I would like to thank everyone for his or her time and input. I look forward to seeing you all throughout the year.

Larry Hursh

As noted in the special announcement, the RCGC Annual Spring Symposium will be a day of special interest to members of GVPAKC. The featured program by Helen Nash is a wonderful opportunity to hear a water gardener extraordinair! Helen has authored numerous water gardening books including The Pond Doctor, Plants for Water Garden, and The Complete Pond Builder. She is also the publisher of Pond & Garden Magazine. Helen will be autographing books during the day.

GVPAKC will have a display of photos of members’ ponds in the foyer of the Eisenhart Auditorium at the Rochester Museum and Science Center during this event. We are in need of pictures of your pond to create an impressive display. This will be a tremendous opportunity to promote the club and hopefully increase our membership.

The Civic Garden Center is offering a group discount on tickets for the day. If 10 or more members from the club order tickets, the price is reduced from $45 to $35. Please let Larry Hursh know if you are interested in going

In addition to Helen Nash there are two other prominent speakers. The first is Barry Glick who will speak on "Perennials, Something Old, Something New, Something Yada, Yada, Yada. The second will be Joann Gruttadanrio presenting "Soil and Bed Preparation".

Doors open for this event at 8:15. The actual symposium will begin at 9:00 and conclude by 4:00 PM. Lunch is available at a cost of $10. There will also be a Gardener’s Marketplace where a variety of gardening related items and plants will be available.

We suggest that you take this opportunity to hear and perhaps meet one of the leading personalities in water gardening today! Helen has traveled the country photographing ponds and gardens as she goes. We are confident that you will walk away with many new and creative ideas of how to expand the presence of water in your garden! Join us!

We are excited to announce that we have a new group of officers willing to lead GVPAKC through the year 2001.

They are:

We are very grateful to our past officers who served us so proficiently. Thanks very much to Joe Leichtner who was the treasurer for the past 2 years. We appreciate his time and energy devoted to making the club a success.

If anyone would like to offer assistance in any way, but did not want to be an officer, we could certainly use your help. Volunteers are needed to bring in refreshments for meetings. We always can use someone to help us out with the newsletter. The biggest challenge is to find content to fill these pages! Give a call if you have a few spare moments.

By Sherry Nau

As noted in Larry Hursh’s column, a decision was made to increase the dues structure. If you renew your membership by April 30^th, your dues will be the same as last year, $18 for family membership and $12 for individual. If you are a procrastinator, and wait until after April, you will pay a little more.

We have also eliminated the graduated dues structure for renewals. If you were a previous member you will renew at the full fee no matter which month you renew. A graduated schedule will be maintained for new members to encourage people to join the club if they hear about us during the year.

The new due schedule is as follows:

We would like to request that you renew your dues as soon as possible. If you have not renewed the March newsletter will be the last one that you will receive. If you would like to mail your check directly to our treasurer his address is:

By Larry Nau

As many of you realize we are part of a global economy! This includes the production of our foods which we feed our goldfish and koi. Frequently ingredients such as fish meal, shrimp meal and cod liver oil, which are major components of fish food, are produced and imported from around the world. In fact, many of our foods are made abroad. Tetra is made in Germany, Aquarian is produced in England and Hikari is manufactured in Japan.

At the beginning of this year the US Department of Agriculture sent out notification that prohibits the importation of "rendered animal protein product, regardless of species". The intention of the directive is to ensure that no products imported from Europe get into cattle feed or any part of the US food chain. The USDA has said that the prohibition covers food for pets, including fish foods!

The fear of the US Government is the introduction of mad cow disease into the US food chain. Certainly the recent spread of the disease in Europe is cause for concern. It has been speculated that the organism has been spread by contaminated animal protein added to other animal feed. Follow your current newspapers and TV broadcasts for updates on this problem.

At the time of this writing millions of dollars of fish foods have been impounded at US Ports of Entry. Legal teams from the leading manufacturers are diligently compiling the necessary documentation to have the import ban lifted on their fish foods. It is hoped that this issue can be resolved in the next few weeks. Of course we all know how our government operates and how long it takes to resolve some matters.

For now, come to the meeting and buy a few raffle tickets. There will surely be a few cans of food available! There is still a good 12 to 14 weeks before our fish are up to the surface and looking for their spring meal. By then this matter should be resolved and the supply of food plentiful again. If not, encourage your fish to write their local congressional representative for relief.

Have you ever wondered how to start you own plants, or how to make divisions? The answers to these questions, and others, will be the topic of the February 2^nd meeting. Larry Nau and Larry Hursh will be presenting on how to germinate plants from seed and propagating plants from cuttings. This will be an informative discussion with a live demonstration. Although the snow may still be flying, it isn’t too early to begin to plan for spring when you will want to start new plants. We hope to see you all there.

Our water plant exhibit at Lily Fest appears to be receiving much positive support from our members. The water plant display will include plants which our members have grown. They may be a water lily, a lotus, a marginal plant or a submerged plant. These plants will be on display for the general public to enjoy and learn about. Lily Fest will be held at Bergen Water Gardens and Nursery on June 22^nd, 23^rd, 24^th, in Churchville, New York.

As part of this event Kingfish Services will provide a trade exhibit of products from 11 different manufacturers. Some of these products are specifically for ponds, others are for aquariums. On Sunday the 24^th all of these products will be auctioned off at 12:00. The proceeds from this auction are generally close to $2,000! All of this money will go to The Genesee Valley Pond and Koi Club. Obviously this would be a tremendous boost to our treasury and provide resources for future speakers etc. at club meetings.

To make this event a success we need help form the GVPAKC membership. First we need members to pick out their favorite plant and pamper it a bit! Prune it, feed it make it grow its best during May and June. Make sure it is in a portable container for easy transfer. We will need someone to coordinate the plant selection. It would be a dull exhibit if we had 15 Umbrella Plants on display.

Secondly we need people to "man the table" during those days. Basically we need someone to answer questions about the club and the plants on display. We could be busy especially on Saturday if the weather is good! So please reserve a block of time that weekend to help. Friday or saturday night we may have an informal pizza party for the club members who are there.

Lastly, we need as many of our members as possible to come to the auction on Sunday. In fact, bring your neighbors & your friends…anyone who has an interest in water gardening or may have an aquarium. There will be pond supplies, plants and fish available at the auction. The auction will be under a tent in case of inclement weather. The tent will also be the site for some programs on Saturday as part of the Lily Fest event.

By Larry Nau

The favorite snail for water gardeners is the Japanese trapdoor snail, Viviparus malleatus.. The trap door is back and gets to a size to 1 to 2 inches. This snail is tolerant of cooler temperatures and wide temperature swings. They will however frequently perish under the ice.

The Japanese Trapdoor Snail will not consume your live plants in your pond. It will however eagerly consume the algae on the sides. These snails appear to do better in an established pond. Newly set-up ponds do not have enough material for them to eat to survive.

Trapdoor snails actually give live birth to their offspring. Generally this event takes place twice a year. Because their young do not come from egg masses, the number of babies produced is greatly reduced. This is an important feature over other snail species! Overpopulation can become a major problem with snails.

Apple snails are another snail commonly used in water gardens. These are tropical snails and do best above 68 degrees. The common mystery snail, found in pet shops, belong to this group. Mystery snails can also get to 2" in size. They come in an array of colors. These include black, gold, ivory and blue! They will leave water plants alone but enjoy algae found in the pond. They do however produce egg masses which the lay above the water line. This helps to prevent the eggs from being eaten by the fish in the pond. If the eggs survive, many snails will be produced and overpopulation may become a problem.

The Florida Apple snail is one of the largest members of the Apple snail group. It can get up to 6 inches in size. It too is tropical and will not tolerate cooler water.

Apple snails have a branchial respiration system. It includes gills on the right side of the body to breathe underwater. They also have a lung on the left side to respirate air! This is achieved through a tubular siphon which can be extended several inches to the water’s surface. This makes them less vulnerable to predation by birds. If all of your snails in your pond are siphoning air at the surface, you can bet your dissolved oxygen is low in the pond! More next month!