My goldfish pond

[addy1]

The pond dropped to 63 over night, 70 yesterday, the huge surface area of the bog cools the water down pretty quickly. One of the reasons I turn everything off by Nov. We are currently 48f.

Tomorrow, of course now that the pond water is coldish.............I am going to groom the lilies. Have not had the time or the weather to attack them. Put them to sleep for the winter.

 

[Tula]

Hi Addy. It looks like it is going to be cold here for the next few weeks. It was 37 degrees when I woke up this morning! I went bike riding on Monday afternoon when it was in the mid 80's so a 50 degree drop!
My fish are still fairly active. I'm really curious about the pond temperature and am going try to get a reading tomorrow. Hopefully this cold weather doesn't get your area too badly.

Thanks JW. I actually only kept the really large water hydrangea and got rid of the rest. I didn't know they grew so large! Actually I probably pulled out like a 1000 water lettuce over the summer and this is what was left. Every week I removed 50-100 plants over the summer! I have a large lily with the root ball floating at the top of the water. Do you think I need to replant it or will it eventually go to the bottom if I cut the old leaves off? I have had a lot of success with my lilies staying on the bottom over the winter but this is the first time the root ball is so high up in the water.

I would think the root ball needs to be submerged to make it through the winter in your climate. Can you put a rock over it, or bundle into a mesh laundry bag and weight it down?

 

[j.w]

Think you meant to thank Tula @CometKeith but your plants do look great!

 

[CometKeith]

Think you meant to thank Tula @CometKeith but your plants do look great!

yes JW. I mean't Tula but thank you anyway! Today I raised up a few pavers where the edge was a little low and was able to fill the pond up a few more inches as a result. I have been thinking about aeration lately. It seems like I have just the right amount because the fish are all pretty active, but I have a few backup pumps and could increase it if I wanted to. I never built the waterfall I wanted so I have to rely on these for the water aeration. I have my 2000 gallon pump pumping water through the biofilter and it pours into the pond causing a lot of bubbles. You can see the large pipe with water pouring out in a few of the pictures, I have my koi air mini aerator in the middle. It provides .80 cfm airflow and throws up a lot of bubbles from the plate that sits on the bottom of the pond, and I have a 1300 gallon pump that recycles the water and I have a rock sitting on the end of the outflow tubing so it makes a nice spray and moves the water quite a bit. That one is on the end next to the lawn I planted. My pond is about 2500-3000 gallons and is about 3 ft deep. Here are a few pictures showing the pumps and aerator moving the water.

 

[CometKeith]

I would think the root ball needs to be submerged to make it through the winter in your climate. Can you put a rock over it, or bundle into a mesh laundry bag and weight it down?

Thanks Tula. I have a few planting baskets. I might just plant a few of the plants in the baskets with pea gravel and sink them to the bottom and hope for the best!

The pond dropped to 63 over night, 70 yesterday, the huge surface area of the bog cools the water down pretty quickly. One of the reasons I turn everything off by Nov. We are currently 48f.

Tomorrow, of course now that the pond water is coldish.............I am going to groom the lilies. Have not had the time or the weather to attack them. Put them to sleep for the winter.

Hi Addy. I would think you would be getting our cold weather by now. The temperature dropped 50 degrees in just a few days!

 

[addy1]

This is what we have done in the last two weeks

 

[Lisak1]

@CometKeith - I think you could just sloooooooowly start building that waterfall... just move a rock here, then another one there. Next thing you know - it's a waterfall! WHERE DID THAT COME FROM? haha!

Pond is looking great! I think we have a rather mild week ahead. This weekend was beautiful for working outside. Mosquitoes appear to be mostly gone... best part of getting that first frost!

 

[CometKeith]

@CometKeith - I think you could just sloooooooowly start building that waterfall... just move a rock here, then another one there. Next thing you know - it's a waterfall! WHERE DID THAT COME FROM? haha!

Pond is looking great! I think we have a rather mild week ahead. This weekend was beautiful for working outside. Mosquitoes appear to be mostly gone... best part of getting that first frost!

Lisa that's too funny. Thank you for the compliments. Well it took me a while to build up a hill there and then when my wife said we needed to have a place for our grandson to play it took a while to get rid of all the dirt. He is almost 6 months old so I suspect next year will be an important year to have a grassy area for him to play. Naturally we will be watching him because the pond is so close. Now my wife is saying we should plant a tree there in a few years and I agree. i think it would balance out the landscaping better. I'm really okay with not having a waterfall. My biggest concern is not having enough aeration, but I think I'm pretty good. When we remodeled our property I actually installed 200 amps for just the basement and garage so if I ever want to I can add almost anything I want and have plenty of electricity for it.

This is what we have done in the last two weeks

View attachment 116599

Addy. i went bike riding last Monday when it was 80 degrees. My wife thought I was crazy because I came home from work early just to go bike riding, but I knew the temps were going to drop later in the week and tried to make the most of it. They said is is going down to freezing tonight. I think we are like 20-25 degrees below normal right now! Re looking at pictures of fish I guess that is a little crazy but I read about them and watch you tubes too. I have always known myself to be pretty obsessive compulsive. When I learn about something I need to know a lot so i try my best to pick endeavors that are somewhat healthy! For a while I was going on a craft beer forum. I found myself rating almost 300 beers in one year. I realized it was getting to be a little too much and now I have saved a ton of money and also the time it took to drive around to find the beers I wanted!

 

[Lisak1]

I have a feeling your grandson will be way more interested in your pond than any grass you provide - we have five and the oldest two LOVE exploring the pond. I'm sure the rest will too when they are older. We are careful to keep an eye on them, but let them play. They love trying to catch the frogs and feed the fish. It's a good way to begin to teach them to be safe around the water.

I do think a tree would be lovely near your pond. If I had room I'd plant a Japanese maple - so pretty!

 

[CometKeith]

I have a feeling your grandson will be way more interested in your pond than any grass you provide - we have five and the oldest two LOVE exploring the pond. I'm sure the rest will too when they are older. We are careful to keep an eye on them, but let them play. They love trying to catch the frogs and feed the fish. It's a good way to begin to teach them to be safe around the water.

I do think a tree would be lovely near your pond. If I had room I'd plant a Japanese maple - so pretty!

Thanks Lisa. I think you are right about the pond. We moved the pond away from the garage this year and put in stepping stones all around it so a child could walk around it! Guess who we had in mind. Also we are not far from a nice beach and I plan on taking him there too. I like Japanese maples too. We had one that got destroyed when we did our construction and both my wife and I were sad about it. I have mentioned getting a new one, but for some reason she doesn't want another one. I know they need to be in a somewhat protected area and having our garage behind it on it's north side I think would give it some good protection. The only thing is I wouldn't buy a really small one. They take too long to grow and who knows how long we will be living here!

 

[Lisak1]

They are slow growers and stay small - that's part of the appeal for gardens I think. And the color - so pretty!

 

[CometKeith]

Well I thought I would take a quick look at my pond today and I didn't see any fish! After a few minutes there were some hiding under the few floaters I had left in the sunnier part of the pond off to the side. I still didn't see a whole lot of them, but it's pretty deep and there is a lot of vegetation to hide under. I hope they were all just hiding and nothing happened to them.... or were they scared by an animal last night? It's never happened where I didn't see them right away.

 

[addy1]

Does anything look disturbed? Hope nothing visited.

 

[Lisak1]

It's been cold @CometKeith ! I hope it was the Chicago style "fall weather" that scared them into hiding!

 

[Tara]

I hope you find them @CometKeith . We got weather in the 20s last night, and my fish are huddled at the bottom as of this morning.