My first pond build - in slo-mo

[addy1]

Johnny does the black taro grow new daughter shoots off the main root like green elephant ears?

Mine did, a bunch of lil black taro's grew

 

[johnnyi]

Todd,

My understanding is that it behaves the same as normal taro, but I'm not absolutely sure.

John

 

[addy1]

My black taro, grew just like the green taros, put out spouts.

 

[taherrmann4]

I am going to have to try and find some black taros and try them out.

 

[johnnyi]

Hi all,

After filling the pond this last time, March 10, I mentioned the cloudy water. To qualify that, we only had several inches of visibility. After a couple of days I added a flocculant and after a day it was noticeably clearer, but not to be confused with clear. After about a week we could see our lily about 16" deep and after another week or two we could see the bottom. The initial stuff in the water was simply the clay particles in suspension.

The second thing we noticed was that we were loosing about 3/8" of water per day. After fiddling with the stream bed trying to shape it better we noticed the leak increase to about 1/2" to 3/4" per day. Last weekend we shut off the pumps to stop all flow in the stream bed and let it dry. Sunday late afternoon I started looking and found 4 separate small tears or abrasions. We got a self adhesive patch kit and applied them. After letting them set overnight we started the pond running yesterday morning. When I came home last night there was no change in the water level. YES! After 36 hours there has been maybe a 1/16" (or less) drop, well within normal transpiration and evaporation rates. YES!!!

Though the pond has been clearing such that the bottom is clearly visible, I want to push it a bit, so tonight I added another course of flocculant which should cause further clumping of particles and clearer water in the next couple of days. I think we're talking fish in the not too distant future.

Last weekend we bought more bog plants and we've decided to expand the bog that is on the West side of the pond. Hopefully I'll get to it this weekend and have some more pictures.

John

 

[addy1]

Great to hear John! My bog (with the underflow pipes, that some don't like) has kept my pond beautifully clear. Every pond I have build with a bog filter has worked until I have moved.

Glad you found your leaks and got them fixed , that can be so frustrating.

 

[CountryEscape]

Sounds wonderful, John. My bog up and running, just like Addy's, cleared my pond to about 12" at least overnight, so I'm really excited about that!
Can't wait to see more pics. You must be using a similar product that I use, that clumps stuff together. I cleaned out a bunch of matts of stuff from the bottom of my koi pond last weekend, when I couldn't catch the fish. Couldn't believe how much more stuff was down there. I think a lot of it was the dead algae and then anything else that matted together. It worked great to get so much of it out. Will check again this weekend. Maybe that will help clear that pond up, too.

 

[j.w]

That's good that you got the leak fixed John and now your water is clear also. Wished you would have included pix but I heard you say they are on the way! Can't wait till you put fish in there!

 

[johnnyi]

J. W., This last application of flocculant seems to have really made the difference. I'm going to get some Mosquito Fish in there for starters and then some 4 for a dollar type Goldfish a week to two after that. Pictures will be up soon.

John

 

[addy1]

looking forward to them!

 

[j.w]

Found this info on the net about Mosquito fish(Gambusia affinis):

http://www.sbcvcd.org/Documents/Brochures/MosqFishBroch.pdf

Guess you can get them for free if you live in the right district.

Do these fish overpopulate or eat the eggs of other fish so that you will never get any goldfish fry? Thought I heard this but could have been a different fish they were talking about. They would be kinda neat to put in small tub ponds to keep out the skeeters.

 

[johnnyi]

J. W., Thanks for the info, an interesting read. We've got a Vector Control district in Sacramento County and we've used them before.

Looking at our first water lily, this was the visibility from 3 weeks ago (about 6"):



Here is the same lily tonight (greater than 30"):



We dried out our stream bed last weekend, found and patched 4 sets of holes:



These are a couple of views of our passive bog areas (no plumbing):



John

 

[CountryEscape]

Funny, now I'm noticing the color of your pea gravel, since people commented on mine in my new bog. It's really pretty, I like the gray coloring, and your plants look really nice in there.
The way the liner had a long narrow area, maybe near a fold, that was scraped and had holes, I wonder what caused that? My dogs are constantly walking on the stream, and I don't have rocks covering the liner yet, so maybe I need to get that covered up so they won't be running across and cut a hole in the liner with their toenails!
Thanks for posting the pics! Love it! And your water is definitely getting clearer. My pond is not very clear either, but hooking up the new bog sure has helped. I hope it continues to clear it up even more.

 

[j.w]

Wow that water lily is growing nicely! Darn luck about the holes and glad you got them patched and hope there are no more.

 

[pondlover]

Looks really nice John.