Probably. We have a pond with three pools separated by weirs. About four years ago, I cleaned our pond removed; everything and scrubbed. We purchased about a dozen $0.26 feeder fish. Only four survived the winter. The next spring I did some minor repairs and started the pump. It ran about two weeks, and then I shut it down as we took a long vacation. When we returned from vacation we had hundreds of babies, in all three pools. From the first four that survived the winter we have about 70 fish in the three pools today. The original four are over 8" long. They reproduce every spring.

Debbie, it could easily be a formal tropical water garden with its rectangular look. It would require a pump and some simple filtering, but that could be made to look formal. Many water plants have that tropical look, like taros (colocasias), and tropical water lilies are so beautiful. Submersible pumps don't cost much, and your first job could be to pump almost all the muddy water out and refill with fresh. Leave just enough water in for the fish. Then set up a skippy filter in a large fake old-fashioned looking flower pot and put it in. Then go all out with the tropical plants! These pics from the Singapore botanical garden. :) Mary

Michaelg, I feed the roses that arrived last year as bands, and are planted, weakly weekly (hit or miss), with fish emulsion. I got it in my head somewhere that is was a fertilizer safe enough for me to use on the bands and own root 1 gallon roses. It is a real pain, as everything else is fed Rose Tone that goes around the bush root zone. Using Rose Tone is a much easier process compared to mixing up the fish emulsion in a 2 gallon bucket over and over, and dividing it among these own root roses planted in various places throughout my yard. I do not have a hose end sprayer, as all I saw at the big box store was a M.G. version that came complete with their fertilizer which I did not purchase. My poorly communicated evolving question is when can I stop using fish emulsion and feed all of the roses Rose Tone, or is it more beneficial to switch to fish emulsion/seaweed, or do some of you all go back and forth between both? Also, in the past, on established roses at previous homes, I used granular fertilizer, but never during June, July, through mid August. Are products like fish emulsion or Rose Tone safe to use when it is hot? I am guessing that the application rate is decreased if so? Lynn

ooooooo, how lucky that was! thanks for letting us know :) my fave will always be the "dwarf" neon rainbow simply b/c it is so much easier- keeping, breeding, raising little ones... i still love some of the smaller more difficult related blue eyes, etc. i pass on the large ones, simply by choice, but they are soo colorful for freshwater.