Today I take the plastic off my pond and start setting up the veggie filter.
whew. it is finally getting back to normal temp after a cold week and a
record breaking snow. the pond water has been 55-60 and it is still clear,
no ammonia and just the bucket filter. I have never had it this clear so
early. OTOH, I have never fed daphnia and krill rather than "fish food"
either. This year I AM going to build a greenhouse type superstructure for
winter. There are entirely too many days each spring and fall I could be
sitting outside by my pond if I could just use a little "greenhouse effect".
Ingrid

On Sun, 15 Apr 2007 07:46:03 CST, "drsolo" wrote:

Today I take the plastic off my pond and start setting up the veggie filter.
whew. it is finally getting back to normal temp after a cold week and a
record breaking snow. the pond water has been 55-60 and it is still clear,
no ammonia and just the bucket filter. I have never had it this clear so
early. OTOH, I have never fed daphnia and krill rather than "fish food"
either. This year I AM going to build a greenhouse type superstructure for
winter. There are entirely too many days each spring and fall I could be
sitting outside by my pond if I could just use a little "greenhouse effect".
Ingrid

I'd like to figure out how to put bird netting over my lily pond, so it is
high enough not to affect those walking in. There is a 4ft. chain link
around it, so I'm thinking attach to that then go high with perhaps pvc
painted black. This would hopefully keep out the anti-frog neighbor's nasty
sycamore leaves. ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

Ingrid,

Our mid-April looks a bit warmer than yours. Water temp: 64 degrees.

Phyllis is away at a conference for a 'Clean water for the world'
project she has been working on. Interesting. British, Indonesian,
Ugandan, US, Canadian team members...internet meetings usually.

While she has been away, I have been working on clean water for OUR
world..i.e. cleaning the berm filters. Our hyacinth filter had about
2" of muck in it...and lots of big tadpoles from last year. I pulled
the hyacinths, anacharis and duckweed with a salt water net. Easy. I
stripped off last year's hyacinth leaves (dead from winter and ready
to become pond muck if not removed.) The plastic tent worked very
well. Survival of tented hyacinth: perhaps 90%. Untented: perhaps
10%. I netted out the big junk in the pond with the salt water net.
Then I drained the pond and flushed it with pond water by turning on
the inflow valves. Total time for a 4 x 8 pond: 30 min.

I did the other berm ponds and the upflow 55 gal. barrels last fall.
Took and hour for the two ponds and 3 barrels. Each barrel has a mesh
bag of strapping tape and a bottom drain.

That does it for the year.Total annual maintence of filter system: 1.5
hours. Man, do I like veggie filters with drains!

I will breed some shebunkins in one of the berm ponds and probably add
some platies and swords as well once things warm up. We get four or
so generations breeding by the fall chill. The tropicals add nice
color to the pond.

we were warming up, leaves on the trees n such, asparagus a foot tall
already ,and then last week's frost killed a lot of the leaves and asparagus

and this last week was up to the 70's, but today it's snowing again!

Not sure if I'm in winter or summer here

--
Gareee
(Gary Tabar Jr.)

The lilacs are blooming and the yellow iris
on the pond's island shouldn't be far behind.

k :-)

"drsolo" wrote in message
. com...
Today I take the plastic off my pond and start setting up the veggie
filter.
whew. it is finally getting back to normal temp after a cold week and a
record breaking snow. the pond water has been 55-60 and it is still
clear,
no ammonia and just the bucket filter. I have never had it this clear so
early. OTOH, I have never fed daphnia and krill rather than "fish food"
either. This year I AM going to build a greenhouse type superstructure
for
winter. There are entirely too many days each spring and fall I could be
sitting outside by my pond if I could just use a little "greenhouse
effect".
Ingrid

Pond is still 40°F here and that's with the heater. :-(

The grand uncovering is probably still a month away.

http://weloveteaching.com/landscape/bkyd/4-8-2007.jpg

I made a half hoop with netting to guide the Virginia creeper, Kiwi and
sweet autumn clematis over the walkway. That is gray stuff like PVC, very
cheap. The netting is more subtantial than plain old bird netting so it can
take more of a load. I use those plastic slide ties to attach it to the
chain link. well the picture is not of the finished set up. yesterday we
pulled the netting taut and used those ties to secure it. hoops can be as
high as you want and you arent going to be putting any load on it. those
gray things, I dont think they need "connectors" since one end seems flared
out to take another. would be cheaper as well. Ingrid


"~ jan" wrote in message
...
I'd like to figure out how to put bird netting over my lily pond, so it is
high enough not to affect those walking in. There is a 4ft. chain link
around it, so I'm thinking attach to that then go high with perhaps pvc
painted black. This would hopefully keep out the anti-frog neighbor's
nasty
sycamore leaves. ~

It is the one thing I would change about my veggie filter. hook a hose and
feed the flower beds. Ingrid


"Phyllis and Jim" wrote in message
oups.com...
Man, do I like veggie filters with drains

get some plastic over the pond!!!!! Ingrid


"Bill Stock" wrote in message
...
Pond is still 40°F here and that's with the heater. :-(

The grand uncovering is probably still a month away.

wowo... my total veggie filter is 12" x 12" by maybe 14 ' long along 2 sides
of the pond. The distance is needed to get the silt out. I am going to use
PVC pipe like someone suggested, put my pots of stuff in that. last year
the cyperus got so big I couldnt get it back out of the filter. I recovered
a couple chunks and whacked the rest and my DH got them out this spring.
what I especially like is putting big baskets of flowers in the filter with
just the bottom of the basket in the water ... the color is so nice and I
never need to water those baskets all year. Ingrid

"Phyllis and Jim" wrote in message
oups.com...
Total time for a 4 x 8 pond: 30 min.
That does it for the year.Total annual maintence of filter system: 1.5
hours. Man, do I like veggie filters with drains

Your post reminds me of seeing your vf long ago in a post.
Efficient! I have forgotten how big your fish load is. We get a
couple of inches of muck in each barrel (3 of them) and on the botton
of a total of 20 X 4 of veggie filter. The sequence that does best is
the 55 gal drum followed by a 4 x 4 followed by a 4 x 8. The 4 x 4
gets the most muck. The 4 x 8 gets the remainder. Bonnie's water
celery have now filled the 4 x 4. Their roots are a formidible
mechanical and bio filter. They also allow for lots of
sedimentation. Once the hyacinth have filled the next filter, there
will be another 32 sq ft of sedimentation plot. As before, I
anticipate throwing bushels of hyacinth away. They have all begun to
send out daughter plants.

Beat changing filter pads!

Jim

We can't post pictures here. I wanted to share some pics of the
battle between Bonnie's celery and the duckweed and between the
parrots feather, duckweed and hyacinth. Victory lies with the celery
and hyacinth...shade!

I have posted the pics on The Freshwater Aguarium (Google Group). Has
anyone a suggestion of another place that I could easily post pics?

Jim

In article .com,
"Phyllis and Jim" wrote:

We can't post pictures here. I wanted to share some pics of the
battle between Bonnie's celery and the duckweed and between the
parrots feather, duckweed and hyacinth. Victory lies with the celery
and hyacinth...shade!

I have posted the pics on The Freshwater Aguarium (Google Group). Has
anyone a suggestion of another place that I could easily post pics?

Jim

photobucket.com

--
To reply by email, remove the word "space"

On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 07:05:50 CST, "drsolo" wrote:

http://weloveteaching.com/landscape/bkyd/4-8-2007.jpg

I made a half hoop with netting to guide the Virginia creeper, Kiwi and
sweet autumn clematis over the walkway. That is gray stuff like PVC, very
cheap. The netting is more subtantial than plain old bird netting so it can
take more of a load. I use those plastic slide ties to attach it to the
chain link. well the picture is not of the finished set up. yesterday we
pulled the netting taut and used those ties to secure it. hoops can be as
high as you want and you arent going to be putting any load on it. those
gray things, I dont think they need "connectors" since one end seems flared
out to take another. would be cheaper as well. Ingrid

Well that got a lively discussion going with my son. Not sure where we'll
go with this at this time. Thanks for the picture. ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

you got that right. Ingrid

"Phyllis and Jim" wrote in message
ups.com...
Beat changing filter pads!

Jim