Okay, I'd better explain the dawn patrol method ;-)
BV's beer aside (as in laid back ponding method, which I am in full agreement,
though I don't drink, medication forbids...)

Anyway. At night the plant life in the pond stops producing oxygen and starts
consuming oxygen. One reason why it is important to run fountains, waterfalls,
spitters and/or bubblers 24 hours a day.
If the pond is not going to support the fish through out the night it will be
easily apparent right before sunrise and the fish will be gasping at the
surface. I saw this in my frog bog (when it had fish). Azollza had almost
completely taken over the pond and so I got up early (it also helps to be a
morning person) and the poor fish were gasping at the surface. Now I knew
there was no way I was going to get all that azolla out as it was reproducing
every two minutes so I put in a minnow trap and removed as many fish as I could
catch. Later I removed all the fish from that pond.
Interestingly the azolla all died once the air temps reached the joyful week of
105 to 110 we get here in August. The pond is also only about 10 inches deep
and so the water was pretty darn warm - another reason not to keep goldfish in
there.


kathy :-)
A HREF="http://www.onceuponapond.com/"Once upon a pond/A