The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge. We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns.
We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.
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In my dreams it looks like this:
Allen Centennial Gardens
Or, something along theses lines would do nicely:
Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Madison: August 2018
As a counterpoint to the water lilies, perhaps a few dozen glamorous koi:
Allen Centennial Gardens
Alas. I have only 100 gallons to work with, in a plastic stock tank. Inside the tank I keep three mesh water lily baskets, a pot of elodeas, and a hanging pot of water-loving Iris laevigata variegata. I clean up the tank in the spring, as cedar debris falls in throughout the winter and gobs of algae proliferate. I fertilize the water lilies by pressing aquatic plant tabs into their soil.
May 29 — cleaned-up lilies and new annual floater starts ready to go — elodeas not yet moved in
June 16 — everything filling in, elodeas now back
peach water lily, 2018
peach water lily buds, 2018
In summer, water hyacinths, water lettuce, and frogbit float on the surface.
frogbit has built in floats — those puffers are mostly hollow
It’s my first year with frogbit. All three annual floaters grow fast and extract excess nutrients from the water, expanding into an enormous vegetative mass, composted in the fall. Please note they will never have the opportunity to invade any natural water sources. This tank is on high and dry land. Invasion is a non-issue here.
Water lilies are the stars of the tank. If they strike you as ancient you are right. Originating deep in the Cretaceous, near the origin time of flowering plants, they apparently retain an ancestral condition. Gymnosperms package haploid endosperm to nourish their seeds, while modern angiosperms – flowering plants – employ triploid endosperm. Water lilies go diploid, thus occupying an intermediate state; not a concern to the dinosaurs that must surely have eaten them while grazing the shallows, but of interest to those researching plant evolution. Note that lotuses are not close relatives.
The tank is much too small for koi, too small even for large goldfish, which excrete too much ammonia. I have no pump or filter system. But, white cloud mountain minnows do nicely here. I take them home in the winter, as they are not cold hardy. They patrol mosquito larvae enthusiastically.
male white cloud mountain minnow
Trapdoor snails find a home here, grazing algae but not harming the ornamental plants.
Occasionally I’ve seen dragonfly nymphs in the tank. I recently reported on water fleas I found. Since then, I’ve spotted another invertebrate. Somehow, hydras have colonized the tank, where they line up on the edge of a water lily basket.
Relatives of sea anemones, they carry stinging cells in their tentacles to immobilize prey such as water fleas. Probably they can discourage foraging minnows. They can relax and droop if they want to or stand up straight. They can move around. They bud off young as if they were honorary plants. It really blows me away to find this slice of the natural world inhabiting my very artificial, 100 gallon environment.
day 1: hydra starting to bud
day 2: baby’s first tentacles!
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