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Be Plant Wise - Disposal of aquatic plants

A useful warning - a number of pond plants have become a costly nuisance in native habitats in the UK and Europe.

The problems in the US are far worse. The US Department of the Interior maintains a database of nonindigenous aquatic species in the States which contains many species which we grow in tanks here. Surprisingly many of the plants we devote much time and effort to grow have become a rampant nuisance in the US. The database contains for example - Blyxa, Cabomba, Ceratopteris, several Cryptocoryne species, Egeria, Hygrophila polysperma, Limnobium and many others. Well worth a look at the site - http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/SpeciesL ... oup=Plants to see some of our favourites growing out of control.
 
Interesting to see all the tropical invasive species in the US. I assume this is mostly in warm places like Florida, Carolina etc. At least this hard winter will have killed off many non-native species.
 
I received an order from Planted tanks this weekend, quite impressed that they actually included a leaflet about this Be Plant Wise campaign.
 
Voo - that is correct, all orders included this literature as I met with one of the representatives of OATA and DEFRA at the PATS show last week in Harrogate. Following a discussion about OATA and what they do for the industry the representative advised me about what DEFRA are currently petitioning with OATA to block.
The five plants in that leaflet are the key culprits and they are hoping to get these banned - I cannot lay my hands on a leaflet at the moment but I do know that Myriophyllum Aquaticum / Parrot Feather / Water Milfoil is going to be banned as it is particularly invasive. I also know that some of the hygros such as Willow and Corymbosa are on the potential hit list as is Difformis and some of the leaf ferns!. This I got notified by my consolidator about 2 weeks ago.
 
Great link, George. I followed it and stumbled onto http://www.pondconservation.org.uk/, which has lots more good pond advice. In fact it's made me realise I can put a couple of tiny wildlife ponds in my own garden - until finding Pond Conservation I didn't realise that a good wildlfe pond doesn't need to be more than 30cms deep, and most of it can be just two or three cms deep!
 
Hmm interesting one, I have often wondered the risks of contaminating rivers with alien plants and micro organisms. I once watched a documentary where a certain type of seaweed was totally destroying it's habitat and spreading fast, Jacques Cousteau investigated it only to find that it possibly came from the outlet pipe of one of his own aquaria.

http://www.miller-mccune.com/uncategori ... lgae-3707/

I compost all my cuttings and use my water to put on the garden but never realised how important that was. I have seen a few plants that look very similar to aquarium strains that I know are not indigenous to this country in local courses. I thought I was wrongly identifying them but it could be possible.
 
What i found slightly funny, is that they recommend you have a pond in the shade to reduce algae, which is what we have, but all the leaves fall off the tree's and make the pond go green anyway!
 
Frosties said:
I also know that some of the hygros such as Willow and Corymbosa are on the potential hit list as is Difformis and some of the leaf ferns!. This I got notified by my consolidator about 2 weeks ago.
Click to expand...

I am almost sure that Corymbosa and Difformis will survive the winter, will try this year..

I got a tank outside with some growing emersed and so far it has survived since march outside. The nights are getting cold now, but still going strong.
 
A sponsored swim on a Lake for charity round where I live had to be cancelled recently because of a bloom of BGA, apparently it can irritate the skin. Even a natural eco-system can be affected by the stuff so I'm not too embarrassed about my tank any more 😀

Out of curiosity when people complain about EC/Excel and possible skin irritations could there be a BGA link here :|
 
i've recently moved to a house up in the highlands with a septic tank that has a seep away into a small burn. that burn flows into a wider road drainage system which at some point ends up in a local river as far as i know (we are ten miles away from any large town). it's made me double up my efforts to make sure I compost all the clippings of aquatic plants I use. Rather then having them just float straight into a water system....

thankfully its the highlands and over 250m up but it's better safe then sorry. 🙂
 
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