Here we go...

[pecan]

PL your pond is coming along swimmingly! I love it. Be sure to post pictures once all your plants are filled in this summer.

rebelangel sorry about your fishies. That is sad I had 14 8" fish when I built the pond last summer and 1 disappeared. Then I found a full fish skeleton about 100 feet away in the garden area Still don't know if it was a raccoon or a bird. We have seen raccoons in the yard and we are dead center in the middle of the valley with a population of 1 million. It amazes me we still have wild animals running about.

 

[CountryEscape]

I hate the thought of something coming and scooping up my babies, but I bet I have problems sooner or later. I heard there is an electronic collar I can put on my dogs without an underground fence. I guess it has some transmitter or something that you simply plug in and it has a 200' radius or something like that where the dogs cannot go outside that radius with the collar on, like the underground fence. I'm thinking of checking that out. Does anyone have one of them? I think if my new pup, that will be probably a 40-50# dog, will be a good watchdog and keep herons or anything else away. I did see a raccoon on the back of my house, up a pipe, before I started the pond last year, and that shocked me, as I have no woods within a mile of my house. That's a LONG trek across open ground. BUT, if one finds the fish, they will be back. I don't mind them fishing in my farm pond all they want, just leave my koi and goldies alone!
PL, I think I saw somewhere that the hyacinths need the water to be 50 degrees at least to do well. My water was 54 this morning, with the chillier evenings, but you are much warmer there, I'm sure. Good luck with them! I hope you have lots of flowers. Who was the seller that you used? I assume Ebay, or maybe just on-line?
BTW, if anyone is interested in an elephant ear bulb to start, I just "won" a dozen of them for just over $1 each. They are called Colocasia Esculenta Elephant Ears, so if you want to look them up. I will want to keep about 6 of them, but if I have any takers, I'd be happy to share. They can be started inside until it warms up well outside, or outside if your outside temps are nice already.

 

[pondlover]

We had a busy weekend and boy do I feel it. LOL. We started working on our deck addition. The addition is going to be approximately 7 x 10. One end will have a swing and it felt like it took forever to get those two 4x4's set. But we did and got the rest of the set also. My first plan was to drop it down one step and then after looking at it, we considered just adding the addition at the same height as the existing deck. MY husband, being the smart man that he is, said that I could decide. :razz: So after looking and looking so more, I decided to go with our original plan to drop it down the one step. Here are a few pics of our progress.


I took these pics yesterday. My first blooms in my bog. I was so excited to see them. I also made a couple of Koiguy's plant rings and am hoping my water hyacinths will be safe from my Koi. Although they are trying to stretch their heads over the rings to nibble on the hyacinths. It is so peaceful to just sit on the deck and watch the fish. They are all becoming very friendly and looking for someone to feed them. Everything I had hoped for. I just love the flowing fins on my butterfly Koi.

 

[CountryEscape]

Your pond is really beautiful, PL! Congrats on your first bloom! I'll be waiting for a while but hope to see blooms sooner or later. I'm so happy you built the bog. Makes for more types of plants to try! I planted canna bulbs I think last weekend, and several of them have sprouted already. Just put them in a pot of kitty litter, since I will need to take the bulb out in the fall and store it. Going to do the same thing with the elephant ear bulbs I got. Looks like you have day lilies in the bog! I need to try them as well.

 

[pondlover]

Thanks CE, I just love it and am so glad that we deviated from our original plan and added the bog. I am already wishing that I had made it bigger. I don't have any day lilies in the bog...yet. Since my bog really isn't that big, I am kind of concerned about how much room they might take up. I did get a Taro yesterday and put it in there. I don't know what the green spikey thing in the middle is called. I got it from my mom and split it up into several pieces and have it in 4 different spots.

 

[rebelangel_3733]

Looks fantastic! I'm getting some new fish tmrw from a friend of an ol school friend who is dismanteling their pond (why I dont know) since mine "disappeared"...( but this time will have the net over the pond so that it will NOT happen again!!! All I know is they are larger goldfish and shubunken's...cant wait!

 

[pondlover]

I bet you are excited RA to get new fish. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you that you have NO more visitors. We are thinking about getting a net. We haven't seen any Heron's....yet. But I also am afraid to wait till we do see one. Be sure and post pics of your new additions. :goldfish: :goldfish:

 

[CountryEscape]

Yes, Rebel, take pics before you put them into your pond, so we can see them really close up! Good luck, sounds like you fell into fun times.

 

[Sunshine]

Great looking pond. The bog looks fantastic !!

 

[j.w]

Glad to hear you found some new fish to replace the others Rebel and hope the net works for you. Make sure you have it up high enough above the waters surface so the bird can't still stab at the fish and mame them if that's what it was that got them anyways.

 

[addy1]

Very nice, love your bog it looks great. Your pond water looks wonderful and so do your fish.
Harry the heron has been doing fly overs, every night, every morning. So far has not landed. Still have the liner floating for fish protection.

 

[pondlover]

I need some feedback on my water please!! Am I just being impatient? I've been reading other threads on water and I guess everyone is having an algae bloom right now. I am considering doing a partial water change, but don't want to jump the gun on that. I think we may have been feeding to much, so I've decided to cut back on that.

On a good note, we got 90% of our deck addition finished. We need to add the front fascia board and it will be done and hang the swing. I absolutely love it. It hangs over the pond by about 3 inches and if we wanted to we could sit on the deck and dangle our feet in the water. LOL


We went camping this weekend and when we got home my husband said he didn't see any fish! I was in full blow panic thinking the nasty predators had come to my pond. We haven't seen any signs of predators and I hope I never do. Thankfully all of my fish were accounted for and all it took was a few pieces of food to get them to come up. I told my hubby that they missed us while we were gone and were pouting.

 

[CountryEscape]

Wow, how cool is that, looks like you will be hanging the swing in between the 2 posts? That will be fun, swinging over the edge. Well, guess it will face the center, but still. Neat idea.
Your pond does not look that bad, trust me you do not have pea green soup ... yet. LOL You probably won't have to deal with that either, since you have had your pond up and running for a while, filter in action, plants are growing very well, just need to wait it out. If you do a water change, just be sure to either treat the water if city water, or not to overflow it if you have well water. I'll let you know if my koi pond changes in clarity after I did an 8" water change today. That was probably a 20% water change for mine. But, I will tell you that besides adding water when it evaporated last year, I never drained any out and changed it, so maybe my water was just in great need of fresh!

 

[rebelangel_3733]

Looks great! Will be fun to dangle your toes in the water come this summers heat! My pond is dealing with the algea on it's waterfall also...and found some string algea tryin to grow on the rock in the water at the waterfall's edge...so I pulled it off! The new kids on the block are liking their new pad for sure and we've had a bullfrog try his damdest to get into the pond after I put the netting over it...to his avail he did not make it in and must have left... Ya I strung it tight enough and staked it and put the heavy rocks over it to hide it so nothing gets in...forgot about the frogs...our lil green guy was here last week after I put it on and he didn't like it either. Oh well I guess...with the way our weather has been fluctuating from upper 30's at night to 50's 60.s and 70's and then this week will be in the 80's this algea stuff must be affected by it as I didn't have any last yr until the late fall.

 

[rebelangel_3733]

Oh and I know the feeling when you don't see your fish!! Although I am happy to say one of my originals did not disappear!! He was hiding behind the waterfall's rocks at the bottom...but something must have scared him...as my gold one is gone and not sure about my black one...I thought I saw him swimming with the other 8 new ones. You can almost see them in this video as they weren't in play mode at the time and my lilies are taking off covering it.