Chrissy, Hi from Phoenix AZ. Looks like you have been a real busy couple.
The pond looks real nice. They are allot of trouble at times but as a new
pond person myself I can tell you that you will have allot of fun with the
projects. I had the pea soup pond for a couple of weeks I was told to keep
the filter good and clean and it soon clears up. As long as the water test
good for the fish your ok. My pond cleared up then the nitrite level was
high still working on that but it is slowly getting better. My problem was
that I purchased to many fish not knowing the limit for my pond. The fish
are doing great and look healthy so as long as the water keeps getting
better were ok here. I wish you could send us some of your rain, I'd be
happy to send some sun. Last week we had a low of 107 and a high of 118.
Just a hint that someone told me not to put gravel or small rocks in the
pond they are hard to clean and the waste from the fish gets between them
and that causes you future problems. Remember I'm new at this could be wrong
but maybe a more expert pond owner will tell you more technical information
on that. Good Luck Kc
"Chrissy" wrote in message
news:WddTa.118652$Ph3.15170@sccrnsc04...

Dont know if some of you may remember me posting. I was one of the ones
that had dirt in my water. Well we had to drain it out, got out all the
rocks in the pond and set it back up again. In the meantime we
transferred
our Comets over to a holding tank and lost 3 of them due to the excessive
heat in the house while getting the pond back in shape to put them
into
again. We had 11, lost one due to a fallen rock into the pond, and lost 3
more in the tank. We now have 7 left and they are growing so big. We
will
be getting a few more Comets soon once the water clears up a bit, I'm
crossing fingers here.

Out of all the plants that we had in there from those small baskets you
can
get at some pet stores, only the Hardy Lilies have grown. We have about 8
or so lily pads, and our first blossom appeared today, of all days. Its
murky here in Massachusetts today and stormy. It brightened up my day
though, as I was awaiting it to bloom :0)

After draining the pond by using the pump and a long hose attached to it
we
set it back up after washing down the liner. Of course it poured almost
the
whole week after we set it up again and more mud got in there before we
could fully finish putting the rock border around the edges to keep the
liner in place. We now have murky but its also looking pea soup green as
well, which it was never doing before. So I'm happy even with the Algae
bloom in the water, so I know at least its getting sunlight so to speak.
I
have tried using the Python that I have for our tanks in the house but its
not picking up the dirt, so I may have to get a wet/dry vac or something.
I
was thinking about adding some of those marbles for aquariums to put in
the
lower ends of the pond so if I need to get in there I dont slip on the
liner.

Anyways, I have added some pictures of it up on our website if any of you
would like to take a look and let me know any ideas on what to put up
around
the taller sides of the pond along the top shelf for plants or whatever.

Chrissy
http://www.thejoyals.net/pond.html