Maybe until you figure it out you should stick to cheapo feeder goldfish?
Maybe it is chloramine.....you should call your town office and see if that's in the water.
I think as far as algae goes we're stuck with it Lynne, I've embraced it at this point. When your pond is in full sun all day I just don't think we'll ever win.
When you get it fixed will you try to winter the fish in the pond? I can't remember how deep you said it was....I know my pond water gets quite warm in the summer but the fish have a 3 foot end where it's cooler, your water isn't too warm is it?
lynne, i am so sorry. loz has a good point about calling your city. i was wondering about chloramine and about flouride. they both might have an impact. and chloramine NEVER evaporates. the water evaporates and leaves the chloramine unless it is neutralized.
Don is a hydrogeologist so he knows much about chloramine - he is hoping to get some test kits from work this week that would help him try to figure it all out. :wink:
Loz - the deepest part is just under 3 feet, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to overwinter any fish outside. I do have some tanks that I could put them in at least this coming winter, while they are still small - that is... if I get any to survive and I can catch them!
Oh well just under 3 feet should be okay. For some reason I was thinking it was 18 inches.....I know my mosquito fish made it in the old pond and it was about 2 feet deep. If you do ever leave them out in the winter and you don't use a pond heater you can just float a bunch of balls in the pond to stop it from freezing solid.
I hope Don can figure it all out for you! You should be enjoying that pond, not worrying about all the stuff that's going wrong with it.
Thanks once again, everyone! Don is still perplexed about the water, and we now have to wait about a week to see if anything clears up before adding more fish. I really miss going out twice a day and feeding them - it feels like something is missing. I also had such high hopes to have fish in there this summer, after not being able to last summer either.
Well... in the meantime, I am taking care of the plants that I put in on each side, and keeping my fingers crossed that the critters do not like the Shotgun Repel that I sprayed on most of the plants. So far, in the few days since spraying all is ok.
Here is a view from an upstairs bathroom window - it was the only way I could get both garden sides in the picture - sorry about the screen. The blue that you see on top of the arbor bench is a tablecloth that I folded and velcroed across the top to keep the birds from pooping on the bench - the past few years the cushions were a mess!!!
There will be stepping stones in front of the bench, just like on the other side by the chair, when I get around to doing that!
The dirt area in front of the pond has been seeded with grass seeds and is starting to grow now.
Lynne, if it makes you feel better my pond looks just like that. Color wise I mean. It's just so hard in full sun to have a clear pond. The algae grows on the liner and even if the water is clean it makes the pond look dirty. Have you thought of trying a natural filter, having the water pass thru pond plants to filter out all the gunk?
It looks really great. That was a good idea with the tablecloth. My little bench at the pond is always covered in bird poop.....I'm constantly hosing it off.
I think I'd be sneaking in a few of the cheap walmart feeder fish that are like 30 cents or something. :wink:
Fish often seem to die after being put in a new place. Everytime I add more it's a waiting game. With the first pond I bought 10 ten cent feeder fish and only one of them is still alive. Most died within days of being put in the pond.
I sure hope Don figures it out, and keep on keeping us updated.
beautiful. i like it. and i'm with loz about the cheap walmart fish. i would put a dozen of them in first, and if they make it, then go with the other fish. and the plant filtration is how i keep mine clear. not as big as your's of course, but i'm working toward getting mine filtered even more with the plants.
The thing about getting the cheap fish is... if they do make it, I won't have room for all the koi I want to have in there. And don't have any more room in indoor tanks for them.
We had EXTREMELY heavy rains last night and the pond water is about an inch from the top right now - it's a good thing there weren't any fish in there because when that happened in my bathtub pond all the nice sized goldfish up and died! Also... just the other day in the heavy rain the last 3 koi died.
Don needs to drain out some water today and test it once again. The never ending cycle...
(by the way... and not knitpicking... but our WalMart is the smallest in the company, and does not have a fish department. I have to go to PetSmart or Petco and pay 26 cents a fish - still not a hefty price, but still more than 10 cents if one is going to lose the fish anyway you know?)
I do have 2 of those waiting in the tank in the basement though - the last one I put in there never surfaced after the second day, and to this day I have no idea what happened to it... unless the others ate him?
actually, our walmart charges $.28 each for the fish now, inflation. i don't get more than i have room for, but generally end up losing about 80%. last time i got 5, lost 4. i still need 2 more for my pond to be "stocked" but it will be a while before i'm ready to do that.
I wonder why you are losing fish when it rains heavy? I've never lost a fish due to it raining. That's really strange.
You know, I've never once tested my water. Maybe I should do that. I sure hope that the water test comes back with some results so you know how to fix things.
I had posted this guy in the critter forum, but thought I'd put him here too, incase someone missed him there. He does belong here since he's moved into the pond yesterday.
BOY is he ever LOUD!!! And he blended right in with the rock - didn't see him at first and he gave me a scare!
Not sure if I should name him, Loz - afterall... we all know what just happened to all the fish that I named!!! Maybe they are right on the fish forum!
In the meantime, Don finally hooked up the frog prince spitter that he gave me for Mother's Day a year ago! It's so cute. Don was so pleased with it, that he kept chuckling! He now wants to get a bigger spitter. Told him it wasn't in the budget for this year. So he looked around and decided that he could make my cat statue into one. I don't think so!!!
I need to fix the small rocks he put underneath him to steady him - not such a great job...
very nice--both yor real frog and youyr spitter----and the water seems to look less green---do you think it is improving??---because I think it appears to be so.
________
Life isn't about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain!! .....
well lynne, i personally prefer some sand or rocks in the bottom, looks more natural. but that's just me. i love what you have and think you have done a great job, you and don of the pond
Thanks Jiffy, but I don't think you are getting what you are seeing in that picture - it's a plant shelf that is showing beneath the flat rocks - not the bottom of the pond!
I thought of putting down rocks in my pond, but you really can't see the bottom well even in the shallow end, so then I figured why waste the money....
Cool spitter Lynne. I can tell by that crown on his head that he thinks he owns the place. :wink:
It is soooooooooo funny - Don came in here a little earlier tonight and caught my pictures of the spitter and started chuckling all over again - he is sooooooooooooo tickled by it! He said he needs to get a bigger one now - I said it's not in the budget - those things are expensive!!! Especially with all the fish I have to keep buying, and all the things he is buying to try and fix the water.
Add to that all the edging for the gardens there, new sprinkler heads he just bought today, and on and on and on - have I said this pond is a money pit?!?
I haven't updated in a while, because nothing has been happening with the pond. The water is still soupy green and I haven't put any more fish out there since the last batch died. The few water lettuces are yellow, and a guy at a pond place (not the one we usually frequent) said that is because they are starving for nutrients that all the algae is getting instead!
So imagine my surprise when there were several healthy looking water lily pads this past week. Even Don commented on them. Well I've been meaning to take the tubers out of the very heavy/dense clay soil and out from under the rocks on top of that, and place them in some mesh lingerie bags I have, to allow the roots to grow better and hopefully compete with the algae for some of those nutrients. I put a few rocks in the bottom of the bags to weigh them down just a bit. I SWEAR... only a few short hours after we did this, the pads looked a bit bigger, and the new pads that hadn't unfurled yet were growing better already.
The pad on the right is an example of what's been happening all summer to them - they grow nice and green and then get sickly and die. I'm hoping they get new life now that the roots can breathe better!
Anyone else think that these lily pads look like PACMAN???????
I haven't done much at the pond, as I last wrote, but last Sunday, Don finally put done the sand for me to build the stone walkway on the other pond garden side, that was to be in front of the arbor bench. That day, I had only intended to pot up a plant and deadhead a few. It was a hot day and I was very tired from all my running around. Just before he left for a class that evening he says to me..."you better put the walk in very soon before it rains and washes all the sand into the pond!"
Well thanks for that - I had no intention of building it that day!
BUT now I had to! Took about 1 1/2 hours of finding pieces that would fit into each other like a jigsaw puzzle. It still needs some more sand to fill in between the pieces, but I think it came out ok.
I hope to fill in the spots on the right side between the rocks that line the pond and the path with a "steppable" type low growing plant.
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