Art, your idea of using pots full of gravel was good. However, you just used the wrong type of gravel. Koi love to pick up pea gravel and spread it everywhere.

So use small lava rock gravel instead. It has sharp edges and the koi will leave it alone.

We used this flexible,lead weights on the aquarium plants to keep them down at the aquarium store. I left the one on my Anachris for the pond.I've heard they're not good for fish and I've heard they are a harmless zinc/magnesium mix. This is what they look like. PJ

Here is a link that might be useful: Plant sinkers

The flexible lead weights would certainly work a little better than the rubber band/weight combo, but for a 6-8 stem bunch the stems in the center might lossen with snooping fish, and tighting the lead risks cutting the stems. I will try this if no better suggestions are posted. Thanks

I tie the ends together, place them in a small clay pot, put in gravel, then use netting material to wrap (I use a tie wrap right at the base of the plant) to hold everything in, then throw it in the pond.

Now we're getting somewhere. I didn't even think of the "wrapping" concept; that's why this forum is great for sharing ideas. Why even bother with the clay pot. Just put gravel into a little "bag" made of fine netting or better yet, black, porus landscape fabric, then tie up the top of the "bag" and toss it in. The fabric can be secured tightly since it will cushion the delicate stems. And then I have many choices for what to secure the "bag" with. I think I would use nylon string. The tie wrap (the ones that come on bread?) has a thin wire inside which I guess would rust. I can not imagine anyone coming up with a more simple (and virtually cost free) solution.
Art

You could try wrapping a small peice of landscape fabric around the bunched plants to protect them. Then secure it snuggly with a nylon ty-rap.
A 1/2" nut secured with another ty-rap makes a good sinker/weight.
The trouble is the fish will eventually rip the bunches apart after a while no matter what you use.
But the method of securing and weighting a bunch of under water plants as described above is the best I have come up with over the years.
"Horton"

I bought a few packs of nonlead fishing sinkers of different sizes/weights and some swivel clasp jobbies and cable ties from Walmart. I just thread the cable tie thru the loop end of the swivel clasp then around the stems then attach whatever number/size weights I need to the clasp to keep the bunch on the bottom of my pond. This way I can vary the size of the bunches of anacharis easily.
Linda

My local pond supply house sells anacharis and hornwort wrapped in lead "wrap around" weights. The "wrap around" weights are only about 3" to 4" long and they work perfectly. The plants stay on the bottom. No need to use rubber bands, wrap with cloth or attach anything. I have a clay bottom, so the anacharis and hornwort have rooted to the clay. They are now bushy 4' plants. The anacharis has nice white flowers where it touches the surface. They are both good oxygenator plants.

The "wrap around" weights are available for from $.13 to $0.32 depending upon quantity.

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Here is a link that might be useful: Source of lead weights for oxygenator plants.

rhodyman, while I agree that the wraparounds are cheap and very easy to use, I have some concern about the fact that they are made of lead and there appears to be a major effort to eliminate lead sinkers, etc. to keep lead poisoning from becoming a bigger problem than it already is. I believe it affects birds, etc, when ingested, but I worry about adding lead to my pond where a lot of animals live/drink including my 13-year-old dog. I know lead is a natural metal found in the environment and my fears may be groundless, but since there are cheap, easy, nonlead alternatives, I opted for them.
Linda

If you don't need the anacharis to take root, those veggie clips I have been seeing in pet stores or grocery stores should work fine. For larger bunches use one of the clips for closing chip bags. These sometimes float so you may want to attach a weight. In the not too distant past, some posters have been concerned about exposing their fishies to the lead in the weights you have mentioned. If that is not a problem, lead fishing weights come in a myriad of shapes and sizes.

The wrap around strips are now made of zinc, not lead as they were before and are safe to use in aquariums and ponds.
Fishing weights, if made of lead, can be dipped in Liquid Plastic to seal them, allowed to dry and then can used as plant weights safely.
I have used the zinc strips, but found they do not do the job the landscape fabric wrapping does secured with ty-raps and steel nut attached as a weight.
I have found that the fish, either due to pulling at the plants or thrashing though them during spawning, is too much for the zinc strips to stay in place.

Rhodoman says,
" No need to use rubber bands, wrap with cloth or attach anything. I have a clay bottom, so the anacharis and hornwort have rooted to the clay."

Where that method of securing underwater plants is suitable for your clay bottomed pond, other methods maybe worthwhile for other situations where the plants will not be able to anchor their roots into clay or soil.

Please don't dismiss, out of hand, other ideas that differ from yours. Especially those that have been worked for some one else.

Different strokes for different folks is a good rule of thumb around here, as there are as many ways of accomplishing an end result to many problems.
"Horton".

Linda, what you are thinking of is lead shot used in shot gun shells. Ducks eat the shot and it reacts in the stomach and causes lead poisoning. Studies have shown that although lead shot causes problems to birds that eat it, it doesn't affect the water quality. Lead is very inert and is in fact used to seal better roofs. You just need to use big enough pieces so that they won't be mistaken for food. That is why small lead sinkers should not be used. There is documentation on this.

Hey Pondart...the simplist way I found to hold...protect...and propagate the anacharis...is to put them into upside down milk crates...they grow up through it..out of it and the fish swim all around it. I can't believe how good this works. I have been able to pull loads of it out of the weighted,upside down crate. I place them all around the pond plants also and they grow like crazy. Hope this helps.
Lillian

Thanks, Horton and Rhodyman! I'm relieved to hear that I can get non-lead wraparounds as they are very convenient. Rhodyman, it wasn't lead shot I was thinking of although I had read about it, too; it was the lead fishing tackle that is causing bird deaths (loons & eagles specifically--altho I'm not expecting visits from either LOL). Good idea about avoiding the small lead sinkers. Thanks, also, for the documentation and study links, rhody; I live to learn. That it won't impact water quality is just what I needed to hear.

Horton, I had a problem with the wraps staying on in my aquariums years ago, so I can see where they might not work for my big pond. Kinda wish I did have a clay bottom like Rhodyman :) I do like the tie and steel nut idea, just went with the clasp and sinkers so I could adjust the weights easily to hold down bigger bunches since they open/close like a diaper pin (pre-Pampers LOL).

Linda

Linda, thank you! You are indeed, a diplomat.;-)
Good luck with your plants, no matter what method you choose to use.

Lillian, great thinking, using the crates. I'm sure as the plants grow out you don't even see the crates, excellent idea.
"Horton"

i use rocks and sometimes with plastic line thru a drilled hole

Bump. Good info. This is one of the plants that I am thinking for to put in my new pond so have been wondering how people anchor it.

Solder wire works great! It's lead free and flexible, and one roll will last forever.

Oh Mary, good tip on the soldering wire. I think I have some. Thanks for bumping this Rita. I had read it myself earlier this year. I'm going to weight them over a pot of soil to see if they'll root and make it through the winter this year. Only fragments made it through the last winter because it floated and froze.
Vanessa

I tied macrame netting around rocks, leaving a string hanging from the end, then tied the string around the plant and tossed them in the pond. Worked pretty well, but was quite time consuming to do all that macrame.

This year I'm reusing the lead/zinc wraps that come on the oxygenators. May reuse the macrame rocks later on.
Anne

I put my Anacharis into the planter with a small water lily weighing it down with some lava rock I had. It rooted nicely. Of course I only have goldfish. Hopefully when the lily gets bigger I can sucessfully replant both.

I planted mine in one of the squat pots in some gravel and then I put a layer of the pond rocks I bought at Home Depot on top of the gravel. Then I sunk it to the bottom of the pond. It looks good so far.

I re-purpose the plastic containers that blueberries (and other berries) come in. I put a couple rocks in it and feed the plants in the holes of the container so they can't easily be pulled out by my fish. I have goldfish that like to nibble on the plants sometimes so this way I know I still have some of the plant from which I can get new growth.