Month old Pond Progress

I set up my first pond about a month ago. It went through a
heavy algae bloom about two weeks in, that lasted about a
week. I set up my water filter as a pseudo veggie filter
and it cleared to the bottom within three days. I filled
the waterfall form with anacharis and fixed two small barley
bales to the front so that the water has to pass through
them before passing into the spillway. I had low ph, around
6.2 last week. I read that baking soda raises it, but
couldn't find a chart showing how much (even if I could I
have no idea what size my pond is... LOL) I put in about
1/8 cup (I THINK my pond is around 300 gallons? so I
guestimated) Within two days the ph was almost 9 so I did
some frequent small water changes and today is about 7.5.

It's nice being able to see the fish. The water was
completely green when I put them in, and it was almost two
weeks before I saw them again. Apparently a pond full of
tadpoles and diving beetles do a fish good. When I finally
could see through the water again, all previous inhabitants
were gone and the fish were noticeably larger.

My dog thinks the pond is a huge water trough just for her,
and has been drinking alot of water. Today she was grazing
on grass like a cow and threw up a couple of times. The
only things in the pond is fish, plants, a mechanical
filter, some barley bales, and that 1/8 of baking soda. Is
there anything that develops in pond water that could make
her sick?

Robin
http://community.webshots.com/user/robinandtami

These are some of the problems that can be had with ponds
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasi...ht_giardia.htm
and
http://www.aocd.org/skin/dermatologi...mers_itch.html

But I don't think that is your problem.... unless
you get a lot of runoff from your lawn into your pond.

My dogs, who tend to be very lazy, will drink out of fresh, cold water in the
house rather than make the trek all the way down the stairs out to the pond.
Even though the pond tastes wonderful with that lovely bouquet of fishy poo.
I'd provide water inside the house and keep her from drinking in the pond for a
couple days. Then if she drinks from the pond again and gets sick you've
probably got a problem.

Usually vets will have a fit if they know your dog is drinking from the pond
but on rec.ponds we've only heard of one dog suspected of getting giardia,
suspected, from a pond.




kathy :-)
algae primer
http://hometown.aol.com/ka30p/myhomepage/garden.html

Snippage
Usually vets will have a fit if they know your dog is drinking from the
pond
but on rec.ponds we've only heard of one dog suspected of getting giardia,
suspected, from a pond.




kathy :-)
algae primer
http://hometown.aol.com/ka30p/myhomepage/garden.html

How is it for cats ?
We have two, and one of them insists on drinking from the pond.

Peter
Pond in progress
www.katzsisters.com

Peter wrote
How is it for cats ?
We have two, and one of them insists on drinking from the pond.


I'm sure our cat keeping (or is that ponders kept *by* cats...
;-) will chime in. But as long as I've been on rec.ponds we just haven't
heard of anybody having health trouble with their ponds and their pets drinking
from it. Cats, on the whole, are fairly sophisticated about ponds and rarely,
if ever, bother the fish. Some dogs, especially the ones bred for swimming do
like to take a lap or two (except for my lazy labradors who hate to swim). My
labs did think that fish spawning was very interesting and like to play vice
cops and grab the offending fish and lay them on the lawn to think over their
crimes...





kathy :-)
algae primer
http://hometown.aol.com/ka30p/myhomepage/garden.html

if ever, bother the fish. Some dogs, especially the ones bred for swimming
do
like to take a lap or two (except for my lazy labradors who hate to swim).
My
labs did think that fish spawning was very interesting and like to play
vice
cops and grab the offending fish and lay them on the lawn to think over
their
crimes...

kathy :-)
algae primer
http://hometown.aol.com/ka30p/myhomepage/garden.html

ROFL :-)

Peter

My dog thinks the pond is a huge water trough just for her,
and has been drinking alot of water.

Our dog drinks out of our pond all the time, even though he has a bowl of water
on the patio and in the house as well. For some reason fish poo is very tasty.
LOL I checked with our vet 2 years ago when we started our first pond to see
if it would hurt him. He said as long as we don't use chemicals that could be
toxic most ponds are harmless to animals. I have noticed that on some things
it actually says that the product is not harmful to animals.


Jan
"Our Pond" Page
http://hometown.aol.com/pinkpggy/index.html