Well, I feel like I need to do an intro again since I haven't been on this forum since sometime last fall/summer!
The last thing I remember talking about was that I was raising some comet fry I had collected as eggs from my pond. I had setup a 40 gallon aquarium in the house to raise some really late fry and then planned to put them in the pond in the spring. Setting that tank re-sparked the hobby of aquarium keeping and I've done nothing but dive back into planted aquariums all winter! The fry where put in the pond rather then kept inside and I now have two really nice planted tanks at home and a nano planted here on my desk at work.
After a long hard winter here in MI, I'm really looking forward to spending some time out in the yard and around the pond. My wife and spent ALL this last weekend doing yard work. I drained the pond almost completely as I didn't get a net over it last fall and the leaves seemed to all drop at once like a ton of bricks. I removed a lot of leaves from the bottom. I don't have the pump on yet but the water temps have been fairly stable between 50-60F during the day. The water was pretty green and algae debris was floating around so I'm hoping to keep that knocked down right off the bat. I trimmed up some massive root systems and added some plant spikes the water lily baskets in the hopes they will do a bit better this year, kinda sparse and few flowers last summer and I now know I should have a lot more with how many baskets I uncovered! -Only second full summer at this house and first pond drain.
What else? I did lose a couple comets this spring already. I was worried I would lose more as my bubbler failed right after the first hard freeze and the weak replacement didn't appear to be doing much, but it did enough. The two small Koi and few Shubunkin I added last summer all survived. I am still refilling the pond, over a couple days so I don't strain our well/pump. I am and have been running a small pump to circulate and oxygenate the water until I'm ready to turn the main pump on.
Looking forward to a great summer!