Stay up to date with the latest news, insights, and updates from Aquarius Systems. Our blog covers waterway management, aquatic plant control, environmental challenges, equipment innovations, and stories from around the world that impact our lakes, rivers, and communities.
In 2013 U.S. officials applied about 17 million tons of salt to roads. Salt lowers the freezing temperature of water and thus melts street-clogging snow and ice. But its public safety benefits do come with some ecological drawbacks. Salt not only damages metal and concrete, it contaminates drinking water, kills vegetation, and accumulates in streams,
Wild rice is an annual aquatic grass that produces seed that is a delicious and nutritious source of food for wildlife and people. Harvested in the early autumn, wild rice was an immensely important commodity to Native Americans, particularly the Ojibwe and Menominee, who lived in the areas where it grew abundantly. The Menominee even
Yosemite Valley is a glacial valley in the Sierra Nevada, part of the Yosemite National Park, drawing close to 3.7 million visitors annually. The Hetch Hetchy Valley is virtually an identical twin to Yosemite Valley, but you will never see its stunning rock formations and dramatic waterfalls. With steep valley walls, a narrow outlet and
Each fall, elementary school students gather along the Milwaukee River to release fingerling lake sturgeon—an act that symbolizes just how far the river has come. Once written off as polluted and lifeless, the Milwaukee River now supports more than 30 native fish species and has become a model of urban river recovery. Decades of environmental
Attending the Wisconsin Lakes Partnership convention is an annual event that Aquarius Systems looks forward to every year. We enjoy seeing old friends, meeting new friends; customers, DNR agents and academics. This year’s event featured a speaker that has literally made headlines, although not always in a good way. Dr. Tyrone Hayes of the University
Florida’s tropical waters are home to a great diversity of life, but perhaps the most endearing is the Manatee. The manatee is a grazing animal and spends between six and eight hours a day feeding on seagrasses and other freshwater vegetation. The manatee actually plays an important role in controlling the aquatic plant growth in
Asian carp were imported from China to the U.S. in the 1970s to remove algae from catfish farms and wastewater treatment ponds. Somehow they escaped and migrated north through the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. The species spawn in rivers and feed on phytoplankton, disrupting the food chain for younger fish. The voracious eaters can weigh
Global warming is a topic of contention for many people. This winter has skeptics high on their soap boxes spouting phrases such as “I thought this was global warming, why is the temperature outside negative 45°?” And when researchers studying global warming get stuck in Antarctic ice, skeptics are given a little more fuel for