P1011574

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Comment by John Sheehan on October 25, 2012 at 4:58pm

hmmmm......

 

Comment by Tony Livingston on October 25, 2012 at 4:51pm

Ah Sonar..... chock full of that lovely ingredient known as Fluridone.  Let me go on record right now and say I LOVE Fluridone..... VERY expensive, but awesome stuff. I treated the hybrid pond with it almost two years ago, and the weeds still haven't made a comeback. Water treated with it is safe for animal consumption, okay for swimming in, and feel free to eat the fish....and that's immediately after treating. But whatever you do, DON'T use the pond water for irrigation or you'll be sorry!

Fluridone (Sonar) is unique in that it is not a poison. It interferes with the plants ability to photosynthesize...in essence, it starves the plant to death. That's why it carries no restrictions after treatment. The downside? the time involved to effect results. Allow six weeks for most plant varieties, vs. a few days for some poisons. And, there's the cost. I used a liquid formulation, and it worked out to around $25 per ounce.....yes, ounce.

Also, Fluridone is non-selective...it will kill most aquatic plants, (and the grass around the water's edge), provided the concentration, (measured in PPB,) is maintained. If it washes out the overflow due to heavy rains, sorry about your luck!

One more thing... a weed exists in a pond because the nutrients are there to foster it's growth. Killing the weed is only a temporary solution, even for Sonar. I know the weeds in the hybrid pond WILL come back one day. And, Sonar is not effective on many types of algae... so what happens when you eliminate all the other plants? An EXPLOSION of algae, which is due to the excess nutrients in the BOW which were being utilized by the other plants, which just got wiped out.

So, you may find yourself trading one problem for another. It's a very exacting, very complicated issue.

Comment by dick tabbert on October 25, 2012 at 4:32pm

Yes I'm talking about White Amer Carp. The ones sold in Ohio for weed control are sterile and love weeds. They kept my pond weed free for 17 years now I have to do a little restocking.

Comment by Leo Nguyen on October 25, 2012 at 4:15pm

Dick, white amers? Are you talking about the amur carps? Those are aggressive plant eaters, and prolific if you don't control them.

Comment by dick tabbert on October 25, 2012 at 4:10pm

+ the copper sulfate can kill the weeds and the decaying weeds deprive oxygen and that can kill your fish.

Comment by dick tabbert on October 25, 2012 at 4:08pm

John long term they don't really know and seem to not care, we'll kill today the weeds and sort the rest out later but this is the cheapest way to attack the problem. You know my pond is 3/4 acre at 16' deep. When I had it dug I got so weedy I couldn't swim with the weeds trying to eat you up. I mean it was weed city. I put in 10 White Amers. The next year I was weed free I couldn't find a weed. The downsize is now where do the fry go to hide so in the N/W corner I put in 50 Xmas trees. That balanced it out quit well so for the last 17 years I've had no weeds. For the last 5 years I had 4 White Amers that were about 3 feet long all the rest disappeared for what ever reason. This year I have yet to see any and after 17 years of being weed free I'm getting weed growth again. So this spring I will introduce 3 or 4 more. Point is here we have a fish that can control the weeds that are sterile can't reproduce don't know what the formula would be for how many for how much water but it really don't mater cause lots of the states have them band. I know in Ohio the DNR has stock them in there smaller fishing lake to control the weeds. They probably don't stock as many per acre as I but enough that there are some weed left for the fish and you can still get around the lake and not be chocked with the weeds.

Comment by Leo Nguyen on October 25, 2012 at 4:03pm

Jim, a bit of a problem with Sonar exposed to "sensitive water body".  The question is, does the lake that you're part of has any aquatic concerns for creatures that are part of the food chains? Water fleas, spawning grass shrimps, micro-sized creatures of sort are directly impacted by concentration of fluridone of as little as 590 µg/L to 1000 µg/L.

Comment by Jim Gronaw on October 25, 2012 at 3:53pm

Yeah John...I am on the fish advisory board for a local multi-purpose lake and the weed treating proccess and locations are causing a stir. Wish I had better answers, as there are so many different agendas for every given body of water.

Comment by Leo Nguyen on October 25, 2012 at 3:53pm

That specific fluridone active ingredient normally has low irritant factor to human contact, if human contact happens to be exposed nearby within the treatment area having cuts or bruises. Ingestion of diluted content can cause a bit of vomiting and headaches. However, it's very unique to control weeds in a concentrated area. Once it's diluted, the effect of killing weeds drops exponentially.

Comment by John Sheehan on October 25, 2012 at 3:50pm

Leo ,CS sounds extreme the way you describe it !!! Jim, Sonar "sounds " better but I still dont have any where near a handle on this subject to address the Community board!

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