Thanks everyone for all the compliments. My floating baskets aren't doing too good this year. Don't know if it's the weather or my koi (now that they are bigger they are able to tip the basket with their body just enough to nibble. They remind me of deer they don't eat the whole plant just enough to stress it out). I heard a rumor it could be my water is too clean. Pond is in it's third year so it may be fully cycled now. Don't know if any of you read Nosambos (Lisa's) post earler this month so I am linking it to mine. She is so creative she can turn anything that floats into a planter as you can see from her post. I just love visiting her pond because I never know what she has created that is going to surprise me. I got 4 large sheets of styrofoam pads from work. They are about 3 ft long by 1 1/2 ft wide. I am planning on connecting them together with computer cable ties. I am going to try to make a large floating impatiens, watercress island out of them by cutting holes in the pads and placing punctured styrofoam cups in the holes (hopefully this will make them koi proof), then placing impatiens and watercress bare root in the styrofoam cups. It may work unless my koi decide to tip it over. (They completely destroyed one floating basket of watercress in a day). I will post pics if it does work. I am just wondering if I should surround it by pond noodles to make it more stable. Only problem will be getting it in and out of the pond. My pond is in full sun and my fish have no shade other than the floating planters you see in the post here. As they are getting bigger their shade is getting smaller. Jenny Here is a link that might be useful: Nosambos floating watercress idea

Dante is adorable (and so is Max). We had our yard opened up for the pond tour today, and someone brought a young Boston Terrior along for the ride. It was a surprise, because I wasn't expecting anyone to bring their pets with them, but this little guy was totally excited about seeing the fish. You could tell he was their "baby". I always love seeing pictures of your pond and your beautiful longfins.

The pond is 8 X 10 X 3 and we used 1 piece of 45 mil liner 20 X 25 for the job. There is no bottom drain or skimmer box; however I do plan to add a skimmer box this summer so we left enough liner for this to be done with relative ease. We used 2300 lbs of stone, not sure what they call it but IÂll look into it. The pump is from a Home Depot kit 1200 gph, came with the waterfall box, and a small liner. We will likely replace the pump with a larger one at some point in time but for now we are content with what we have. The whole pond thing is all new to me so your feedback good or bad is greatly appreciated. Any suggestions on a new pump? Skimmer box? Can I get 1 pump to operate the Skimmer box and falls? Lights?

Jayinflorida: How do you prevent your goldfish from eating the snails? I was thinking about trying to find some snails for the pond that came with the house we just bought, but read pretty much everywhere that goldfish would eat them. I'm also having trouble finding snails that won't be invasive and will last the winters (I'm in New England). Any suggestions? The reason is because of the pond sludge problem that I'm hoping snails would help with. We do have a (mechanical) filter, and some water flow that we hope to turn back into a waterfall soon. We currently have 7 goldfish in about a 500 gal pond, and from reading this forum, some of the plants are apparently water lilies. Not sure what the others are, yet. :) Thanks! Suzanne, new to this forum, but not as new to GW