Do you have a water test kit?

Are you treating the water you add to remove chlorine/chloramine?

I'm a little confused, sounds like something happened between fish batch #1 and #2 since you said "I cleaned it again". Is it the pond or the filter or something else.

The man I bought the fish from explained that maybe I hadn't given the fish enough time to get used to the water and "shocked" them All people working in such places need to have a bunch of reasons they can pull out and offer people. People always want a reason. I think it makes them feel better, maybe makes the store sound like they know something. They almost never have any clue.

Fish die. It's a tough world for them. I've been reading and posting in pond forums for more than 20 years and I've never seen anyone ever come close to figuring out why fish died. Most people just grab one of the many possibilities and arbitrarily say "that must be it" so they can go on with their lives. I wouldn't beat yourself up too much.

By far the best thing you can do for fish is keep the best water you can. The fish have impressive immune systems and can take a lot. For example green murky is often the best water from a fish's perspective. Protects them from UV, provides a great food chain, offers protection from predators and green water is almost always 0 ammonia. When we "clean" stuff problems start happening.

But you can keep water clear and fish happy. But that does take some know how, but not much.

1. Never add anything you don't understanding pretty well. A dude at a fish store or in a forum saying dump this or that in doesn't cut it. Research what people tell you, ask more questions. Trust no one.

2. Never add equipment you don't understand. There is no end of things people dream up for you to add. They all claim to "clean" your pond. Most don't. Most aren't actually harmful, unlike stuff you pour into ponds, but the lull you into a false sense of security.

3. Do understand ammonia. This drives most of fish keeping. Understand it comes mostly from gill not butts. Understand there are 2 kinds of ammonia, toxic and harmless and understand how it changes back and forth. Understand that testing ammonia is how we determine whether bio filters are needed or more are needed. Most test kits are not for ammonia, they are for Total Ammonia, both toxic and safe.

4. Do understand pH buffering. This can actually be pretty simple. Test KH, not pH. Add baking soda to raise KH as needed to keep it above say 150 ppm. Trust me? See #1. Learn for yourself. It's not that much reading but unfortunately you do have to wade through tons of extremely bad info on the web and everywhere else. Stay away from all pond sites...absolute worst kind of made up crap the world has ever seen. Aquarium sites are very good. A 100 gal pond is an aquarium. Aquarists are very knowledgeable because they have to be or their fish die. Many Koi Pond sites are very good, but not all. So you have to read many to be able to tell the difference. Those sources are good for basic info on ammonia and pH buffering.

That covers most of what it takes to keep a Water Garden. Because your is small and I know almost nothing about it water temp can be an issue. I'd be taking the temp during the summer. I personally think a pond that small should be in total shade, but that's your call.

100-125 gal is a much tougher deal. When you start getting more toward 500 gal for 2 goldfish it starts becoming very easy. Really much harder to kill fish. When you start getting into the 1000 gal range even overwintering in PA becomes possible.

Thank you. The water temp issue I hardly believed to be an issue because it was practically the same. Ph seemed like a better explanation. To me, it seemed like I had removed something or the clean water added something to the mix that hurt the fish.
The green murky is ok? Everyone told me that is algae, and algae is bad, so that confuses me a little.
My pond gets some sunlight in the afternoon, it is under a tree, so it's only a couple hours, not all day.
And I do have 2 things I bought, one is a ph control, the other is a sludge reducer, both because I was listening to these fools at the fish store, but I will definitely read up on both before I use anything.

Did you use tap water? And if so did you add a chlorine/chloramine remover?

I have kept more fish than that in a 150 gallon pond that lived for years. Mine is in the sun, shaded with plants in the pond. It would help if you describe what you do when clean the pond. What do you do with the fish, where do you put them and for how long, and in what type of water, treated with anything first or not, and if so what? What do you use to drain the pond or do you only partially drain it? How do you clean it, do you use tap water to refill it and if so do you add anything to the water before putting the fish back in the pond, and if so what? Then how do you re-acclimate the fish to the pond again? I think that is the least likely cause of your problems because you obviously got them from the store into the pond and acclimated them when you first bought them, so you probably know how to do it. Just describe exactly what you do and how you do it and It might not be too hard to figure out. You might just be doing some thing you have no idea would harm them. The lack of chlorine/chloramine remover or something you might use to clean the pond seem more likely. I have not lost a single fish in 10 years that I did not know why. After the first feeder fish I ever bought all died of parasites, I only have only bought fish from a very reputable water gardening store and I have only lost one or two to a heron and the other 2 to filter issues. I was using homemade filters with quilt batting and they got caught in them. I am not using that any more. I have never lost one to disease and if the water gets green it does not bother them it all. It only bothers me. So I filter it. When it finally clears up that are all active and still healthy. Green water is only bad because we don't like how it looks and can't see our fish.

You get green water blooms when there's an excess of nitrate. The algae consumes the nitrate. It's really more an cosmetic issue, although if a lot of the algae does suddenly, it can consume a lot of oxygen. That shouldn't be a problem if you have surface agitation (waterfall, filter return to the water, ect) to oxygenate the water.

The best way to reduce algae is to reduce the nitrate. Best way to reduce nitrate is to heavily plant your pond. If you have enough plants to reduce the nitrate, there won't be enough of it to support green water blooms.

The water temp issue I hardly believed to be an issue because it was practically the same. Ph seemed like a better explanation.
I'm guessing you're talking about the difference between the pond and the bag of water the fish were in?

In small ponds I'm more concerned about the temp of the pond. If it's in sun, or the sun hits the side of a black tank you can get some big temp swings everyday and that stresses fish. Stressed fish have lower immune systems and things start going bad.

As far as bagged fish go...that's more myth than truth. Goldfish and koi can go from cold water to warm water fast, it's actually part of treating some issues. From warm to cold isn't good, like 75F to say 40F. Normally, in summer, we're talking about going from 75-80F to like 70F. That's no big deal.

Floating the bag in the water for 15 minutes or whatever really doesn't change anything. That would still be a fast change. Adjusting fish to new temps is done over days, not minutes. Same for pH. Mixing pond water with the water in the bag to "slowly" get fish used to the new pH happens over what, 20 seconds? That's nothing.

If you really, really care, proper transition happens thru a hospital tank. The tank's water is adjusted to the incoming water's parameters, the fish are added, and then the tank's water is changed over days to match the pond. Plus the fish are treated and/or watched for some time to make sure they're not sick. But few people do that and almost no Water Garden keepers.

But telling buyers they put the fish into the pond too fast is an old fav.

I once bought 50 feeder goldfish fish because the whole tank were Shubunkins. Half died in my temp pond in hours. I went back the next day to buy as many as I could carry but the tank was empty because the entire tank had died. If I'd said "Hey, my fish died" I bet they would have said..."Did you float the bag for 15 minutes?"

To me, it seemed like I had removed something or the clean water added something to the mix that hurt the fish.
A likely suspects. How do you fine out? I sure don't know. If you can list in detail exactly what you did I'm sure we could come up with several possibilities. And for sure safer methods for the future if you like.

The green murky is ok? Everyone told me that is algae, and algae is bad, so that confuses me a little.
My pond gets some sunlight in the afternoon, it is under a tree, so it's only a couple hours, not all day.
Not everyone says algae is bad. Everything we put into a pond, even the water, are both bad and good. Many pond keepers do prefer to just consider it evil because that's fun to say, and easy to repeat.

However my guess is algae saves the lives of many fish. A lot of people know about the ammonia-nitrite-nitrate cycle and think algae consume nitrate. But there's a bit more to it.

What we call ammonia is actually 2 things ammonia and ammonium, NH3 and NH4. When most people test water for ammonia they're actually testing "Total Ammonia", both NH3 and NH4. Water temp and pH determine how much of each. Algae consume ammonium directly, they prefer it (according to at least one study) to nitrate. Kind of like we might prefer donuts to broccoli. We will eat both, but if a donut comes floating by us, and no one is looking, we're going to eat that donut. Be honest!

As the algae consumes ammonium more ammonia converts pretty much instantly to more ammonium. In a green pond this continues until there is no ammonia or ammonium. Of course what the limiting resource actually is varies. But ammonia/nitrate is often the limiting factor.

So a green pond is the absolute best bio filter a person can have. Bacteria that convert ammonia hardly get any ammonia because the suspended green water algae is first in line and gobble it all up. So the ammonia-ntrite-nitrate thing doesn't really exist very much in a green pond. A green pond will almost always test 0 for ammonia and nitrate. This is also why lowering nitrate levels in water hardly has any noticeable effect on green water, it's already 0 or will soon be. Ponds and fish are ammonia producing machines and it all goes into algae production. Also why adding plants to starve algae is a myth (along with other reasons). Also why sun vs shade almost never has any effect on algae because sun is almost never the limiting resource, ammonia is.

Some algae are toxic, like red tides. But in backyard ponds I've never heard of these, but possible. In general the O2 depletion from decaying algae isn't a huge deal in backyard ponds because they have pumps and the water movement for the fish load and that these ponds are very shallow so gas exchange is great. Ponds with large fish loads and no water movement, sure, the O2 depletion could be a problem. But that case is a ticking time bomb algae or not.

The bigger threat imo is when a pond owner clears a green pond suddenly with chemicals or UV filter. The great bio filter is killed, algae starts decomposing creating ammonia, ammonia from fish is no longer being consumed because there's not many bacteria converts because the pond had been 0 ammoina. With the clear water the owner starts tossing in more food to the fish they can now see and the water is clear so is assumed safe. Ammonia builds and bang a nice clear pond full of belly up fish.

Ammonia is by far the bigger risk in many ponds so I'd consider algae good if I had to choose.

And I do have 2 things I bought, one is a ph control, the other is a sludge reducer, both because I was listening to these fools at the fish store, but I will definitely read up on both before I use anything.
The pH control can be dangerous, depends. The sludge reducer probably wasn't too bad. It's a con, but pretty harmless. The bottle just contains...sludge...the same stuff already on the bottom of the pond. Unfortunately no one, including the manufacturers, know what's in their bottles. There's no laws, controls or anything. If you scooped out some muck from the bottom of your pond and put it in a bottle you too could sell it and make every claim they make and not break any laws. But there would also be a lot of stuff in there you wouldn't know about. Some special parasite, virus or bacteria perhaps. So it is Russian Roulette. Perfectly safe...most of the time.

Waterbug_guy said some absolutely correct things but he does say one thing that I have to disagree with.. quite strenuously.

Quote
Also why adding plants to starve algae is a myth (along with other reasons).
UN-quote

I've been keeping aquaria for 40+ years been maintaining ponds for 20+ and keeping my own for 15. When I started out nobody believed in a biological filter, you had to replace the angel hair in the mechanical filter every 10-14 days (when you changed 25%-40% of the water) or else the evil smelly bacteria would start to grow.

Now in these modern enlightened times an adequate sized bio-filter and enough higher plants keeps my water crystal clear. I don't use chemicals or UV, I never change the pond water and the filter media gets rinsed once a year in the spring. This is the first year in years I've even bothered to test the water. Most importantly, I don't loose fish.

(I'm in zone 5 so the pond is under ice December to March, in other zones different rules may apply)

A bio filter itself is not enough to ensure clear water since even if it were perfect the end product of the process is nitrate which is still food for algae and at high enough levels/pH toxic to fish.

The algae that makes green water is a simple, single celled, organism with few demands and a very short life cycle. That is why it is the first to appear. As soon as there is Nitrogen (ammonia) and light its basic needs are met. It will thrive with very little and as it dies off and decomposes it releases that nitrogen back into the system feeding the next generation.

What the higher plants (should) do is not necessarily "Starve" the algae but rather out compete it. When a higher plant absorbs the nitrogen it is locked up in plant tissue and no longer available to the next generation of green-water algae.

The reason some people don't get results from this is that they fail to realize that the more complex plants have far more complex needs. Simply tossing some hornwort or water lettuce into the pond is bound to fail. The assumption is that the fish waste will supply all the required nutrients and this is simply not true. At some point, probably fairly quickly the plants will slow or even stop growing due to a deficiency in one of the other required nutrients, when this happens the algae, which only need nitrogen, are able to get as much as they need. The ideal situation is for Nitrogen, not one of the other elements, to be the limiting factor in the higher plant growth.

Fish poop provides nitrogen and phosphorus, and a few other trace elements but it contains no potassium, no usable iron or magnesium and very little sulfur or calcium.
These all need to be added or the higher plants wont thrive.

As an example I would grow water lettuce. I would start with 4-6 plants as soon as it was warm enough, then once in mid spring and once in mid summer I would add to my 500 gallon pond:
2tsp = Muriate of Potash (0-0-60) = Potassium
1tsp = Epsom Salt = Magnesium + Sulfur
1/2tsp = Chelated Iron = ...
1tsp = (Solid) Plaster of Paris = Calcium

Every three weeks or so I would remove about a bushel of plant matter and send it off to the compost.

(in a smaller pond it is easy enough just to dump the floating plants into a bucket containing a diluted fertilizer mix for a few hours every week or so)

Anyway .. as mentioned in another post, this year I built an aquaponic set-up with the pond. I was rather over optimistic with my planning, 60 plants was simply too many. I have had to increase my fish load by 25% and massively increase what I am feeding them. Still six or so weeks in no algae in the pond, the plants are thriving and I still get 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite and 0 nitrate on the test kits.
(the pond is in full sun about 7 hours a day)

I agree with Ajames54. I have had no problems with green water since increasing my plant load. It's a small pond, but the first year I struggled with algae. Now I have a bit of string algae on the rocks but the goldfish graze and keep that in check.

And my plants sure do get enough nutrients. They're huge and healthy.

I agree that killing off all the algae can be dangerous if it turns out that is what's been consuming the ammonia. It's very possible that the bacterial load is too small to handle the amount of ammonia being put out.

I absolutely believe plants can clear green ponds...have posted that many times.

The myth is that this is done buy higher plants. One of the simpler things to show as a myth. A green pond has what level of ammonia and nitrate? Certainly that's easy to test, anyone can. Or a person can read lots of research on this for fish farms and other farm type ponds done by the ag department adn many Universities.

A green pond almost always test to 0 ammonia and nitrate. Why? Because it's green. Algae is a plant (for our discussion anyways). Plants use ammonia and nitrate to produce new cells. Millions of green cells appear in a pond guess where they got the ammonia and nitrate? Now you have million of green cells floating around waiting for one thing in order to divide...more ammonia or nitrate. You have a water column filled with these cells just waiting to bump into an ammonia or nitrate molecule. When it does it can split (oversimplification sure).

The myth says if you add higher plants to a green pond they will clear the water by out competing the algae for these nutrients. This myth only seems believable to people who do not test for ammonia/nitrate. If a green pond is already at 0 ammonia/nitrate...so how does it starve these millions of algae cells?

For some unexplained reason the myth purveyors ignore the elephant in the room...algae is a plant. So why doesn't the algae starve itself to death. If you believe the myth and don't want it disproved the only possibility must be the higher plant must out compete the algae. Mine you I've never read any promoter of this to ever offer any data from any study about this. Their proof is purely deductive reasoning, which is fine if the deductions are true. But they aren't.

Say we place a potted plant in the pond. Ammonia comes out of a fishes gills. That ammonia molecule has to float by thousands, maybe millions, of algae cells who are just begging to suck it up. For the myth to be true these algae cells would have to be very polite little creatures.Now our little ammonia molecule has to get into the pot's media...so easy task. But say it does...now the higher plant can suck it up and millions of the poor algae cells starve and die. Killed by politeness.

When the algae all die those nutrients are released. But for some mysterious no algae decide to use these new nutrients...only the higher plants.

For this deductive reasoning to be valid a green pond would have to be rich in nutrients and a clear pond void of some key nutrient. And I think many people believe this to be true and so self evident they do not need to test the water or even do some reading. And of course many people today believe science and data is all a big hoax. But anyone who has ever measured the nutrients in green and clear ponds will very quickly find out is the opposite is true. A green pond is extremely low in key nutrients and a clear pond very or extremely high.

More evidence we can deduce. Many people report adding plants and within a short time the pond suddenly clears. Sometimes overnight. Wow, the added higher plants sucked up all the nutrients and killed all the algae in hours. For this deduction to be true at least 2 things must be true. First a key nutrient level must be zero. If the water is tested it probably will be zero ammonia.nitrate, because it was the day before too. Oops. One problem with that, it isn't how plants work. Many people seem to think these key nutrients like ammonia/nitrate are like air. If we don't get air we die in a short time. Algae died in a short time so nitrate must be like air. Or maybe people think nitrate is like food is to us. Closer, but we can live for a long time without food, algae can't. Well, nitrate isn't exactly like our food, it's a nutrient, not a calorie. Nutrients are needed to build cells. For us that means new skin cells, bone, etc. Algae use it to make new cells, to reproduce. They, like us, can live for a really long time lacking nutrients because their structure, like ours, has already been built. A tiny amount is needed to run processes, but mostly for cell construction. You can take as many multivitamins as you like, but if you don't consume calories you'll die in around 3 weeks. Algae get their calories from photosynthesis so they can live for a very long time without nutrients.

So the higher plant starving algae theory has some massive holes that promoters never explain. They don't really have to because pond forums are full of people who believe the same. Fact is proven by popular vote which is becoming more accepted as fact these days....thank you internet.

But there is one deduction that is true...adding plants to a pond does sometime clear a pond. Many people have posted this and I've seen it myself more than a few times. It's obvious to anyone doing basic water testings that it sure as heck can't be the higher plants starving the algae because the tests prove the opposite. What could it be?

A long time ago a dude name Norm Meck made a really ground breaking discovery and published his findings. He found that water from a clear pond can be toxic to green water algae. He described how he did the experiment so others could repeat the experiment to see if they got the same results. I've never read about anyone else ever bothering, most people are much too busy repeating myths in forums, but I did. And I found the same thing. Something in the water killed the green water algae. Where did this toxin come from? Norm's theory was a bacteria produced it so the dead algae cells could be eaten. Not a bad theory, not great. Killing a pond full of algae so this bacteria could eat for a day or two doesn't seem like something nature would do. But a reasonable theory for it's time (thousands of years ago in internet years).

Norm's experiments inspired me to do more experiments. This was before UV filters were common and cheap so green water was an actual problem. I set up a bunch of small tanks on the roof of my San Jose house and started growing green water algae. Full sun and I'm adding lots of fertilizer to water. I'm getting water that looks like green paint. I'm experiment away and getting nowhere. I found a filter that would clear green water...it was amazing...but then it completely failed other times (had to do with algae lifecycle, another story). It was a roller coaster ride. I was kind of giving up.

Well I had some Pennywort I was wanting to reproduce and I had a bunch rooting in styrofoam cups...where to put them. I put a bunch into one of the test ponds. Green water wouldn't hurt them. A week or so later I went up to the roof to top off the tanks and the tank with the Pennywort was clear. I do the Meck test and sure enough the water was toxic to green water algae. At that time my best (only) theory was Norm's, it was bacteria.

Well there was a lot of string algae in the tank from the Pennywort, darn stuff gets into everything. So I pull a bunch out threw it down into one of my ponds. It was a good handful. I tossed into a pond that at the time had a deep gravel bed maybe 6-10" of water above the grave which was 16-18" deep and the water was green. I just threw the string algae in there because I didn't want it on the patio, lawn flower beds, and it would be easy to fish out later.

The next morning the pond I'd tossed the string algae into was clear. That pond was about 900 gals and at the time had no pump or filter and had been green the entire time I had it, more than a year.

This is the time when you stare at something and run through every possible related thing from your past that might explain this. I couldn't come up with a theory. Testing nutrient levels came up with the same results and the Meck test showed the water was now toxic to green water algae.

The bacteria theory seemed unlikely to me now. The string algae was the one common factor I saw in my limited experiments. So I started experimenting with both green water algae and string algae. I had terrible results. Sometimes the string algae cleared the green water but many times the string algae died. It was tough going because string algae takes a long time to appear dead. And I was having a difficult time growing both string algae and green water algae. And I kind of lost interest because by now my filter had cleared my pond and that was good enough for me.

Years later I started reading about research about allelochemicals, stuff plants create to fight other plants. Growing up I knew some plants did that, like Black Walnut trees killing grass beneath it, but never made the connection to algae. The research was finding more and more plants doing it and many people were starting to think this was very common in the plant world. I made the connection then and researched algae. Unfortunately the only research I could find was done on marine algae and they did find they were producing chemicals toxic to other plants. Not directly related to freshwater algae but a pretty darn good theory.

Then I started reading old pond forum posts, archived stuff. And I saw the string algae pattern over and over. People adding plants, seeing their ponds clear and then awhile later asking about how to get rid of string algae. They never made the connection between adding plants and the string algae because of course there's no visible string algae on the plants because the seller always pulls it off. But little bits and spores are certainly present. I also read about Trickle Towers which were popular at the time. TT are used to remove ammonia but many people were reporting their ponds cleared. There were lots of theories but nothing that made much sense. But people were also talking about string algae growing on their TT, saying they'd never had string algae before. And even further back people who added streams were seeing their ponds suddenly clear followed by reports of string algae in the stream.

I started asking people in forums complaining of green water if they had string algae. In most cases people had one or the other, sometimes both but never full blown string algae.

While it hasn't been proven I certainly believe string algae is the source of the toxin and responsible for ponds suddenly clearing. At least I haven't been able to think of any holes. And every year there's more and more research into allelochemicals that keeps pointing to the same conclusion.

My theory is green water algae use both resource competition (blocking sunlight) and allelochemicals to fight against at least some species of string algae and maybe other macro algae. The string algae is probably mainly just using allelochemicals against the green water algae. In order to win the string algae has to get a foot hold near the surface of the pond so green water algae couldn't block as much light and weakening the string algae. Tops of marginal plant pots, streams, TTs, my shallow ponds (the test ponds were about 6-10" deep).

I believe that string algae is the plant causing green ponds to clear and it has nothing to do with higher plants or them starving algae to death. It fits way better anyways at least until someone shows there are holes in the theory.

The real answer may come from aquarists. In the past few years some aquarists have been adding separate tanks of string algae and have seen clearer water. These guys are pretty serious and do a lot of testing. Most believe the nutrient starving theory although their tests show otherwise. I think they're assuming its a micro nutrient, but they have all the same holes as the high plant theory.

There is at least one aquarist pursuing the allelochemical theory. And he has been testing other underwater plants that may also produce allelochemicals. It fits that any underwater plant might need such a weapon.

I know must everyone stopped reading long ago, and I too don't really care any more about why ponds clear. We have cheap UV filter now and that's that. The one thing I still do find fascinating is why people still push the higher plant myth. It is just so easy to disprove. Why not repeat some other theory that's at least harder to disprove? To me that's interesting.

My wife is on to me wasting time in pond forums again so I bid you a good day. Sorry, but I didn't have the time or desire to proof read this and make corrections.

I'm sorry you took my comments as an attack, they certainly were not meant that way.

I'm familiar with the Meck articles, they were widely discussed on rec.ponds way back when. I was even going to reference them when mentioning bio-filters but didn't.

There are a couple questions with Meck, firstly he has a kind of four legs good two legs bad attitude, focusing on single celled algae as a problem and treating filamentous algae as at least benign.

Mecks algae eating bacteria (which I have believed in) aside, a perfectly functioning bio-filter will simply convert ammonia to nitrate. Over time Nitrate will build up and if not used will become toxic. So in this instance the "string algae" becomes the higher plant taking up the nitrate. I was never talking about trading one algae for another but rather virtually eliminating it altogether.

Your allelochemical theory has much to recommend it, it answers two of my biggest questions regarding Mecks bacteria, specifically that there is no evidence of the Boom, Bust and Echo we would typically expect as the bacteria multiply to eat all the algae and then starve, die off, decompose and feed the next algae bloom.
Secondly Mecks hypothesized enzyme seems too specific in its scope, it destroys the lignen in the cell walls of Green water algae but has no discernible effect on other plant cells.
An alleochemichal agent (wherever produced) is a more elegant answer.

Anyway, didn't mean to step on toes...

Didn't take your post as an attack. I didn't actually read too close as I have read similar posts many times. My response is a generic one I post every once in awhile when I'm bored. Your belief in plants starving algae or whatever is widely believed in the Water Garden world so I don't really like to post this kind of stuff very often in these types of forums. I know it doesn't change anyone's minds and just makes people grumpy.

About 15 years ago, I think in this very forum when it was "thee" pond forum, I fought a 3 year all out battle to put down the "concrete kills fish" myth. It was an epic battle. Back then when anyone had a problem concrete was widely cited as the probable cause raising pH to deadly levels. Today I'm happy to see that myth rarely comes up. That was even easier to disprove than the plant myths and still took 3 years and hundreds of posts.

Please believe me I have no interest in doing that again. I don't have the time and it really doesn't do any good. Disprove one myth and it gets replaced with another. And because many people come to forums to get one sentence pithy answers they can then repeat to sound knowledgeable. Unfortunately some people get tricked into thinking these one liners are actually true. But that's their problem.

Your opinion about Meck's article...here's my opinion...Norm actually did some experiments and told people what he saw, explained how he did the experiments so others could disprove/confirm/expand his work. And he gave his theory. To me that's admirable work and valuable data. He took a lot of crap from the peanut gallery. Just like a lot of other people who moved pond hobbies forward, most of which where shouted out of forums forever by the peanut gallery.

Whether Meck's theory (small part of his work) is true or false is for others to show with their own experiments and to post their findings. As for people who do no experiments and only sit around poking armchair holes in other people's work using really clever word spinning, bad logic and apparently no experience beyond talking with like minded people...kind of not really very interesting to me. One of the reasons I don't go to bars, watch Fox News or go to dinner parties.