After a long cold winter here in West MI. we have finally thawed out. I have about 600 gals that include 2 small upper ponds and waterfalls. I lost one of my older fancy goldfish (over 5 yrs old)and had to put down my "Zippy" (also over 5 yrs old)gold fish that I spent nearly $200. treating last spring for some kind of fin rot. Did the 5 minute baths and all. He just layed sideways on the bottom of the pond gaping for days, didnt even wiggle when I netted him and pulled him out once the ice melted. SO sad BUT the 8 or so new babies and all the other fish (still at least 6 over 5 yrs old)look great and no dead frogs, one frog overwintered in the pond. How long do Goldfish live? Some of mine (was told from the lady we bough the house from) were at least 5yrs old when we moved in (5 yrs ago).Pond looks great! They just got their first light meal of flake food today.

Currently going through an upgrade, a slow process because Mother Nature has a nasty sense of humor in the form of rain every weekend!

Anyway, all the fish survived the winter. Even the tropical water lily, Blue Beauty, survived in the bottom of my pond. I covered the pond with 3 mil plastic to help keep the water warmer, and the Beauty has tiny pads sprouting from the tuber. Yes!

We're also getting things spiffied up for the Pond Tour this coming June, and looking forward to that. I'll post a picture of the upgrade when I get it finished. We're currently at 1500 - 1600 gallons -- hoping for 2500 when we'redone.

Hi,
Still doing the wait and see, the fish are fine but I think I lost most of my plants. Fish have long life spans and have been recorded to live over 20 years especially in non predator situations. The average for gold fish is thought to be 22 years, Koi are more like 25-30. I have never seen anything more than 7 years myself but who knows

I don't know if I am a "Forum Member" but I will report on the spouse's 450 gallon tank with plants and 15 three inch goldfish.

I advised her that in the Midwest over half century ago old farmers just tossed fish in a stock watering tank and ignored them. She did this and all goldfish survived and are eager to eat and do whatever fish do this time of year. Plants are beginning to stir too.

She had a common houseplant call pothos thriving in a guppy tank inside. The water temperature outside is about 50°F now and she has moved the pothos outside.

Blue underwater lights? Sounds awesome! Everyones new additions are inspiring!

Everything is great here as well. Pond is up and running, all koi are accounted for, even my oranda made it. I started feeding wheat germ pellets a few days ago. zone 6
heres a pic from yesterday

{{gwi:196824}}

Fish survived the winter and are moving more quickly now. The water is pretty green, but that will change as I get plants in there to use up nutrients. There aren't any plants here locally yet. I did put the floating island with the creeping jenny in the pond. I hope that starts growing soon. None of the plants are up and growing yet around the edges. Once that happens things will look much better. I'm planning on putting in the stream and waterfalls that I never got around to doing last summer.

Ohh Onky, your pond is gorgeous! It looks like I am looking into a natural, crystal clear spring! What a lovely waterfall and the koi appear to just hover throw the water!

Inspired.

thank you pondmaster :)
its a very efficient filtration system, it doesnt require any spring clean outs. I just took the net off that was on all winter, had everything turned back on and within a few days it was clean as a whistle

My pond is hardly a pond, more so an in-ground container for a lotus, that happens to have a apogoneton and a couple goldfish in it. Today my mom stopped by and wandered over to see if the fish, and some frog apparently wasn't happy with her and started croaking very loudly. I thought at first it was coincidental, but she walked away, he stopped, and when she started to walk back he started up again. Gutsy little guy, considering he's only a Pacific Tree frog and no more than a 1 1/2" long. Anyways, I went over to see if he was still there a few minutes later, and lo and behold my first lotus shoot had popped up! I'll admit ... I squealed a little, because I bought it last year and was not 100% sure it would make it. Not even 50%. But it has, and I can't wait to see some gorgeous gigantic blooms.

After the loss of 2 fish (both bogo at Petsupermaket a few years ago) I am happy to report the rest of my fish have made it. I purchased a 5,000 gph submersible pump at Marc's and it took me all of three days but I was able to plug it in today. Hoooorayyyyy!!!!! We got pond. We got waterfall. Oooooops, no wait a minute. We got rapids. Uh-oh! We got Niagara Falls. Skippy filter is overflowing. After three days of working on the pond I had to turn everything back off and install a ball valve. Fifteen minutes later we have a nice trickling waterfall again. Most of the moss in my waterfall was blown to the moon. Maybe that's what woke the fish up. Cuz a few hours later they were up and starving. I raised the skimmer but couldn't fill the pond all the way up because I sealed the skimmer again. Want to be sure it's good and dry before I use it. Probably sometime tomorrow. I have pond fever again and I love it.

Jenny

Happy to report no cracked pipes this year since DH wrapped them in heat tape. (Have vortex and external pump in storage area -like a shed- under a high screened porch and have had to replace some sections of pipe other years.)Usually find several dead frogs in bottom of pond and in skippy filter, but no dead frogs this year! Since pond is @ 40 in deep in middle, all fish survived as usual. Skippy filter is cleaned out and everything is hooked up and running. Hardy lillies are emerging from submersed pots. Much to my suprise, a marginal, "Bloody Dock" (rumex sanguineus), survived this winter in my skippy. Just waiting for it to be warm enough to purchase water hyacinth.

Hi
Well, I'm sure I'll get lots of sympathy Had a 15 year cold winter ,Dropped to 33 for almost two hours lol. Pool heaters were able to keep up with a bit of bubble wrap and shutting down the waterfall. Had no fish loss.(keep tropical fish)but a few orchids got nipped. Nothing fatal so far. but need to rethink the heating system again lol
I can tell it's spring as the cane toads are singing at the top of their lungs and neighbors are out searching for the source of the ungodly noise lol. Will have a couple of more weeks of netting frogs, straining eggs,catching tadpoles by the ton lol Gee I wonder what I would do with all my spare time if I didn't have a pond???? lol gary

I had that same winter gary. I have several passifloras, and the red one (vitifolia) took a beating. thank goodness the roots survived...she's back up, and I've even gottena couple of cuttings from it. My phals did fine.
Oh, and what's so 'ungodly" about the song of a frog??? Neighbors need to "open their minds", lol. Frogsongs are beautiful, especially toads. i think toads were given a prettier song to make up for the dull brown color that they usually adorn.
anyway, send the my way, lol. They put me to a peaceful sleep everytime. I wait for spring with relish...just to hear the song of the toad :)
Ribbit!
nicci

Our ponds are uncovered and the few illegal entry leaves that got "under the wire" netted out. The filtration system is up and running and the water is crystal clear.

We lost two of our older goldfish and a young one from last year's, catch me if you can, "Pond Romp".

This week comming, I will don the hip waders and pull out the lily pots to do the much needed, dividing and re-potting.

The Elephant Ear and Umbrella Palm plants, etc, are all ready and waiting to be taken outside, when it is warm enough for them.
Other than a few repairs and system tweaks, after the cold winter, things are looking good.

That's what makes it fun!
As Gary said, what else would we do with our time, if we didn't have a pond to keep us busy?

Gary. I have posted a link for you below. We don't want your tender tootsies getting frost bite, during another "two hour" [how could you stand it!!!!????? LOL] cold snap, down there in the Sunshine State!
Have a great pond season everyone,
"Horton"

Here is a link that might be useful: Mukluks for Men.

Wow I had to do a double take when you said your orchids were okay... Here I never even thought to take orchids outside, mine are in a picky little terrarium! Must be nice lol!

So far so good, we've been feeding the kids lightly on occassion, just a few cheerios. Yesterday we bought the fish food and they went wild.
They remember us, and are hanging in the beach. Cliff said yesterday, that he thinks that they watch the window in the family room and see us when we're looking out at them, and they get all excited...Oh boy, their spying on us while we're in the house :)
Spring is here!
Joann

skippy on for 3 weeks, new microscreen working. first lilly pad touching surface! need some touchups and split up plants. This AM i noticed the fish are starting the "spring chase" and saw some previously unseen babies that survived. Grass mowed 2nd time already, hostas leafing out, clematis budding, lilacs leafing, ya-da, ya-da - you get the picture. everything looks like it is swelling for an explosion. Looking forward to evenings pond side...

The water was quite green and icky. Couldn't see through it. Turned on the pump and started the Skippy. Started clearing up quickly...then....noticed water dropping. Found a leak where the hand pump starts the falls. Had to turn it all off until it can be repaired. Sorry to have had to turn it off, but at least we know where the water has been going now. We have been trying to solve this for a long time.

Lost 2 smaller fish over winter. One was from the icing incident that almost completely emptied the pond. Not sure about the other. Could be the same thing. I am glad that the pump started up okay. Plants are coming back but will wait a while before putting them in. Easier to protect from frost in pails and under the deck for now.

Gosh I haven't even started anything. Looks like everybody survived the winter. Last fall I spotted five quarter sized toads most of them lived in my greenhouses during the summer. I'd like to get some more tadpoles this season as I read that toads breed in their third year and mortality is >90%! I did take a pic of Lemonhead with {{gwi:196811}}. Lisa

The fish that were wintering in the house are back in the pond. The cats are mad! The waterfall was their favorite water dish and they liked watching the fish.

The water is a little green. The filters are cleaned out and running during the day only - too cold yet for the biologicals to kick in. I have one pump moving water 24/7 and the rest go on during the day when it is warmer outside. Water has been staying up at least to 50* but we are having a cold snap again so it will probably drop a bit.
The creek is cleaned out and I have new water cress to stick in it today. It is ready for the spring peepers whenever they start showing up.

The green frogs have been arriving (at least a dozen out there now) and are warm enough to chase. ChaCha (1 of the dogs) spends all day going around the pond, poking at them with her nose until they jump back into the water. It's very entertaining!

The water lilies are sending up leaves, so I need to get in there and repot them this weekend. I bought new tubs from Meijers - not meant for water lilies, but they are the right size and have handles and weren't too expensive. They're blue but the algae should cover them and the plants will grow and hide them too.
The fish are moving around. I haven't fed them yet but some of the water cress will go in for them. They'll pick the stems clean in no time. Does that count as feeding them?
sam

I'll try again.

{{gwi:196811}}.

I actually looked at my little ponds yesterday, I have an 80 gal next to a 200 gal separated by a bridge (over land) that looks like one big pond.

I wintered over two plants that look ready to begin a new spring! All my fishies I wintered over inside and they are getting BIGGER then I ever expected. I have 2 nice 7 inch Koi that began as PetSmart cheapies and one year later are just wonderful, the rest of my fish are 11 goldfish feeder fish (my "rescue" fish) I got to check if the water was OK (and it was good so they are all still here) from 4 to 6 inches long (and make it so I don't have any more room for any more fish).

The pond water is NASTY, lots of leaves on the bottom and the plants there smell like... bad things. I'm going to drain and scrape and sterilize the ponds (by just using the chlorinated hose water) and wait a couple of weeks before putting my buddies back in. The very-overpriced garden store where I got my pump accidentally gave me a full refund when the pump broke, AND gave me a replacement pump too, so I can buy all the overpriced water plants I can fit. I had bad algae until I had about 50% water lettuce on the surface, plus I think my one Koi (Nemo cause he looks like a clown fish) prefers to eat their roots over fish food.

One thing I do miss are my snails. I had two white shelled snails all summer that disappeared just before I brought everyone inside. I have a small hope they found a place to hide for the winter.

It will be a fight to repopulate: my kitty (another rescue, beautiful all gray I found at 7 weeks living under a dumpster) loves to watch them and taps the glass to play with them. Plus the tank is in my wife's office so she thinks they are HER fish now.

They are MY fish. My POND fish I tell ya!

Looking good - all the fish survived. Usually one or two don't make it through winter, but this was an unusually cold one with a long freeze without the cold/warm thaws. I think that may have helped. Toads are screaming...love is in the air...all is well with them. Plants are coming up, even the water lilies are making leaves. Haven't seen a frog yet which is disconcerting. They usually appear once the days have warmed up and that hasn't happened yet. Hope they did OK.

Mucked out, pump running, we're back in operation. Over the past few years it seemed a leak was accelerating and the algae was getting increasingly out of hand. Replacing the skimmer box last spring seems to have cured the leakage - water level held over winter - yay! And not needing to top off constantly with city water seems to keep the algae in check and water quality easier to balance. Looking forward to restocking the comets and enjoying the pond again.

The cover is off, the pump/filter is running. Sadly, I lost one of the bigger fish. My frog 'Gordon' is back and he brought a smaller friend! I am going to be repotting the lilies and other plants soon, in preparation for a pond clean-out. Also, REALLY looking forward to redoing my waterfall and adding a small stream....if the weather would just cooperate!

My pond has been up and running now for about 4 weeks. Water was clear and clean after winter. Had a mild bloom about 1 week ago.

Then over last weekend the pond took a turn for the worst. Water went from cloudy to downright nasty. Grey/Brown with very heavy particulate.

Most of my fish survived, although we lost a fancy goldfish and all the minnows when the filter broke and diverted 90% of my water mid-winter. I was very lucky the others survived 2 days in 3" water until a hole developed in the ice and I could see the problem.

Anyway, I did a 50% water change after I noticed my Koi were in distress. One even pulled a "Shamoo" and was on it's side splashing water across the pond. I drained/dumped 50% of the water and dregged the bottom and got out as much leaf/debries as I could see in the murky water.

Cleaned the filter out twice on Saturday to keep up with the problem. Also replaced my UV light. 6 hours after water change I noticed the fish had calmed down. 24 hours later everyone is doing fine, and the water is once again crystal clear.

I took time to also reconfigure my waterfall. I took a large 2 quart plastic bottle and cut a large slit on the side and fed the filter outlet hose into the neck. Now the water floods the bottle and flows out in a more natural flow over the rocks. It sounds better too.

Lillys are growing nicely, as my mini-cattails and Iris.

Mr. Green frog and his 2 friends are back, and I hope they appreciate the lighting I've installed around the pond. Should draw in a lot more bugs!

I am happy it is spring. Winter was long and cold.

groundbeef1, that is a clever idea with the 2 qt bottle. How do you keep the bottle attached to the hose given the flow of water into the bottle?

Mike

Well, my wife actually had a good idea on that front. I had been trying to hide it with some extra flagstone, but it looked ackward.

She suggested I use some large cobblestones. The nice thing is that the bottle (V8 Splash!) has a concave end. So I wedged the bottle against a larger cobblestone, made sure to have the neck end slightly elevated (5% approx) and then stacked cobblestones over the entire thing. The water fills the bottle pretty fast, but once it's going it gurgles out of the 1"x8" lenghtwise slot very nicely.

I don't have the hose anchored to the bottle, but have it worked into the rockwork so it doesn't fly out like a fire hose! I just sort of stuck it into the bottle about 2". This makes it simple to remove when I need to access the filter to clean it out weekly.

I'll take pictures this weekend if the weather brightens up a bit.

We have had the longest, coldest, most depressing winter I can remember...my pond disappeared under the snow in December, not to be seen again til now.
It finally thawed in early April and here it is with a light dusting of snow.....this winter just didn't want to let go!!
{{gwi:196825}}
What a difference a few warm, sunny days can make
{{gwi:196826}}
Gotta love it.....FINALLY!!!

My pond is fine but the blue heron got some of my goldfish. I finally had to put a net over the part that has more open water. The other end is pretty thick with plants and the fish have places to hide. I'm hoping once the lily pads grow more I can remove the net. I don't like it but it better than my fish getting eaten. The baby Koi hubby got for the front pond in Oct. lived and have grown quite a bit overwinter. All are eating now but I am waiting to see the older goldfish do the spring frollicking. Hubby is hoping for babies this year. Got some string algae in the back pond. I sure hope that goes away on its own. Its nasty. Cleaned out a ton of hornwort. All this time I thought it was parrot feather until I saw the real thing yesterday. The stuff multiplies like rabbits but way faster, lol. My lotus are iffy. Our puppy keeps pulling the tubers out of the mini ponds and I'm afraid she killed the one so I moved them and closed it in the gazebo and big pots filled with water so she cant jump in there and get to it. I sure hope they live. My water iris bloomed and its really pretty. All in all things are going pretty well. I hope to make a larger pond next year. I have to many projects this year to even think about it. Lot of frogs and toads out there and starting to see baby frogletts that lived and transformed over the winter. They are really cute.

Looking good but string algae is growing. Will dispatch son for some barley straw to keep suspended algae down - it is about time for first bloom. Tree from a good friend. greens even greener everyday. vine opposite side of yard

{{gwi:196828}}

{{gwi:196830}}

Here are some pictures as promised.

[IMG]http://i638.photobucket.com/albums/uu102/CMckahin/Pond%20Stuff/PhonePictures128.jpg[/IMG]

I haven't seem Mr. Greenfrog for a couple of days. I'm sure he is fine.

Mock Orange blooming and making a mess shedding bloom petals and blowing into pond.
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Iris have almost taken over veggie filter.
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Gary and company all doing fine.
{{gwi:185032}}
All fish accounted for.
{{gwi:185034}}
More Iris
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And too many Iris....
{{gwi:196840}}

Thomba, how old is your clematis? It's beautiful. Mine is the same color, but it's two years old and not nearly that thick. I'm hoping maybe next year . . . .

Pond is not running yet as sc still had two inches of ice on it. I put an airstone in two days ago and ice is almost gone now.. but it 's been 16C for the last two days. Put on the insulated hip waders and water gloves and retrieved pond lilies from bottom of the pond. They are now in the shallow end on milk crates. Boy do they stink! Does that mean they need repotting? All are leafing out nicely so I guess even in my cold climate and 4 ft of water pond mustn't freeze to the bottom. (Zone 3--frost line is 4 ft). Marginal plants are all greening up. My fish are indoors. Will maybe start the pond up later this week but it's supposed to rain all week. If I don't start it up I'll put the old submersible pump in just to get the water circulating. Happy ponding. Patti

Here are some more of my pictures.

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Here is one of Mr. GreenFrog

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Here are some of the fish
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Long view

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Closeup of the waterfall

{{gwi:196847}}

I like that rock, groundbeef .... gift from the kids?

Yep. Wife got it for me at Christmas from her and the 3 ladies.

A local stone craftsman did it. It was really inexpensive. (Like $40!).

The pump was put in two weekends ago, and the waterfall has been sounding just so lovely. Before that I had the little skimmer pump moving the water around while we did water changes. All our fish survived, the only casualty of the winter was Bubba, the big frog. So now Wannabe is going to be called Bubba, and Waldo will be Wannabe, and any one of the smaller ones will be Waldo. They all look the same to me except for relative size...
The goldfish are jumping out of the water, and our lone big koi is cruisin'. The had cheerios for a while in April, then spring/autumn food. Today the water temp was over 60, and I gave them summer food - mostly because I'm almost out of spring food... I have to order some. They sure didn't mind.
The day the ice melted from the pond surface, was the day that the first lily leaf poked its head up. There are many lily leaves now and the pickerels and grassy marginals are all starting up. They all need repotting - but, no rush...
We took the sediment filters apart last fall, they were working well but too large and unwieldy when wet. And the screws had rusted through. So we have to design a lighter weight version now. Meanwhile the double settling chamber is helping a lot even without the filters. Maybe we'll get that done this weekend.
Weekends without ponding are hardly worth staying home for!

:) Mary

Nancy - clematis is about 5 years old (I think). this is about double the blooms over last season. first couple of years were weak but you can see it is now doing well. Primrose now exloding, some lillies have buds, crepe myrtles leafed out. FISH are active, and hungry. pond lillies have many pads on surface, greening, buds heading to surface!

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:196820}}

Pond is doing great. I've planted a bunch of creeping phlox around the border and through the edge stones and it looks pretty good. I'll post pics when the rains stops and the sun comes back.

I rarely post but read often. I emptied my pond two weeks ago, power washed the rocks and gravel, refilled, and back in business. Planted a few bare root marginals, two lilies, and put some water hyacinths in the biofalls. The frogs have gone through their mating ritual and the noise has quieted down.

Smurfsdad

Dear folk up in U.S.A. and Canada. It's nice to read/see you're nice thoughts and stories about the new Spring and the warmer days ahead. Down here it's gettin' colder by the day but at last we're getting a bit of rain after a long dry Autumn. Your ponds look nice and I enjoy reading about them and looking at the photos...and spare a thought for those of us in the Southern Hemisphere, brrrrrrr.

Well, here it is. It could use a slime cleanout but baby rosys, toadpoles, and frogs think it is heaven. The waterfalls is getting abit gross ya think?

{{gwi:196848}}

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Awesome pond! I couldn't put up with the alge, but it is really pretty. Nice setting!

my little pond looks so empty right now. just 2 hyacinths and 2 plants: an umbrella palm & a red canna with creeping jenny in the pots. I threw bricks in the bottom so I'd have something to stop me from slipping when I climb in to clean the bottom. It's only about 18" deep in the middle and I wear those knee high boots. I don't have fish because I'm only here on weekends and I'd worry about them when I wasn't around. But maybe fish are more hardy than I think. I honestly don't know. Oh and I bought mosquito dunks. I'm new to this.

here's a recent photo. can't wait till it's warmer and the hyacinth multiply:

{{gwi:196851}}