That's so cool, Lynne! I'm glad you got to see the little fishies.

I was telling my sister about your pond the other day. She's about to start from scratch(she had a pre-fab molded pond at the old house) and I sent her the links to your threads since you give such great descriptions and have done a fabulous job with the "step-by-step" progress.

Since I had to look up all the old threads, I thought I would put them all here for you or the hostesses for reference. I think I've got them all;
starting pond, finally!

Starting pond finally ~~2~~

Starting the Pond Finally ~3~ water is flowing!!!!!

If you build it ... they will come!

Continuing my pond experience! -

Thanks so much, Mel and Jiffy! I was trying to close the last one, but my keyboard jammed and I had to shut my computer down.

Mel - I hope your sister can get some good ideas from our successes and failures both. Might she join us here and post her progress too?

Your welcome, Lynne. I didn't even realize we were at the end of that thread, I thought the links would be buried somewhere in the middle. This works out great for reference, thanks so much for moving it Jiffy!

Well I'm happy to report that I definitely saw 5 of the six fish today, and maybe the 6th as well - couldn't tell from the distance. Don saw them too! They are coming up to eat now and stick around for about 20 minutes or so - fun fun fun!!!

Loz - what kind of food did you say you use? Sorry I can't remember.

lynne, i'm happy for you. i lost 2 of my 5 when i re-vamped my pond a couple of weeks ago. so last week, i put 5 more feeders (all mine are feeders, from walmart) and 3 of the 5 new ones have gone belly up but one is going to make it i'm almost sure, he's hanging out and running with the big fish. the 5th i don't know if it's even still in there.

That's great Lynne....everyday it's a little pleasure to sit outside and watch the fish feed.

I use the floating pellets for the bigger fish, the 2 BIG ones can eat 5 at a time.

The mosquito fish get flake food....one good thing about mosquito fish is that the water dances with them all the time. They are surface swimmers so even when you don't see the Goldfish you see them.

This fall when it cools back down I could send you some if you want. Jiffy I can give you some if you make it up.

Lynne, do you have snails in your pond?

I don't have snails, loz - but there was 1 tiny one on one of the plants I got at the pond store so I let him go in. After the awful time I had with snails taking over my 10 gallon fishtank in the computer room they are not one of my favorite animals.

Do you have them? Why do you ask?

I was just curious, my aquarium is full of a gazillion teeny snail babies and I've been putting them out in the pond. They are good for a large pond though, they'll help keep it clean. And they won't live thru the winter so they just have a big explosion in the summer and that's it.

I am so very happy to report this morning that the pond is so much clearer now that I can see the bottom drain from up here on the bedroom level, and I also see 3 of the fish swimming around down below today - YIPPEE!!!

I know I have said a few times that "people" have said if you name your fish you are sending them to certain doom, but I couldn't help it! So... here are their names...

The first baby koi I got is now about 5-6 inches long. When I got him, his top fin was very black and reminded me of a mohawk, and in turn reminded me of the Gremlin, "Spike" so that's his name.

There is an orange and white koi - "Creamsicle"
An all white koi which Amy named last night - "Marshmallow"
An all yellow koi - "Sunny"
A black, white and red koi with a red nose which Amy named - "Rudolph"
And lastly a large bright dark orange goldfish which Amy named "Clementine"

What are your fish's names?


Loz - when your snails have an explosion do you see them everywhere in the pond? I was thinking of getting a couple, but am just not sure I want to have to deal with that again...

I just cannot contain my excitement!!!
The water is so clear today I could see all the way down to every speck of dirt on the bottom!!! And I got to see all 6 fish playing and eating earlier this morning - this is what I've been waiting for - finally!!!

I can still see them from up here - I need to get some more things for them to swim in and out of on the bottom of the pond - any suggestions???

So Lynne, it was the batting that worked?

I don't see my snails everywhere at all---but they lay lots of egg sacs around the place...I do see a few come up for oxygen each evening.

Nice fishy names Lynne! Mine are easy....I have Faye and Mo--they are the 2 big Shubunkins that mom and dad bought for me.....the two biggest in fish in the pond. I have a white goldfish called Marky......3 fancy tail orange fishes, Loz, Athena, and Kristen. And 2 regular goldfish named Bill and Cindy. I had a 3rd but it died.... Jiffy says that was probably her.

I'm so glad that you can see your pond so well! I need to get to work and make an Adams filter and quit talking about it.....

You know what, loz?

Don is in such disbelief that simply cleaning the filters cleared up the pond - well DUH!!! Since he cleaned them on Saturday, and then again rinsed them on Monday it has cleared up dramatically!!! There is still a greenish tinge to the water, but as I wrote above, we can see clearly down to the dirt grains in the bottom!!! And I can still see the fish swimming around from up here!

Do you have a filter at all now? I don't remember...

I do, I have an all in one filter/pump thing with the biological balls in the bottom of it....I think I might work on an additional filter soon though, maybe this weekend.....

I clean mine often enough now, maybe not as much as I should---but it's so darn heavy to pull out of the pond everyday.

Thankfully our pond is crystal clear now - FINALLY!

Thought I'd post a picture of my pond "hoop" as Loz did in her thread.
The water hyacinths aren't doing all that well, and I cut them back yesterday. The water lettuces are doing pretty well, and I think I will get some more soon. Although I did just see the goldfish nibbling at the roots!

OH Lynne--so very happy to hear your pond is finally clear-- --

now you can sit in your pretty blue chair, in your pretty garden and watch your beautiful fish---happy restful times ahead for Lynne---

but hey do not fall asleep out there---

and of course your hula-hoop is blue---what other color would they sell to you, right???

How fabulous!! I want one!! But my entire backyard is field line for the septic tank and the front yard isn't big enough. sigh....

my fish nibbled my water lettuce and it still grew like a weed.

looks good.

Well there is good news and bad news today.
The good news is that the pond is once again clearing after Don put more Algae Fix in it the other day. I went out and bought the last 2 64oz. bottles that I could find anywhere here or in northern NJ - our Petsmart told us they are not making that size anymore - wonder if that's true?

The bad news is that my yellow baby koi is not doing well. Last evening he was swimming near the surface for a few minutes and then was just floating sideways all of a sudden. We took him out of the pond and put him in a plastic bucket with some stress coat. It seemed to help a bit right away. I put the bucket in the garage last night to keep the critters away from him, and thought he was dead when I went to look this morning.

I changed the water and he is still hanging on after more stress coat. I hope he makes it - he's the only all yellow baby koi I've found so far and I really wanted one!


Oh... and one of the fish in the large tank indoors was floating dead today too all of a sudden. What is going on???

weather? low pressure system? i hate that lynne. i hate losing even gold fish, let alone koi. i couldn't handle that.

Oh Lynne I am so sorry to hear about the little koi not doing well yet. I will hope tomorrow brings better news

Thanks Jiffy and Carol!

He is hanging in there, in the bucket. He just ate a little bit of dinner, though he seems to be swimming right towards the sides of the bucket and bumping into them as if he cannot see?

Oh, and the crystal clear water this morning is once again all cloudy due to the heavy rains we had a couple of times today! Back and forth and back and forth...

Praying for that little koi, yep I am---I love fish and I hope it makes it Lynne. Koi are pretty finicky fish aren't they? I don't know too much about them.

Thanks so much, Loz! I haven't gone outside yet today to see how he's doing. We had some pretty heavy rain once again early this morning, but he's in the bucket under the deck.

The pond water is pretty cloudy again, and the other fish haven't been coming up to eat like they had been.

Ohhhhhhhh - I learned something interesting the other day at the pond store - they had a sign up that said that water lilies do not grow until the water reaches a temperature of 70 degrees, and that the time to put them in is NOW! I checked our temp. when I got home and it was 75, and guess what? The two pads that are left are turning green - YIPPEE!!!

Algefix can be toxic to fish. Even used as directed. Use it sparingly go to koivet forum and read to discusion on algefix. I use it myself but I am very careful and us it "as need only", not as directed. just mt thoughts on the stuff.