Awful quiet out there. Are people on vacation or just having good success
with their ponds this summer?

One of my successes was taking a mesh basket and putting foam insulating
tubes on the edges so it would stay afloat. Then I tossed in some water
cress. The water cress grew well, then bloomed and went to seed. I trimmed
those off and the water cress really took off. It is now covering my 22"
diameter prefilter. The best thing it is so easy to remove to clean the
pre-filter without disturbing the plants at all. Just lift, drain, sit in
the shade and drop back in when finished cleaning. So much better than WH
that looked so bedraggled when one put them back.... not to mention they
dropped so much crap & roots back into the filter.

Next I'm going to try reviving my one sickly WH by putting it's end roots
in some mud, see if that will green it up in a low population pond.

How about some success stories? ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

Our pond turns out to have three black 8" goldfish and a small koi
that we had not seen before. One of the black goldies is turning
orange. the others are still black. All of them have long flowing
fins. The koi is a surprise. It does not look particularly
good...like a combo of a ghost koi and white. We shall see as it gets
a bit bigger.

Jim

~ jan wrote in
:


How about some success stories? ~ jan
------------

Okey dokey!

Today was the day that my Anchor Worm treatment was finally over.
Dimilin seems to have completely cured the infestation!

The gold fish are all turning colors. Got one that looks like
lemon sherbet and another that still has a black spot on his back.
Think we're gonna call that last one Spot. Another goldfish is
the brighest red orange gold fish I've seen for a while, too. He's
purty.

Have one of the two oldest fishes finally getting a little less
timid with the new fish and the larger pond. I've taken to finger-
feeding the fish at times. (Dip finger in some water, into the
flake food, then back into the water slowly.) Little fish nibbles
make me laugh. But the big silver fishie... Well, it's a good
thing he doesn't have teeth.

Lilies are blooming; I still like the plain white the best.
(Though, I think I'm gonna forget about WH from here out; they just
don't seem to be doing very well. Maybe with some roots in some
mud....)

That's all from the Foothills.... Back to you, Jan...

~~Bryan

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I put one water hyacinth in the little blue pottery deck
pond and it has bloomed twice!
Bullfrogs are not being too noisy.
Waterlilies blooming.
Watched a squirrel rip off the head of one of my sunflowers and
tear it apart. I think he wants his seed dish filled. Spotted
a bright yellow goldfinch checking out another.

Busy getting youngest ready for his first year of college!
Luckily the new college grad is home awaiting her next
step in life. Other kiddo is finishing up his degree this
winter.

k :-)

I added 9 koi to my pond this year, all were roughly 4" when I got them
in May. Now they are all closer to 6" - 7" is this typical or am I
juat having a nice growth spirt? Either way the pond is coming along
nicely. next year I'll install a veggie filter

On Sun, 10 Aug 2008 10:28:08 EDT, Peter Pan wrote:

I added 9 koi to my pond this year, all were roughly 4" when I got them
in May. Now they are all closer to 6" - 7" is this typical or am I
juat having a nice growth spirt? Either way the pond is coming along
nicely. next year I'll install a veggie filter

One inch/month is not unusual. In 5 months I once had a koi that went from
a little fingerling to 9". And it was in an 20 gallon aquarium! What I
learned was feed them little bits very often and they grow fast... BUT they
also seem to lose their color. So I don't highly recommend fast growth.
2-3" in 4 months sounds very good for growth and color retention. ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

On Aug 9, 1:38 pm, ~ jan wrote:
Awful quiet out there. Are people on vacation or just having good success
with their ponds this summer?

One of my successes was taking a mesh basket and putting foam insulating
tubes on the edges so it would stay afloat. Then I tossed in some water
cress. The water cress grew well, then bloomed and went to seed. I trimme
d
those off and the water cress really took off. It is now covering my 22"
diameter prefilter. The best thing it is so easy to remove to clean the
pre-filter without disturbing the plants at all. Just lift, drain, sit in
the shade and drop back in when finished cleaning. So much better than WH
that looked so bedraggled when one put them back.... not to mention they
dropped so much crap & roots back into the filter.

Next I'm going to try reviving my one sickly WH by putting it's end roots
in some mud, see if that will green it up in a low population pond.

How about some success stories? ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds:www.jjspond.us

Hi All,
Our pond has been wonderful since we did 2 things: one was get a UV
light, which DH runs 3 days thn turns off for about a week: The 2nd
was put quilting batting in one of the filter barrels.

We are feeding fishes instead of noses~!!!! We can even see the all
black gf that was previously invisible. It is so much nicer to sit
and watch them glide around and interact with each other than it was
to wait for a quick nose & mouth grab a piece of food and disappear
into the green.
No wh this year or last as we have water celery that has been doing a
great job.
Hope everyone else has been having a great summer with their wet
pets!!
Nan & Rich in DE

Our ponds are doing well. Goldfish numbers are holding steady. The
koi are also doing well. I don't know if we have any new koi, they
hide in the veggie filter until we do the year end cleaning ( either
fall or spring ). It depends on how quickly the weather turns.
Our frogs are all doing well - they range from a little more than 1"
to about 6". Lots of night time music!
Canaries are still producing. One just left the nest yesterday.
I didn't purchase any water hyacinths this year. The veggie filter
was just water celery and water cress in the large vf. In the small
vf we have iris. Both did very well. The water lilies were excellent
this year. Blooms all thru the summer.
Bonnie
NJ