Country Escape's 2nd pond - Goldfish only

[brandonsdad02]

I made some big changes this year when I rebuilt the pond this spring. The area where the skimmer box is 2' deep, the bog dumps into the pond right next to the skim box and the waterfall has been moved to the center of the pond. I'm still going to run my bubbler as well. So far it's working but it's still early and we could get a bad cold snap.

 

[CountryEscape]

Brandonsdad, I have waterfall on one end of koi pond, skimmer on the other, bog feeds from the skimmer, and overflows back into the pond in about the middle on that side. In the goldfish pond, skimmer is in the middle, stream is on one end (fed by the skimmer) and pump in the middle of the pond feeds the bog, which overflows into the pond on the far end from the stream. So, each pond has movement on each end and somewhat in the middle. I have a bubbler ready to plug in a go on the end near the waterfall in the koi pond, and water pump to push water to the surface for movement to keep ice at bay in the goldfish pond, to the side of the middle near the skimmer. Both are ready to go, just have to plug them in. I would really like to leave everything going, and am going to do just that unless and until I find that it just is not going to work for whatever reason. I think Colleen has it all figured out, and my winter is sure not nearly as cold as hers. I do have a floating heater to use just in case things get out of hand, and I had to melt an area to say pull a pump from the skimmer or something like that. Otherwise, the plan is to not use the heater at all, as I'm sure it used far more electricity than either the air pump or the water pumps.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Yes you guys are lucky, winter is shorter and milder down south that is for sure!

 

[CountryEscape]

Another sunny day, temps went down to high 20's last night, ice on pond except where water is moving. First pic is of the waterfall, there is an area about 3' wide that is ice-free at the bottom of the waterfall.

The other end, where the skimmer is, you can kind of see that there is about 1' out from the skimmer free from ice from the pump pulling water into the skimmer. I suspect this will not last, though, and will need to be shut down eventually for sure.

The middle of the koi pond is covered in a thin sheet of ice, no more than probably 1/4" thick. The bog overflow is thawed, but not a very large area. That's why I figure the bog/skimmer on this pond will need to be shut down eventually.

Funny, the goldfish pond is shallower than the koi pond, but it has very little ice. Not sure why, as it does not have the waterfall, and the pump on the bottom of that pond is pushing water through the bog. So, maybe it's the fact that the water is somewhat warming up going through the bog before it returns to the pond, whereas the koi pond has water from the bottom going to the waterfall, where it is actually getting cooler? The skimmer on the goldfish pond feeds the stream, which is totally ice free, but temps have not been that cold yet ....

 

[callingcolleen1]

I don't have a Skimmer filter so I can't help you with wintering that. CE where are all your pond plants? Are they not winter hardy? I know you got rid of the tropical unbrella palm, did you just trim the others? Where did they go?

 

[sissy]

I was watching a show on the earth channel we get here and do you know that the there are what they call hot pockets in the earth that actually make the soil in some areas warmer that other spots .It is caused by all kinds of things under the soil and can even be caused by the surroundings you are in .Natural springs running under ground are #1 on there list and can be warmed buy outside sources like concrete ,septic tanks and homes built on top of them and also all kinds of underground pipes .They were talking a lot about geo thermal heating and cooling systems used these days on houses .They say to look in your yard after a snow and if you see spots in your yard that melt faster that is a sign of a warm or hot spot .

 

[brandonsdad02]

The only spots in our yard that melt faster than others have yellow on them

 

[sissy]

bad doggie go pee in the neighbors yard funny but they also talked about farms and pastures where animals were put for years that the ground there from urine and poo is a lot hotter than most other pieces of property in the same area ,but they looked at farm land tht had been developed on and home built and after only 10 years the land was not as warm as before the study was started .They even went on to say about that land that yards that were well fertilized with synthetic fertilizers was even less warm .The pics they showed were of the farm and then of the years of the developer building on the old farm land .The study of this land from farm to houses was over 10 years at the point were they had enough to release the study .It was a pretty interesting show .It also pointed out that the study shows that the land on earth is increasing instead of decreasing .I thought it was the other way round .

 

[callingcolleen1]

Very interesting information Sissy, I like those types of shows too. Speaking of heated ground, they got lots of that in Yellowstone National Park, which by the way is the worlds largest SUPER Volcano, and they have large areas of dead trees from the ground turning too hot and the built up gas. Hope that big thing stays quite for another million years!

 

[sissy]

amazed ice burgs are melting adding to the water and volcano's are erupting and adding to the earth ,who wins ,earth of water .

 

[brandonsdad02]

I have often wondered if there was a way to hook up one of my pumps to a geothermal loop and warm the water during the winter doing that. I know here out in the country, I see a lot of those wood burning boilers that people use to heat there house. I have a friend that has one of those systems and he keeps his house at 78* all winter long and uses it to heat his hot tub too on his deck. It works just the same as a AC coil on your furnace but has boiling hot water/mix that runs thru the pipes. His has a separate 200 gal water tank that he uses for his hot tub. He says its really nice to be able to sit in his hot tub outside with the snow falling. Its also fun to get in the hot tub, jump out to make snow angles in the foot of snow on the ground in your swimming shorts and then jump back in hot tub.

 

[capewind]

Hubby has mentioned geothermal options a few times... to be honest, he loses me on that topic. When we built the house, he also wanted to put plumbing of some type in or near the chimney... I lost patience with the conversations, but we do have radiant heat!

 

[sissy]

my pond is not far from my septic tank and I think that is what keeps the bottom warmer .We have heat pumps here and it is cheaper to run and just pulls heat from the air .Like an air conditioner running in reverse

 

[CountryEscape]

I don't have a Skimmer filter so I can't help you with wintering that. CE where are all your pond plants? Are they not winter hardy? I know you got rid of the tropical unbrella palm, did you just trim the others? Where did they go?

Colleen, I have not removed any of my bog plants, they are all there, just dying down and laying more flat. In the bog in the pics I posted, there is lots of penny wart and water clover, but it's yellowed and I left it all there to help insulate the roots. You can see the umbrella palm on the left side of the bog, it's still tall and pretty yellow from dying back. All the plants are there, just not so full and growing. Maybe you're thinking of my goldfish bog, which is much larger than the koi pond bog. That pic was the koi pond bog, which I more than doubled in size once I realized how much fun I was having with growing plants in there, and since I had the extra liner folded under, just expanded it. But, it's still only about 1/3 of the size of the goldfish pond bog. The only things I cut back were the dwarf cattails, as they were dead and were going to fall over and I didn't want them getting into the skimmer. All other plants are still in the bogs, just "sleeping" now.
Oh, and I have always wanted to ask you, Colleen. Didn't you say that you "sweet flag" was really growing well? If so, that's what the teeny tiny plant is on the left side of the bog in the pic above, towards the front. I've had it since last summer, and it has barely grown. It must either be a bad variety, or mini, or just doesn't like something about my bog and pond. It has hardly grown, and if they bloom, it never has. Just green/yellow spiky looking leaves, maybe 12" tall.

 

[callingcolleen1]

CE are you talking about the dwarf varigated sweet flag (color green and yellow) that Sissy has in her middle picture above, that is the "Dwarf" version and is slower growing and easy to control. The Dwarf Sweet Flag only gets to about one foot Max, and my larger version is solid green and looks much like the Yellow Flag (iris) from a distance, but the tall spear shaped stalks give off a very sweet scent when rubbed and the stalks are more of a blue green tinge.

The below picture, in the "bottom pond" you will see two tall sweet flags, one on each side of that pond. The big yellow flag appears behind and in the middle of the two sweet flags, upstream in the "Middle pond". They both look similar, however the bigger taller Yellow flag the tops tend to curve over more whereas the Sweet flag tends to stand straighter. Can you see the difference?