"Lee Brouillet" wrote in message
...
I'd *love* to do that, but in my ignorance last year, when Spring came
around, I lost half my fish. I don't do that any more. For a "relaxing"
hobby, I spend a lot of time obsessing about my fish, their health, and
their water quality. Not so relaxing, but I have beautiful, healthy fish.

Just for grins and giggles: how large is your pond, and how many fish do
you
have in it?

Thanks for asking. I'm glad your fish are healthy! I think we all go
through that "relaxing" phase :-)

Our "ponds" are probably more accurately described as water gardens. We
have 3 of the pre-formed. The first one installed was a 125 gal Sam's Club
special with a "waterfall". I built a pergola over it......still need to
install the lighting though. We stocked it with a half dozen (12 for a
dollar) feeder fish. That was fine for a while until the tree frogs and
toads decided it was a great place to spawn. When the goldfish started
eating the frog and toad eggs.......my wife wouldn't have _that_, so the
goldfish were moved to one of the aquariums on the porch and the rear pond
is now a dedicated frog pond. It's fun to watch 100's of baby frogs hopping
around the yard. Surrounded the pond with a butterfly garden. Had to bring
the Monarch caterpillars in the house during the cold snap....almost ran out
of milkweed to feed them.

Of course, I couldn't have the goldfish in an aquarium, so up went a fence
in the front side yard and in went another 150 gal.....strategically placed
so that another 150 gal (with spillway) would just "happen" to fit next to
it :-) I moved the comets into the bottom pond and put in a baby plec*o
(about 6" now). The spillway pond is more or less a veggie filter, with a
homemade biofilter discharging into it (with the pump in the bottom pond)
The original comets (now about 10", including tail) spawned on the first day
of spring last year. Now the babies (about 25 survived "naturally") are
breeding size (4-6"), so it should be a real fiasco this spring :-) A baby
redear slider came from who knows where and made a home in the spillway
pond, where a bullfrog also moved in. A swing in both the front and
rear......now we just sit and watch the world go by :-)

The part that I find funny is the toads and frogs decided not to spawn in
the rear pond anymore, so I get to rib my wife (since she made me move the
goldfish out of the rear pond) while she moves the eggs from the front to
the rear pond :-)

What kind of fish do you have? Names?