Snooze,

Thanks for the information. I will watch them and see what happens. One
thing for sure, I am using my long, over-the-elbow rubber gloves to remove
the dead leaves.

I envy all of the people on this forum that are able to enjoy their ponds
all year long. Mine looks quite pathetic at the moment, but I am always
amazed how pretty it becomes in such a short time.

My husband installed the pond in the spring of 2000, but unfortunately he
passed away unexpectedly only nine weeks later. I certainly didn't have a
clue about caring for ponds, but have learned from trial and error and have
grown to love it. This forum has been helpful in answering a few questions
I had over the past few summers.

Again, thanks for your response.

Carole


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"Snooze" wrote in message
m...
[Snip]
Grossed out in New Brunswick,
Carole

No need to be grossed out

Based on your description, it sounds like you have daphnia in your pond.
They're commonly called water fleas. Daphnia are harmless they eat algae
and
other small organisms floating in the water. You can read about them here
http://www.petfish.net/daph.htm

Just let them live, your fish will eat them, I suspect that almost all of
our ponds have daphnia, they're a common pond insect, and often introduced
to the pond when you add water plants. If it really bothers you that there
are daphnia in the pond, you can try and keep them under control by using
a
brineshrimp net from pet fish store.

A 200 gal pond is too small, I bet if you poked around some of the 1000
gal
ponds or larger, you'd find all the things you learned about in high
school
biology, like a few fairy shrimp, some cross-eyed planara, tons of
dragonfly
larva, daphnia, various aquatic snails, and all kinds of single celled
creatures. It's how nature keeps the pond in balance.

-S