get to the rec.ponds list to ask for more advice

(AppJumper) wrote:

I'll try to make this as short a story as possible. Years ago my father dug a
hole in his backyard because it was always wet there, so he thought maybe it
would be like a little pond. Over the years is was sometimes dry sometimes
wet. Well, last year my daughter and her boyfriend decided to make it bigger
and because a lot of scum built up the went to the State Fair and won 2 large
goldfish (we believe that one, the female, was a Comet and the other, the male,
was a Shubunkan). Anyway, we did nothing with these fish. We did not even
feed them, they lived off the pond. The made it thru the winter with no
problems and everything seemed fine. Well, my father noticed that the pond
kept loosing water so he kept filling it. We now know that there was at least
one mole making holes and that may have been the problem. Fourth of July
weekend was very hot and my father thought he had left the hose on all night to
fill the pond, but apparently one of the hose valves was closed so the pond did
not get any water. When my father went down in the afternoon the pond was only
a large puddle. The adult fish were in the puddle, but dead. He tried to
bring them back to life, but to no avail. He noticed in the puddle were
babies, so he filled the pond immediately. Then my daughter came home from
college in August and decided they needed to enlarge the pond. So they dug
another hole next to the old one, lined them both and joined them together.
The small hole is now peanutshaped and is 15' wide at each circle and a total
length of 30'. Now, my daughter has gone back to school and left us with a lot
of problems. First of all, when the removed the babies we were able to count
them and there is way more than we had thought. There are 140 of them! We are
trying to figure out how to deal with them all. My daughter loves them and has
even named a bunch of them, she did give 5 to my neighbor, but that was when
she thought that there were only about 40 of them. One of our biggest problems
is that we are afraid that there is not enough aeration. The old pond had a
lot of water flow from runoff, but because we put the liner in this is not true
anymore. The pond is way too far from the house to install any kind of pump,
does anybody have any suggestions? Please anything on any subject of caring
for these fish would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Gina



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
List Manager: Puregold Goldfish List
http://puregold.aquaria.net/
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Solve the problem, dont waste energy finding who's to blame
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endorsements or recommendations I make.

There are solar powered pumps available.
Go to froogle.com, type in solar pond pumps and you'll get a good listing.
Since the pump won't run overnight you want to get your stocking level down.
With this pond I'd go with 40 gallons a fish. Call your local pet store and see
if they will take the excess fish. In some states it is written into the law to
try and keep people from dumping their fish in natural waterways.
You can catch the fish in minnow traps, usually sized to take year old goldfish
with no problem.


kathy :-)
algae primer
http://hometown.aol.com/ka30p/myhomepage/garden.html