Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Floating Island Question

I just read the floating island article in the latest issue of PB a couple of weeks ago and it further piqued my interest that I've had to add a floating island to my 1/2 acre pond. I couldn't tell from the article if Bruce Kania had built the islands out of his own design or if he bought them or what.

Anyone have any ideas on his product or sources for similar products? I'm somewhat embarrassed to also admit that I don't even know if Bruce is a forum member after all these years. If so, Bruce, please don't take offense!

Looks like a good way to attract flying toilets (Canada Geese).

Hey you asked for comments.

There is a fair amount of past topics and discussion here about floating islands. Try a search using the forum search or Google - Pond Boss floating island

Some people like geese. They do add nutrients to the lawn and pond. Nutrients can be good or bad.

Bruce leads the industry in inert substrate technology with his patented floating island design.As the article explains,he has proven the effeciency of adding these inert pvc products in ponds,lakes,wastewater treatment facilities to remove over abundant nutrients. He is a huge proponant of removing these chemicals naturally, without chemicals as nature intended.I have talked to him in great detail about his work amd the similarties in his products and our own. He feels we are at the top of our game in compact,user frienly sizes of habitat available,in an array of sizes,textures and shapes. Inert substrates do not rot or decay which means no loss of dissolved oxygen, year around,unlike natural products and vegetation. It comes down to creating enough surface area to allow the periphyton to adhere and take hold on. He explains how these types of products grow bio film/periphyton which is the best year round food available for fish. The excessive nutrients are transferred to the fish,helping them grow at unheard of rates.Not to be missed,is the need to harvest these fish on a regular basis to ultimately remove these nutrients so they don't return back into the water. Everyone should visit his site and get a full understanding of what he has achieved at Shepard in Montana. This is the leading science in the industry today and he has the data to back it. They will/can make any custom sized island to fit all needs,with over 4400 units in place worldwide,check it out!

Just popped the .22 mag at a couple of 'em last night on the small pond. Went out late just for fun and saw them roosting on the little hump in the middle of the pond, no doubt crapping as much as they could muster up, but the Savage sent them flying. Funny, after the first shot hit the water by the island, they just hopped off and landed about 20 feet away. The second shot right between them sent them on their way. Man, those things just piss me off!

Thanks, George. I've read a lot of that stuff and that's where my interest really got started. I was very impressed with info in Bruce's article, though, and am now curious about his product or whether or not it is, in fact, his product or one that he found that he particularly likes.

Oh, and I pretty much hate Canada geese!

I guess that's what I'm trying to find out - what is the site URL?

Thanks for good recap on his article.

Floatingislandsinternational.com
Floating Islands

I go through the same eradication procedures and share your dislike of those birds. We should get a couple sixers and sit down for a discussion of this and other pertinent matters....

I and the dog only have to run then off a couple of times and they get the message. With a pier all the way across in the middle of the pond they can't really swim very far away and get nervous. I can't really volley a shot down that way anyway as the pond faces a busy highway!

I fired off a bottle rocket off the front deck to get rid of a pair of ducks today. Apparently the sound has bad autumn memories for them. The last time they showed up the wife and I got swimmer's itch (Duck itch) really bad when we went swimming in the pond. Ain't going to happen again.

Thanks, peepaw!

That sounds like an absolutely smashing idea - I suspect we could reach a lot of relevant conclusions!

Yeah, I guess I can see the point about not making roadway travelers nervous! I recall when you guys had the duck itch thing happen - think that may have been right around the time I joined the forum. Stay vigilant!

Speaking of birds I may have created a small problem with another species of birds. I have a pair of crows I've been feeding the left over carcasses from fillets of male perch, and bread ends which the wife and I don't like. Problem is, they've been getting at some female eggbound perch that wash up on the shore. They jab them a few times and let them lay. I've been salvaging as many as I can for stringer mounts. It would be better if they didn't have holes in them!

Train the crows to jab them only on one side.

Last year I experimented with a small floating island in the pond and the plant died. The plant had it's roots dangling in the water. So I really dug into this for a while. I couldn�t not find any time in history where this would work without the water being filtered water, even going back to ancient floating gardens built thousands of years ago, to eastern Asian floating gardens today. Usually what is called a floating garden is a floating platform with earth on top that filters the water before reaching the roots. Without the filtered water the plant roots that are normally white develop a covering that turns them black and the plants are unhealthy or dies. Somewhere in the link below is a Pilipino that run some pretty convincing tests that showed this. The bottom section is what I posted last year




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This link will take you to 508 aqua phonic videos from all over the world. No since reinventing the wheel.
http://aquaponicscommunity.com/video
One guy in the Philippines has experimented with the floating raft system in a pond with poor results. The roots being in an unfiltered pond environment collect the solids and turn blackish and slow or stop the growth. In a side by side experiment he used the same pond filtered water to grow lettuce on an identical floating raft and the lettuce was many times bigger and robust compared to the unfiltered raft with only 50% even survived. So filtering is the key I think. Looking at the Aztecs floating grow gardens and some Asian floating raft grow gardens I have not found any that had root growing directly in the water but the grow medium was built up on the rafts. So I am guessing that some of the grow medium in these raft gardens was partly in the water allowing a capillary movement of water with nutrients upward to the root while filtering the water of solids. So my thinking is a system like the picture below only bigger with a grow medium perhaps of a bale of sphagnum moss and maybe mixed with vermiculite for water retention. A few inches of medium under water and 8 inches on top.

We need a third party for the relevancy test. I am thinking Sunil. Given, it will take a twelver for the third party's participation.

Make sure it is the side facing the wall

I was actually figuring I'd need more than a sixer, so let's count on Sunil for a case! After all, a guy who bench as much as he can doesn't sustain himself on just twelve!