Even though there isn't much natural about
our ponds - they are made with liner and filled with city water for the most
part - it is still a good idea to look to Mother Nature sometimes.

Mother Nature provides lots of water for relatively few fish, she lets the fish
find food on their own (no tasty koi kibble dropped from the sky), she does
water changes, she filters with plants, she doesn't freak out over algae,
she encourages predators and ignores the pond for the most part.
Every once in a while she kills off too many fish with a hard winter, sends a
flood to clean things out or fills in the pond with cattails and willows and
starts over someplace else (you can do that with a whole planet to play with).

Mother Nature doesn't run her water through UV (she has the sun at her beck and
call), she hates chemical treatments, she doesn't want to zap her creatures
with shock fences, thinks fish chow tastes nasty and would never think of dying
her ponds...

So Mother Nature has a few hints for us. Not that we'll pay that much
attention. It is too much fun to feed the fish and we love to fuss over our
pets but do keep her in mind everytime you get the urge to get too retentive
about the pond and open a beer, zip some wine or have your morning coffee by
the pond instead.


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