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Nice natural looking structure, creative, but I'm not sure that your flt'n island plan has enough open exposure to the water column to get large masses of roots into the pond which is the concept of a flt'n island. Plants will grow in it but will they provide optimum or even good benefit to water quality? If your goal is just to have a novelty island your plan should work okay. The middle zone of roots between holes could become anaerobic.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 05/25/12 10:37 AM.

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Bill Cody #293379 05/25/12 10:30 AM
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John, That looks awesome. Can't wait to see that in the water. if I did something like that I'm sure I would have geese nesting on it. (give me something to shoot at though............During season of coarse)


"If you aim at nothing you'll hit it every time"

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John
In aquaponics floating raft systems small "net" pots are put into appropriate size holes
In the blueboard and the roots of the plants dangle into the h2o

I think this would work well for your application, but would only work for water loving plants

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John that's a great looking island, especially the way you terraced the foam and gave it the rocky look, can't wait to see it floating and planted.
Also if you decide to have more roots growing out the bottom you could cut some larger holes and glue plastic netting over them, the netting I used on my island held the dirt well with just newspaper cover and by the time the paper disintergrated the roots and netting held the dirt.



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Last year I tried to grow a vegetable plant {Swiss chard I think it was} in a small floating island.
The idea was to have the roots dangle in the water and draw nutrients from the water. Something like this plant holding cup.

The cup was set in this for a floating grow island experiment.

The plant was green for a while and then turned yellow and died. To find out more about floating islands around the world and in the ancient past I did searches on the internet and mostly found the plants grown on the islands were planted in a medium above the water. I found one guy in the Philippines growing food on his floating islands in his small pond with the roots dangling into the water and no growing medium. The plants turned yellow and most died or were sickly. The roots turned black from the unfiltered natural pond water. Then he had a small section of his pond blocked off and filtered pond water was pumped into this section and these floating island plants were big and healthy, and had white roots. This is the reason that I decided to keep the roots from dangling in the water. Then the question I have is why do some floating water plants thrive in unfiltered water like hyacinth? Some commercially sold islands have a direct root to water system I think. So if they do work, why do they work? Special plants? Perhaps you could grow in a dirt medium and also have the root dangle down into the water and have the best of both worlds. Maybe I can run three experiments at the same time. The all dirt and no roots dangling as my island will be with water being wicked by rope to the plants. Also maybe on the island one plant growing in soil with root dangling in the water so at least some of the roots are filtered, and one plant with roots only in the water. I’ll think about that if I don’t get to side tracked.


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Here's another idea
In an aquaponics raft system those plants that "raft" above airstones
Grow bigger and faster than those not above airstones
This is not a DO effect as this has been measured
The thought is the disturbance of the roots stimulates growth

I think if you placed the island over the aerator/ diffuser you would also get better growth
And no black funky root balls

And yes only certain plants will tolerate wet roots all the time




Last edited by gallop; 05/26/12 05:54 AM.
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Gallop I think that is a good idea. If I had electric at my pond I would try it.


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Darn

I was already envisionIng you paddling to your island to harvest your dinner salad

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Looking great, John. There are some interesting thoughts in the other posts on how to set up your plants for growth. I was thinking of a growing medium on the island but big holes like your one pic that allow the pot to sit down in the water so the roots have exposure to both water and dirt (or other medium). Definitely interested in your progress as I haven't yet had time to even begin working on my island.


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John - are you still looking at red flowers for the hummers? I just started some Hibiscus Coccineus AKA Swamp Hibiscus - both the Texas Red Star and Texas White Star - and have been quite happy with them (have them sitting in a child's wading pool). You can start them by seed (I got 95%+ germination), they're perennials, happy in full sun to part shade, and they're hardy down to zone 6a.... just a thought if you are wanting something tall that will come back year after year.

That's going to be a great looking island!

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Perhaps tomorrow I can put the island in the pond and plant it. Full Circle I have two flats of petunias ready for planting but I am saving your idea for later consideration.

Here is where the island stands now. The ropes for drawing up water into the medium are in as is the anchor rope. You can see the two cups for the experiments. The clear cup will allow the plant to only have it's roots in water and there is a foam insert in it that will hold the plant upright, while the red cup will allow the roots to be in the water and also to grow into the soil. The rest of the plants will just grow into soil moistened by the ropes.




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The foam island is on the water and floats well while holding 4 cubic feet of medium. Before I plant it I will leave it for a day or so to see if the ropes are drawing water into the medium.






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The floating island looks natural and nice. I'm interested to see what its 'life span' is. Sometimes the plant mass when thick can keep it floating.


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i may have missed it when I read. That whole thing is a big chunk of foam? Looks good. Very natural.
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Bill I just got in from planting the Petunias on the island. The blue and pink foams are closed cell and should virtually last forever and not water log. I put a piece in the pond last summer and didn't take it out until a month ago and it was unaffected by anything. My bottom layer of foam is 1 1/2 inches thick and I believe I could lay on it and float. The outside of the foam is a rather hard plastic after using the heat gun on it and should take some puninishment. The paint might deteriorate but that would be a quick fix. After leaving it out over night the ropes did draw some water into the medium but whether it is enough, well see. I'll let the flowers grow for a week or two and post a picture.


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This is yesterdays planting so when the flowers grow up I will post one more picture then. The island is attached to an old boat cement anchor so I can move the island to any spot and keep it there.





Last edited by John Monroe; 06/05/12 01:48 AM.

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Looks great, John! Nice work!


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John, that is a perfect picture of serenity! It really looks good. How wet was your soil when you planted? Are you happy with the wicking action?

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This is what I have noticed so far. Originally I put the 4 cubic feet of a complete and fertilized medium on the island and heaped it up towards the middle somewhat and left it dry for two days while floating in the water. Then I checked if the ropes were wicking and there was moist medium of the bottom quarter, so it was working. I planted on the third day while in chest waders so I could stand up, bad back. I splashed water onto the medium and planted, then splash lots more water on it. We have not had any rain for a couple of weeks and the wind has been blowing but I noticed from shore that the medium was staying dark from moisture. I waded out to see if the ropes could be adding that much moisture and noticed that the middle of the bottom 1 1/2 inch foam was just under water so that would allow water to seep into the medium and make the medium really heavy. The flowers look really good so far and I don't see any yellowing of the leaves from too much moisture but I am checking closely every day. If there should be too much moisture I can do an easy fix by slipping a 1 1/2" x 12" x 4 feet piece of foam under the middle of the island to lift it some and then push some wires through the structure to hole it in place. But I got to thinking, maybe simple islands made this way to sink the middle just enough to allow water to soak the medium would make good growing float for salad foods. Just a thought. But so far all the plants look good including the plant with it's roots in water alone and the plant that has it's root in water and soil. I'll keep you informed guys and add a picture now and then as the flowers grow. And I wanted turtles to sun themselves on the island and I do have one turtle on the island everyday.


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It's been about a week since I planted the petunias and they are growing very well and the leaves are not yellowing from the constantly moist soil. The flowers seem to be thriving probably because the medium had fertilizer already in it. I planted some spinach mustard seeds along the ends of the island to see how they would do. Maybe strawberry plants next year in a setup like this. I did put a piece of 2"x14"x 4' foam under the center of the island to push it up a little so as to not flood the medium quite so much.




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That looks good John!


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I was wondering how your island was doing - those petunias are stunning! Prior to your island, I had limited my plans to bog and water plants. Thank you for expanding my options/thinking. Looks great!

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That is simply beautiful!

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John that island looks fantastic, the foam really looks like rock, hope everything grows well.



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I will update the island every couple of weeks to see what is happening. Yesterday we had 90 degree heat with 15 to 20 mph winds and the growing medium stays moist all the time. I planted spinach mustard greens along the ends about 3 days ago to see what happens and they are up already. The seed package said germination would take 7 to 16 days so the moist hothouse conditions are great for quick germination it seems. I made the island with the ends stair stepped so turtles could sun themselves on it and the other day I had a turtle on one end and a big bullfrog on the other end but I didn't have my camera with me.


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