I did a prazi routine 2x, 7 days each. I was going to get them in the pond and then maybe do one more prazi treatment out there but the weather has been so horribly cold and wet I havent gotten them out. I decided I just do NOT want to wreck my algae/bacteria ecosystem by using PP on it. I fed them food soaked in prazi for7 days because I was paranoid about tape worms - havent seen any white pieces lately so who knows. The remaining fish look fine, better than they have in years. The ones with white, their white is much whiter - they probably had body flukes as well. They actually started looking better that very same night I started treatment- that was the day I saw them ALL at the surface with their gills flapping - I did a radical water change of about 90% and even then they seemed better, then added the prazi, and the next morning they were swimming around seemingly happy and normal. WHEW.... I am still seeing the occasional long threadlike, wormlike thing (clear) so who knows. Someone may have calmarus (sp????) worms... which requires a different treatment). What I find kind of frustrating is that with flukes, they take much longer to hatch at cold temps rather than at warm temps. No where could I find any kind of info about how long the intervals might be at different temperatures. IE if my water temps are 50, then what would the hatching interval be? I treated 7 days apart, but it could be that I still missed the next batch of eggs hatching. They might hatch out at 65 and then I'll have a mess all over again. If anyone's looking for a science project, that would be a good one to do!

Thanks. I thought with the fish waste they would be getting natural fertilizer. I just put in 2 new lillies last week. My local Lowes had discounted aquatic plants 75% and I bought 2, but didn't get them in the pond right away and they looked pretty pathetic by the time I did get them in. Both of them look very healthy after only a few days in the pond and one is already blooming.

Thanks for the ideas. I do get many dragonflies and damselflies, however I tried googling baskettail dragonfly eggs and came up with a photo of eggs that looks quite different although you never know.(http://southwestdragonflies.net/caphotos/basketaileggstring.jpg) I couldn't find photos on egg strings for Gordian Worms either. I'll keep searching on the internet. In the meantime, I went outside to check on the pond and skim some floating algae scum and see that most of those eggs have disappeared. Either the goldfish ate them, or they came off when I was skimming the algae (hope it wasn't the latter). There is still some there, so I'll be careful and keep an eye on it. Not much I can do if the goldfish decide to snack on it.

Not eggs, but the frass from whatever is chewing your chard. Also called poop, doo-doo, caterpillar doodie, etc. Wash your hands. ;-)