Aloha from Hawaii

There are 2 stores that are worth checking out while on Oahu. Pets Plus on Ward Ave and Pets Unlimited near King and middle st. Both have excellent and knowledgable staff and have a good variety of plants and supplies. These are also the only stores that carry CO2 equipment. Pets Plus is a bit umorganized, but be sure to look hard in their plant tanks as they always have something pretty rare hidden in the mess.

Piscesgirl, ponds are hard to come by here on Oahu, most of them are brackish. There are however a lot of streams and springs that support aquatic plant life. I have found Vallisneria, a couple sp. of sagitteria, anacharis, echinodorus, Ludwigia, Gymnocoronis in and near these bodies of water, not to mention your host of invasive floaters (Salvinia, Eichornia, duckweed, azolla, water lettuce etc). We also have native sps. of Pomatogeton and Marsilea. Most interesting is that one can find "aquatic plants" where the humidity is high and there is a lot of rain. We have a nice hydrocotyle very similar to sibthorpioides growing as a weed in wet areas (it is doing well on the grounds of the federal building in Downtown Honolulu thanks to drip irrigation!!) There are also an assortment of mosses and liverworts that live in the mountains that do well submerged in the aquarium.

Cs,
Hawaii is indeed special, but it is an island and it is the most isolated land mass on the planet so it does get old(to me). I used to live in Washington state while in college and one of the coolest things to do was to jump in the car and drive for hours. I loved to do that! I can do that in Hawaii but its not the same when you're driving in circles. On top of it, nobody carries Eco-Complete here and freight costs are ridiculous!!!!

The North Shore is breathtaking, but I'd bet if you saw it in the winter, you wouldn't believe it was the same beach. Its like a pond in the summer and a violent force of nature in the winter, some of the biggest wave on the planet? By the way, how did they find the mosses on you?

5-0 and plantdude,
Any stream, spring in the pearl city area are good candidates for aquatic plants. the outflow of Ho'omaluhia reservoir in Kaneohe is also a good place to look. I don't know about Hilo, but with all the rain there, theres bound to be something. Hey if it looks promising, take a cutting home and submerese it. Just be careful out there, LEPTOSPIROSIS!!!

Ha ha ha. That is so true. :biggrin: It took us less than 2 days to leisurely drive all along the coastlines of the big island before trekking to the pristine outer islands. We made special plans to visit the North Shore in the hope of catching some surfing action and perhaps getting to meet Danny Fuller. He was unfortunately nowhere to be found. Needless to say, I watched every single episodes of the WB's Boarding House: North Shore reality TV series.

Concerning the Eco-Complete, Aaron, have you considered using crushed lava rocks? I was visiting the volcanic eruption sites and there were tons of black lava rocks strewn about. I bet there's Fe in those rocks as well as the macroporosity to boot. Perhaps too jagged? Or maybe when you get to visit mainland US, you can carry Eco-Complete back. It's not that heavy once the liquid has been drained. Between luggage and carry-ons, I bet you can easily bring 5 bags per person back. :mrgreen:

I got caught with the moss at the airport. I didn't want to put the ziplock bag full of moss/liverworts/ferns in with my luggage because they would have to go through custom, so I brought it along with me. At the security checkpoint where you put personal belongings through the X-ray machine, I hid the cargo in my jacket. Well, they pulled me aside as soon as I went through, apparently because of a suspicious bag. So when I can't produce a Phytosanitary certificate, they confiscated it despite my pleadings. #-o I should have just buried it in with the suitcase full of dirty clothes. At least I came back with a killer tan. Hehehe.

Who's Danny Fuller? Is he a surfer? I stay away from any show on TV that is supposed to be about Hawaii. It makes me mad as they usually portray a false depiction of what it is really like living here and how what we locals are really about. As for that surfer reality show, surfers don't live in the real world to begin with so what you saw on TV was probably "real". Next time you are in Hawaii during the summer, the surfing action is on the South shores like Sandy Beach and Makapuu and Diamond head. You won't see any pros though, they are all in Tavarua and Australia chasing the the winter swells.

Crushed lava rock has one fault, it is really light. In some cases, it even floats! I actually use it as a base, then cap it with Flourite. It seems to work well. What I really want to try is black sand from the Big Island. Basically crush lava rock, but tumbled nice and smooth by the ocean. I bet that would look nice. Hey Aqua 5-0, what do ya say? wanna send some black sand to Oahu? Just kidding, Pele would get mad!

Danny is a surfer. He remains in Hawaii, waiting for the competition to come to the island, instead of following the others to compete abroad. Oh, I completely forgot about the black sand. Isn't it illegal to remove it from the premise? I recall seeing signs all over warning tourists not to take any sand as souvenirs. 8-[