.

love to talk goldfish if you have any questions, please ask. i keep tosakin, jikin, ranchu, pearlscales and butterflies (nothing like butterfly koi, they are a telescope eye with a tail the shape of a butterfly when viewed from above). i have also kept moores, fantails and ryunkin as well.

the best place to see different breeds in one place is at http://www.bristol-aquarists.org.uk/goldfish/goldfish.htm
there are over 300 breeds in asia. youtube has many of them if you know the name you can find them, or just type goldfish and look for those you have never seen before. i still find things that surprise me. there are good videos of ranchu which is the most popular and respected fish in Japan. there are also some tosakin which are gaining popularity in Japan. each area has it local breed in japan. my favorite breed is the izumo nankin which can be viewed on youtube as well.

i am in SLC by the way.

glad the lotus are doing well. it is all or nothing with them it seems. some people struggle and others have 100% success. i always struggled until i quit trying to grow them and just let them grow. the snails made the difference for me.

k

I have some very nice fantails, but what I really had my eye on was the panda ones. They were beautiful I have a small pond that's 300 gals, It would be great for some of them. I have had moores but there eyes seem to be a problem for me with fungus so I quit putting them in the ponds. I felt sorry for them. thanks , I do have LARGE Koi the are gentle and non destructive. I believe it is because they grew up in a planted pond, and were well fed so the plants were and are left alone.

By now you must have discovered that Gardenweb has a Ponds & Aquatic Plants forum. I have not followed it so I don't know about the quantity and quality of information. One day I just discovered it was there.

I would prefer to chat with folks closer to home, seems like people out there are not up to chatting with utahns much. I do have a very fat fantail the smaller males are after her all the time, she does not seem ready to spawn. What is the best media to use form them to do so ? never had a spawn before. So I don't really know much about it. Some behavior and such but the actual event.