New Topic - What is the current status of your pond?

Today the watergardening labradors decided to live dangerously and started
walking on top of the frozen pond. Being that all the teenagers are back in
school and dh back at work this was an alarming thing to see. Visions of trying
to get two water soaked large dogs out of the pond...
Luckily they did not fall through. Today.




kathy

Hovering around 50 degrees. I turn the fountain/filter
on when it gets above 60 degrees, but in a few
days turn it off again. That's the goldfish pond. The
other two (minnow only) ponds are on their own and
do fine. Gail

Gail, if I was in your situation I'd have my filter on all the time, you'll
have no troubles at all with spring start up if you do that. "Supposedly"
our bacteria doesn't die in cold temps, some theorize, but creates a film
over itself and waits till conditions are more desirable. Even though my
water is down to almost freezing I still keep one bio-chamber going with
slow flow all winter. It really made a difference last spring. ~ jan


~Power to the Porg, Flow On!~

I just checked and the nice rich green carpet on the bottom of my pond
is string algae. The stuff beginning to cover the surface of the pond
is not duckweed, but azolla. I am hoping the azolla through shade and
filtering during the winter will help hold down the string algae growth
until the water warms up in the spring.

The golden shiner minnows are still swimming. The tadpoles are still
moving about. No sign of the frogs. All my marginal plants are sitting
on the bottom so the pots won't crack. There are some huge anacharis
"bushes" growing. I have tubs of water hyacinth in my greenhouse ready
to put in after the last frost.

Since my pond is spring fed, nutrient filtering is important all year
long. Is there anything I can do now or do I just play catchup in the
spring?
--
Pardon my spam deterrent; send email to
18,000 gallon (17'x 47'x 2-4') lily pond garden in Zone 6
Cheers, Steve Henning in Reading, PA USA

In article ,
~ jan JJsPond.us writes:
Gail, if I was in your situation I'd have my filter on all the time,

*wave to Jan*

My pond's in Fort Worth, about five hours north of Gail's. Had a nice
thorough freeze around Christmas (towards the bottom,
http://artships.com/pond.php). Pump is still... Pumping, skippy is
still keeping the water clear. Fish still swim, albeit with a bit
more deliberation at times. Landscaping's a mess since everything
that had been green isn't, and The Crew has torn-up the grass playing
"Chase".

Hey, Gail - Still got all those birds on your back porch?

John
--
An entire village where nobody's prepared to admit to being root,
and everyone has to be addressed by number because both forward
and reverse DNS is broken. -- The Prisoner, described by Tanuki

"Artships" wrote in message
...
In article ,
~ jan JJsPond.us writes:
Gail, if I was in your situation I'd have my filter on all the time,

*wave to Jan*

Whoa, how did I miss Jan's post? In reply, I suppose I
was concerned that with above-ground ponds, as the
water temp cools, the fish head as far south as they
can which isn't very far but better than nothing. Keeping
the filter on doesn't do anything for the biobugs (which
are nonexistent at lower temps, right?), it "mixes" the
water hence making the lower levels cooler, and also I
have to worry about the surface freezing over doing
weird things to my little fountain. Anyhoo, the fish
seem to be doing ok with the filter on except when I
expect temps to approach freezing overnight.

I could be wrong...

My pond's in Fort Worth, about five hours north of Gail's.

Or three hours south, since once you leave Ft Worth
during winter you just hit the brakes and slide.

Had a nice
thorough freeze around Christmas (towards the bottom,
http://artships.com/pond.php). Pump is still... Pumping, skippy is
still keeping the water clear. Fish still swim, albeit with a bit
more deliberation at times. Landscaping's a mess since everything
that had been green isn't, and The Crew has torn-up the grass playing
"Chase".

Hey, Gail - Still got all those birds on your back porch?

The Barn Swallows leave me regularly late summer.
But they'll be back! Except there's a lot less nesting
room since we built a room on the patio for two kittens.
(Long story, FeLV+, etc.) So now I'm planning on
building shelters just off the patio, under the overhangs.
I experimented with one last year, and a couple did
build a nest, although it fell down (overhang not
deep/long enough maybe). Thanks for asking!

John

Gail

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 16:00:04 GMT, "Gail Futoran"
wrote:

Keeping
the filter on doesn't do anything for the biobugs (which
are nonexistent at lower temps, right?),

That's what koi people use to think, so they cleaned their filters and put
them in storage mode and effectively killed any bacteria, or they stopped
the filters and effectively drowned/killed the bacteria. If you keep a slow
flow going the bacteria "supposedly" will go into a dormant state and wait
for better conditions. Granted some will die, but much will live. Spring
start-up is a breeze in comparison to start-up from scratch each spring.

it "mixes" the
water hence making the lower levels cooler, and also I
have to worry about the surface freezing over doing
weird things to my little fountain.

I've got a stock tank running with a becket box filter and bell fountain
agitating the surface. I turn the stock tank heater on periodically to keep
the ice away from the fountain. This year this tank has a bunch of koi fry
in it, an I'm currently not worried. We've hit a low of 15*F so far this
year and suppose to be colder tonight. ~ jan


~Power to the Porg, Flow On!~

Jan - would you please define further the terms "stock tank", "becket box
filter and bell fountain egitating the surface" ---- also "I turn the stock
tank heater
on periodically". What size pump are you using? I know instinctively what
these things are but not enough to
replicate your set-up. Sounds neat not to have to start over from scratch
each spring. Thanks much.

Nedra

Lotus Garden:
http://community.webshots.com/user/nedra118
Backyard Pond:
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pines/4836
"~ jan JJsPond.us" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 16:00:04 GMT, "Gail Futoran"
wrote:

Keeping
the filter on doesn't do anything for the biobugs (which
are nonexistent at lower temps, right?),

That's what koi people use to think, so they cleaned their filters and put
them in storage mode and effectively killed any bacteria, or they stopped
the filters and effectively drowned/killed the bacteria. If you keep a
slow
flow going the bacteria "supposedly" will go into a dormant state and wait
for better conditions. Granted some will die, but much will live. Spring
start-up is a breeze in comparison to start-up from scratch each spring.

it "mixes" the
water hence making the lower levels cooler, and also I
have to worry about the surface freezing over doing
weird things to my little fountain.

I've got a stock tank running with a becket box filter and bell fountain
agitating the surface. I turn the stock tank heater on periodically to
keep
the ice away from the fountain. This year this tank has a bunch of koi fry
in it, an I'm currently not worried. We've hit a low of 15*F so far this
year and suppose to be colder tonight. ~ jan


~Power to the Porg, Flow On!~

Jan - would you please define further the terms "stock tank"

Stock tank, n. Rubber or metal tank for holding water for stock (cows,
horses, etc.). ;o) Mine is the Rubbermaid 70 gallon, sitting above ground
on my patio.

"becket box filter and bell fountain egitating the surface"

http://www.aqua-mart.com/search.pl (and if that doesn't get you there,
copy & paste BBF350A20 into their search box). The pump is a 350 gph, but
you can go larger.

I'm using a regular stock tank heater, the red ones, 1000 watt. That's why
I don't just leave it on.... they're too flakey.

Are you thinking of growing out some babies? ~ jan


~Power to the Porg, Flow On!~

No babies to worry about .... I was thinking of trying to set up a dealy
with one of the
bags from the pressurized filter to get a jump start on spring. The filter
is covered with snow and it has been cold here -
20 degrees or less. Everything is probably dead now anyway. But then
again, I may
go ahead and set something up in the patio pond. I have two of them - unused
this year.
I think I could buy a small Beckett pump and I have a little
spunge filter that fits on it. Also somewhere around here is 75 degree
heater that I could
drop in.... As you can readily see - I'm just not 100% right now :-)
Thanks for your info, Jan.

Nedra
"~ jan JJsPond.us" wrote in message
...
Jan - would you please define further the terms "stock tank"

Stock tank, n. Rubber or metal tank for holding water for stock (cows,
horses, etc.). ;o) Mine is the Rubbermaid 70 gallon, sitting above ground
on my patio.

"becket box filter and bell fountain egitating the surface"

http://www.aqua-mart.com/search.pl (and if that doesn't get you there,
copy & paste BBF350A20 into their search box). The pump is a 350 gph, but
you can go larger.

I'm using a regular stock tank heater, the red ones, 1000 watt. That's why
I don't just leave it on.... they're too flakey.

Are you thinking of growing out some babies? ~ jan


~Power to the Porg, Flow On!~

Nedra,

Last year and this year I have left my pump going through the winter with my
1,500 gallons of above ground ponds. Living here in Northern Central
Oklahoma I get ice on the ponds and around the discharge of the to the last
pond but every thing is fine for the fish. On my discharges to each pond is
a 4 inch PVC and hanging on the elbow is a 6 inch lily pot that slows the
water flow into the pond and also helps distribute the water over the
surface of the pond rather than having the cascade dumping the water
directly to the bottom of the pond.

I started using this technique on the cascade about 5 years ago when I place
Philly Veil pea sized fish in my ponds so they would be battered by the
2,000 gph flow into the pond. I then noticed that it seemed that the fish
kept in the pond to help eat the excess food that fry didn't eat seemed to
enjoy the the lack of flow, and were not as skidished. I ended up using
this technique on all the pond discharges. This year I did have a problem
though because my oldest Rubbermaid of 9 years started leaking and later one
of the discharges where I used a different technique for sealing the joints
started leaking and twice I lost water significantly in the pond.

I have left my filter in tact for this last two winters except I have taken
the filter pads out and left only the bioballs in the fitler. Except for my
bout with string algae last year my filter seemed to take off quicker than
it has any year before at the beginning of the spring. I will see if it
does the same this spring, hopefully without the string algae episode.

I know one thing the pond sure has stayed cleaner this last two years when
the pump was left running and even though I had string algae the water was
always crystal clear.

I have bought my replacement filter for the big particales for the Spring
already and it looks like the fine filter I have is still good. I have
decided to change the administration of my Oyster Shell Chicken Grit and
made bags of toule to put it in and will place several of these in the
baskets under t water flow of the cascade so they will always be affected by
good water flow, because this last summer I had a problem with the water in
the filter knocking it out of the tray it was in and it ended up clogging
the holes drilled my dischage port from the filter. It took me two
overflows of my filter this last year to discover what was making the filter
overflow. So I came up with this idea to solve the problem that also
maintained the KH in my ponds.

HTH

Tom L.L.
---------------------------------------------------
"Nedra" wrote in message
nk.net...
No babies to worry about .... I was thinking of trying to set up a dealy
with one of the
bags from the pressurized filter to get a jump start on spring. The
filter
is covered with snow and it has been cold here -
20 degrees or less. Everything is probably dead now anyway. But then
again, I may
go ahead and set something up in the patio pond. I have two of them -
unused
this year.
I think I could buy a small Beckett pump and I have a little
spunge filter that fits on it. Also somewhere around here is 75 degree
heater that I could
drop in.... As you can readily see - I'm just not 100% right now :-)
Thanks for your info, Jan.

Nedra
"~ jan JJsPond.us" wrote in message
...
Jan - would you please define further the terms "stock tank"

Stock tank, n. Rubber or metal tank for holding water for stock (cows,
horses, etc.). ;o) Mine is the Rubbermaid 70 gallon, sitting above ground
on my patio.

"becket box filter and bell fountain egitating the surface"

http://www.aqua-mart.com/search.pl (and if that doesn't get you there,
copy & paste BBF350A20 into their search box). The pump is a 350 gph,
but
you can go larger.

I'm using a regular stock tank heater, the red ones, 1000 watt. That's
why
I don't just leave it on.... they're too flakey.

Are you thinking of growing out some babies? ~ jan


~Power to the Porg, Flow On!~