My goldfish pond

[j.w]

Oh no not the dreaded Cotton Wood trees! We have some of those lined along a property that borders our private road and every year they send tons of crap everywhere and not to mention whenever there is any wind the limbs break off and fall everywhere. Well finally someone has bought that property and are going to build on it and they are taking all the Cotton Wood trees down. Hallelujah for us and our neighbors, we will no longer have to spend days and days picking up all that stuff ever again off our road and properties!

 

[Tula]

Oh no not the dreaded Cotton Wood trees! We have some of those lined along a property that borders our private road and every year they send tons of crap everywhere and not to mention whenever there is any wind the limbs break off and fall everywhere. Well finally someone has bought that property and are going to build on it and they are taking all the Cotton Wood trees down. Hallelujah for us and our neighbors, we will no longer have to spend days and days picking up all that stuff ever again off our road and properties!

Believe me, , most of the neighbors in our immediate area wish this home owner would take them down....but they are too cheap They've had trees come down and they let them lay for over a year !

 

[garby8265]

Tula hopefully your tree won't be as bad. Silver Maples are considered "nuisance trees" where we live because of all the mess they create. I remember when I was a kid we would see a lot of them and really not so much any more. That and the cottonwood.. what a mess they make!

Sissy. I love how pretty your outdoors is. I have been to parts of Virginia but not where you live. The picture of your area is really gorgeous. Well any extra time I get to spend time with my pond is "well" spent time as far as I'm concerned! It gives me an excuse to get out of the house!

Hi Garby. Thank you so much. Are you new here? I hope you are enjoying it so far. Welcome to GPF!

Yup. Thanks so much!

 

[CometKeith]

So it looks like we are going to plant the Yoshino Cherry Tree where the pot is in the grassy area. I know I'll have to prune it at some point because it can grow to be 30 ft high and 30 ft wide at full maturity! On the other hand I don't think I'll be living here long enough to really worry about it!

 

[Tula]

That is a perfect spot to plant it ! I simply cannot believe how huge your sedges are....beautiful !

 

[CometKeith]

That is a perfect spot to plant it ! I simply cannot believe how huge your sedges are....beautiful !

Thank Tula. I planted all that sod last year so naturally time to start digging up some of it! I really like the sedges, but my wife lately has been asking me to thin out the big one a little. Last year I got rid of about 40% of it. I think it gives a nice look to the pond and helps to clean the water and most importantly gives the baby fish a place to hide! They are not planted in pots at all. They are just sitting on my shelves and I have a bunch of rocks in the middle of each clump holding them down so they don’t move or tip.

 

[Tula]

If I had shelves, I'd definitely have some. Do you recall the name of that particular sedge...it sure seems hardy .

 

[CometKeith]

If I had shelves, I'd definitely have some. Do you recall the name of that particular sedge...it sure seems hardy .

Hmm... sorry I don’t. I have had it a long time because I moved them from my old pond.
Either someone gave them to me or I bought a small bunch at the garden store. You might ask Addy if she knows what it is! I can send you a little if you want. Just shoot me a personal message. My wife wants me to get rid of some and I would rather send it to someone than put it in the garbage!

 

[addy1]

Not from me @CometKeith Those are nice plants. I don't have any. If you get some flat envelopes (flat rate) it is the cheapest way to ship, plant might get crushed though. The small box is now around 8 bucks and make sure you mark the box LIVE PLANTS. I shipped some to a friend one box took one day, one box took 2 weeks to make it. That was 2 day priority mail

 

[Tula]

Oh, I'd love some ! I'll shoot you my info and I'm happy to pay you

 

[CometKeith]

So my pond crises has finally abated. It was so sad. I thought I was going to lose half my fish but lost much less. I guess my pond didn’t properly cycle and I had a huge ammonia spike. I did major water changes every other day for a week and a half, and got a broad spectrum medicine. I also supercharged water movement with a new pump and drastically cut down feeding. I lost about a dozen goldfish and 3 koi but the rest of the fish are looking a lot better now. Now there is no evidence of flashing and no isolated fish that look distressed. A few fish still have damaged tails but they are all swimming around normally. I never want to lose a fish but the 3 koi I lost were my least favorite. The 6 I really liked are all healthy as far as I can tell. This was the first spring with this filter and I learned a lot unfortunately. In the future I will never “assume” the pond has cycled and I will wait for the typical signs of hair algae and it’s dissipation before guessing that it’s cycled. I talked to an “expert” and he mentioned a lot of people in the Chicago area had problems this year. I’m guessing it was because of the prolonged cool spring which set things back quite a bit back from their normal dates. I’m sure I also greatly contributed to the problem by over feeding before it was fully cycled. Also I cleaned my filter several times and I think in the future I will let it be until the pond is cycled. I’m not sure if by cleaning it I was disturbing the beneficial bacteria but that is my concern. I’m thinking of finally cleaning it now but I know for sure the pond has cycled. All the hair algae has pretty much disintegrated which I know is a sure sign of cycling. I‘m still only feeding once a day or every other day until I stop finding dead fish. I found one more today but that was the first one in three days. I hope that’s the end!

 

[IPA]

Bummer Keith. I didn’t realize you went to the dark side (Koi), haha. Does all of the nitrifying bacteria die off in the cold weather you experience or are they just dormant? I’d guess getting new Koi compounded the issue necessitating feeding the fish sooner than normal? Sounds like you managed to get it under control. Really is a great looking pond and fish.

 

[j.w]

Very sad when we lose fish. Sorry this happened to you Keith. Hope you have it all under control now. I lost a few fish this Spring also and I have never lost this many before. Once every few yrs I might lose one but this year I lost 8. Think the water was mucked up and filters needed cleaning. All taken care of now and no more fish dying.

 

[cas]

So sorry to hear about your fish Keith. I think this colder than usual spring messed up a lot of our ponds.

 

[CometKeith]

Bummer Keith. I didn’t realize you went to the dark side (Koi), haha. Does all of the nitrifying bacteria die off in the cold weather you experience or are they just dormant? I’d guess getting new Koi compounded the issue necessitating feeding the fish sooner than normal? Sounds like you managed to get it under control. Really is a great looking pond and fish.

Thank you. I’m almost at 3000 gallons so getting a few a Koi seemed logical... the problem is once you start buying them it’s almost impossible to stop! We are on the 2nd and 3rd floors of where we live now so my vantage point is about 25-30 ft from my back porch to the pond so that’s why it made sense to go with ”bigger” fish!