"Roy" wrote in message
...
I have a nice light yellow butterfly koi in my wifes 1/2 barrel, along
with 2 shubunkins. These fish are ravenous plant eaters. I can feed
them constantly, and they will still devour all the roots off plants,
and gobble up duckweed and fairy moss at an alarming rate. I liked
having frog bit in this half barrel, but the roots always were eaten
in short order, and then the plants never seemed to flourish...

So along came a brainstorm. I found some expanded plastic meshed oval
shaped trays in Big Lots.......I used to use these trays to carry
frogbit etc from the big pond to the half barrel, or use em as a
skimmer net. I found that they wold actually float........so I figured
if they float, and are made of a close mesh plastic material, then if
I float them in the half barrel and place frogbit and other floating
plants in them, the roots shold stay safe for the most part except for
the roots that grow out of these 3 or 4 inch deep trays. So I placed a
tray ful of frog bit and some fairy moss into the half barrel...Days
later they are starting to show signs of becoming yellow looking and
most all of the fairy moss is gone. I did not pull any of the plants
out, just figured it was a stage they were going through since I moved
them from one pond to another......but last night I went to feed the
fish in the barrel and found the Koi and one shubunkin inside the tray
lazily munching away at the roots.......and a check revelaed most all
of the roots gone........those critters would get inside and have a
feast, all along I was thinking the roots were safe!

I have only found two plants that they do not eat.......parrots
feather and sensitive fern, although they will clean off any small
hair like roots from the sensitive fern, but they do not touch the
leaves at all..
Visit my website: http://www.frugalmachinist.com
Opinions expressed are those of my wife,
I had no input whatsoever.
Remove "nospam" from email addy.

Outsmarted by a Goldfish.

Where did you get the trays Roy? I was thinking of something similar for the
aquarium to protect the Water Hyancinth from the GF. I don't think they
could jump into these because of the glass canopy.