Izhar! That is one beautiful leaf! Once that plant grows, you will be amazed at how much pleasure it will bring you. I have a few of these and what I like about them the most is that they take up no prime sunny space in the house or yard. I just stick them in the cellar where there is barely any light, or dark corners of the house, north facing windows where almost none of my other plants will grow, or the the yard under trees and shrubs. I just love them. I never get bugs on mine either. I can't even believe that you got one to sprout. I have tried and failed. That is a great job. Thanks for the info on the white stuff. I like your idea about keeping pH down. Very good idea. Toni: Thank you for that although they are not as pretty as Izhars! I will hold of on ordering. I saw some on e-bay from Vietnam too, and now those caught my eye. Sometimes I wonder why so many unusual plants are so hard to find here in the U.S. Hope everyone has a great day today! 82 here today again. I love it. Mike

This is just an example so you won't worry so much. I do not advocate this as a way to raise precious fish. I set up a 500 gallon stocktank last March. I had no electricity available so there is no moving water or filtration. I added a few goldie babies I had wintered over in an aquarium in the house and some extra water lilies that were destined to the compost heap. I have thrown out several inches of ice several times so far this winter. I go to work at 6:30 each morning so I don't open a hole most days. It is still 3 months til spring here so I don't know if they will make it the whole winter. I would never do this with my precious goldfish that are 6 years old now but the few fish in there all summer multiplied and are alive today. I did water changes weekly all summer and replace water when I remove the ice this winter. There are some elm leaves still in there from the fall.

hi all. fry r baby small fish. i feed mine during the summer 3or4 times pending on pond temp. high protine % in the summer but when the water temp drop's below 10c they r feed on wheatgerm pellets which has a low protine % so they can digest it,as fish slow down due to the cold there activatey rate drop's because fish r cold bloods. so it alway's good to have a tempeture gauge handy but don,t use a mercury 1 because if it break's it will kill your fish. also healthy fish can go without food with out any problems for over 150 days. so don,t worry if u don,t feed them for a couple of days or when u go on holiday for two weeks they will b fine as during the summer there r lot's of nateral food in there to keep going. -----------david-----------fishmaduk---------------------

bellajj, I don't think you have a thing to worry about regarding your pond rocks and fish. Our pond was started by another person, but we had to finish it, and yep, he used rocks as well. And mortar. The issues many have with rocks are that if they are limestone, or mortar was used, it can raise the PH - ours is 8.4 and though that is considered high, our fish are thriving, spawning, making fry. Healthy pond. People tend to over evaluation PH levels, when it's other levels, such as ammonia (from the fish poo) that can be worrisome. PH fluctuations would be what kills the fish. Take your PH test in the early morning, then take another in the middle of the day when it's hot. If they run the same, you're good to go : ) The other issue is with bottom drains (we have one) and pea gravel. Pond guy (who created more issues than I can count) dumped those in, and they clogged our bottom drain. Also the little gravels are hard to get all the gunk from. As for the big rocks, they will get fish and vegetation gunk between them too, but with good filtration, that gunk can play a part in a healthy pond. So again, I wouldn't be concerned. Your rocks will grow algae, and that's good. They'll turn green, but it feeds the fish. String algae is another kind (not fuzzy on the rocks, but stingy), and we are battling it now, but last weekend I found the 'secret sauce' cure for it, thankfully. Our pond is in full sun, and with higher PH caused by rocks, we'll have dense string algae to battle until the water lilies get some maturity. Frankly, I like the rocks, find them attractive. We've got round river rocks throughout most our small pond, and the larger squarish rocks on the back wall all the way up to the falls and fountain statue - with built-in fish caves. Below is a photo taken when the string algae first started up, and shows the rocks in the pond... BTW, you said your pond was 8 x 10...? Do you have a large area of mostly shallows with falls? Because otherwise your pond would be more than 100 gallons. You can use this pond calculator to figure out how many gallons you have. Ours is only about 600+ gallons because our sides slope a lot, and we have a bog shelf taking up room. If you've got 100 gallons, 2 goldfish would be your maximum fish load. To keep you pond happy and healthy, leave the good algae alone, use a filtration system of some sort, have aeration (your falls supply that), and don't overfeed your fish, especially once you get a nice growth of algae in your pond. I feed mine maybe 1-2 a week, and they don't need it. Happy ponding!