permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

Dominic1404@aol.com wrote:

> I have not had any experience of reed bed systems but am shortly moving from 
> the UK to Spain and am planning to set up a small sustainable smallholding 
> with straw-bale housing and I was hoping to create a reed-bed filtered 
> swimming pool. 
> Has anyone any experience or idea where I might source information.
> Many thanks
> Dominic Dring

Submerged and floating (in limited quantities) aquatic weeds can make
pond water crystal clear. Turbulence bringing up silt and trash from the 
bottom
should be minimized. Nutrient infiltration from runoff from adjoining 
watersheds
can load the pond and may necessitate adding more plants and/or other 
varieties of plants.

If runoff with high nutrient levels exists, regularly or intermittently, from 
surrounding slopes
then you could pre-treat that water by building berms and swales to catch and 
absorb it, releasing
much cleaner water into the pond. Appropriate plantings within and around 
those swales could help a lot.
Semi aquatic plants, grasses, even watercress intermixed with elderberry, 
willow and other shrubs and trees
could in various locations near or at the pond's edge, which could be 
reconstructed into a crenelated configuration
to maximize diversity of habitat and encourage permanency for the ecosystems 
that evolve there.

Chinampas (floating gardens), as was once used in the Floating Gardens of 
Zochimilco (sp.?) near Mexico City,
could further extract nutrients in the water contributing to keeping it clean 
and healthy. You might grow food crops there.
Azolla, or floating duckweed, hosts symbiotically, a nitrogen fixing bacteria 
in the folds of its leaves. The best
plant for purrifying water I know of is water hyacinth but it will require an artificial environment for overwintering in cold climates. 
Maybe a windmill turning an air pump that would aerate the water would be useful too.

LL
--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech/pcwiki/index.php/london