On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 14:01:36 +0100, Sacha
wrote:
On 20/7/07 13:22, in article ,
"Steve Wolstenholme" wrote:
On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 12:13:38 +0100, Sacha
wrote:
Someone has suggested grass carp for the duckweed problem on one of our
ponds. But the general impression I get from the little I read is that they
grow to enormous sizes, are lake fish and are banned in US because they
devastate lake vegetation. Does anyone here have any experience of these in
UK and ponds, not lakes?
I haven't had any for about 40 years. They weren't much trouble. They
only grow to their huge size while there is lots of food available.
Once they have eaten your duckweed and every other plant in your pond.
The problem with grass carp is they don't look very nice and are a bit
messy if they need to dig up the pond.
Steve
Matthew now tells me he put some in the oldest pond some years ago! Trouble
is, he can't remember what they look like or where he got them...! I'm not
sure he's remembering the right thing because that pond is full of
oxygenating weed, which nothing is eating!
There are lots of places that stock grass carp. Try Google. If the
pond still has a lot of weeds then maybe they weren't grass carp. It's
worth remembering that it is only the young grass carp that feed on
plants. Mature ones are a bit fussy. There is a few plants that grass
carp don't eat unless the are starving. They won't eat plants if
someone is feeding them. Grass carp are a boring silvery gray. Unlike
other carp their mouth tends to turn down.
Steve
--
Steve Wolstenholme Neural Planner Software Ltd
EasyNN-plus. The easy way to build neural networks.
http://www.easynn.com