I have a small pond that I started last summer. It's mainly a wildlife pond
for frogs and toads. I have 6 plain goldfish and frogs that hibernated
over the winter. The frogs are waking up and sitting around the pond
lately. The water is really clear and I can see some leaves and junk on the
bottom. I would like to clean it out but I wasn't sure if I should wait
until the weather warms a little more (in the 70's during the day now). I
was not sure if I would stress the fish or disturb the frogs. There is also
some small (about half inch) worm looking things that are attached to the
insides of the pond and on the filter basket and submersed fountain nozzle.
Anyone seen this type of thing? They don't seem to be moving but they creep
me out! I don't know if they are bad or if I should scrub the pond. Any
advice?

You could start moving out a few handfuls a day since your pond is small.
That is what I am doing to my frog bog, checking for snails, worms and all
creepy crawlies which I dearly love.

I expect you might have some form of leech, flatworm or such. If they are not
on your fish and frogs they are vegetarians and will not hurt you.

I have kept leeches in with an aquatic frog, he cleans up the poo and such.
Every leech is named Osama. The next one I get will be named Saddam.


k30a

Ha, ha! I will keep a mental image of that the next time I see one of those
creepies in the pond. What does your leaches look like? There seems to be
quite a few in my pond. The frogs and fish seem to be healthy, but those
wormy things bother me. They do seem to be stuck really good on whatever
surface they are on. If I decided that I really need to get rid of them,
what would be a safe way without harming fish, frogs, plants?


"K30a" wrote in message
...

You could start moving out a few handfuls a day since your pond is small.
That is what I am doing to my frog bog, checking for snails, worms and all
creepy crawlies which I dearly love.

I expect you might have some form of leech, flatworm or such. If they are
not
on your fish and frogs they are vegetarians and will not hurt you.

I have kept leeches in with an aquatic frog, he cleans up the poo and
such.
Every leech is named Osama. The next one I get will be named Saddam.


k30a

There are a lot of different species of leeches out there...... the ones I
have are about an inch long and fairly chubby.

If I decided that I really need to get rid of them,

I'm not really sure. If they are carnivorous one plan would be to take a piece
of liver, put it in a two strawberry baskets as a trap.
But if they are not... hand removal?
Maybe float a piece of lettuce?
Stop feeding your fish and let them eat them.
Tadpoles will usually hover up the sides of things, maybe they will eat them.

I would take a few out of the pond. Put them in a white dish with pond water
and study them with a magnifying glass and flashlight and see what you can see.

Around here a white dish is never to be washed off! My daughter and I just
brought in some insect larave and hatched some gnats out. We have a glass bowl
cover for hatching insects.







k30a

well.. I put together a puter for the pond guyz and they came out to clean out my two
ponds at my mothers. those are the ponds that were covered with a greenhouse until
the winter of 2000-2001 when we had 55 inches of snow in a few days and the hoops
became W's ... collapsing the whole thing down into the ponds. since then the leaves
have been blowing in and the ponds basically going to hell. had gorgeous goldfish
bred in one pond and the orfes had 2 sets of babies in the other.
I now have no orfes at all and only 5 gf survived in the other pond. and that is
despite the big blower and 12" airstones going all winter. sigh. Jerry is really
into ecology and he spent time recovering the tadpoles and mating toads before
cleaning it out.
they clean ponds in spring. they are very very good have these big ass pumps. of
course, they would much rather be putting in ponds. Anybody in the N. Illinois or SE
Wisconsin area want somebody come in and do your pond, these are the guys. Jerry is
Marilyns son and learned the pond biz from the ground up.. LOL.
http://home.wi.rr.com/liquidescapes/

Ingrid