My goldfish pond

[herzausstahl]

Tmann,
I hear ya, the reason i say I would be done with this one is that it would be too much work to tear it out and re do the whole thing, and I have lifted the edges of the liner I had as much as I can now. The only way I could get more water volume would be to remove more of the larger rocks on my rock ledges and replace them with smaller ones. I might tackle that one in the future some time, but probably not until I need to. I do still have the deep swimming area for the fish that is roughly 4x7x3.5 deep so that gives them space to grow and move. I plan on adding an aerator for effect and to help with O2 in the future as the fish grow and reproduce. Although will probably wait till I see signs they need it so I don't starve the plants either. Instead of expanding this one some time in the next few years I will probably try to sell my wife on a wildlife pond with no pump (since I would put it in an area of the yard with no electricity near it, and too far to run power to it), but I need to think of a way to plant it and set it up so it doesn't get stagnant algae filled water that turns into a mosquito breading ground, not sure if its possible but will be fun to research, or better yet if there was some way to set up some kind of gravity feed just to cycle the water around a bit in it. Probably impossible, but will have to think of something. Won't be able to sell her on another pond anyway without a good reason, she would simply say I have one already and that is enough. I saw your post about the railroad in SE18's posts about his lobster pots, etc. His set up looks cool, and it would be cool on yours especially with the hill! Good luck! My time for a bigger pond would have been when I started this one and picked its location, but it will be big enough for me to tinker with and enjoy.

 

[CometKeith]

hertz, the floaters get thrown out. I do have some anacharis that survives over the winter. I pull it out in the spring and wash it off and by the end of the year it gets pretty full again. This year I bought two each water lettuces and water hyacinths.
I probably threw out a hundred times that many by the end of the season. herz, That is going to be hard to have a stagnant body of water and no algae or mosquitoes. There have been other posts by people trying to design a no maintenance water feature. The only thing I could think of is like a wetland that floods and then the water recedes into the ground when there is less rain. It seems like the common thread on these pond expansion discussions is getting the okay from the wife for the build. i don't know if my wife figured out our pond expanded. She is not bringing it up so that's fine with me! We did have company over tonight and she mentioned she likes our yard and pond so maybe she is okay with everything.

 

[sissy]

SHE NOTICED she is just playing with you LOL.see if you will admit anything

 

[herzausstahl]

thanks keith, I was wondering if you just buy one at the beginning of the year and let it multiply. I would do water changes for the natural pond, but looking for an idea mostly because if I would add another one, it would be away from any power source. and mostly as a curiosity if its possible to add mosquito fish too it to keep the bugs away yet aerate the pond enough for them with vegetation, mostly was curious if anyone ever tried it successfully.

 

[taherrmann4]

Herz,
What about using either a solar pump, fountain, or bubbler to keep the water moving? Then add some rosy reds as they won't multiply like mosquito fish do (from what I have heard). If the pond won't be that deep you can just fish out the fish in the fall and put them into your big pond. Then transfer some back into the spring. I have had rosy reds for about 3-4 years and I may have about 24 in the pond from what I can tell maybe more. Maybe the rosy reds would keep your mosquito pop to a minimum. You might find that frogs like that pond better too, mine seem to like the areas where there aren't any goldies or koi. See a lot more hanging out in the creeks and falls.

Just had another thought you can get one of those windmills that Sissy wrote about a few weeks back and use that as your bubbler. The one she was looking at might make your pond look like a wave pool though. :razz: I think it was 10-15' tall if I remember correctly.

 

[herzausstahl]

Tmann,
Its funny that you mention the solar pumps, and I did get a cheap one on Ebay but not sure how much water it would move. It seems difficult to find a decent one. The one I got is pretty small, but might do enough to add some movement and oxygen to the water. I definitely would not overstock it with fish and put only ones in that wouldn't get too big. But mostly I was curious if it is possible to clean and oxygenate the water with plants and doing water changes. It would be really cool if there was some way to use gravity to move the water around in the pond. The mosquito fish caught my eye because I saw someone selling them online saying they need low levels of oxygen to survive, so I was going to read up on it later. Might not be bad to look for an air breather fish, mostly I was looking for something to keep the mosquito pop down and have it be mostly plants and then whatever animals it attracts. It seems around here you will get stagnant water during the summer months if we don't get a lot of rain and the creeks dry up. You end up with pools just hanging out for a month or so with not water being added. Was kind of a challenge I thought of for the yard. Although if I could find a decent solar pump to add some water movement during the day wouldn't be bad. Its probably a project that I will spend awhile researching and planning while I look for a location to add it to inside my fence. That's a good idea to transfer the minnow, or I could add them to local lakes if I find they live around here on their own (don't want to add exotics obviously) since they are cheep at the pet stores, or for that matter I could just look in bait shops for minnows if I planned to add new ones each summer since I know they would be ok to release in the waters around here. The windmill would work if I could find one that wasn't made for the 1/2 acre farm ponds around here, they are quite expensive, but I do have enough wind where I am to run one. This pond I would try to design with frogs, birds, dragonflies, etc in mind. I figure it will be a fun winter project to design and then build one day.

 

[HARO]

Herz; I doubt the mosquito fish would survive your winters, but a couple dozen minnows from a bait shop is a good idea. If you can find them, mudminnows are very tough fish and can tolerate low oxygen. John

 

[herzausstahl]

Thanks John, good to know, that was the key I was looking for would be low oxygen users, plus if I don't want to make it that deep if they are local bait shop minnows, I can just go down the road a few miles and release them into the bay in fall and not have to worry about it since they should be local fish anyway. Plus I wouldn't break the bank stocking it every spring. Or there is always the possibility of mosquito dunks, totally forgot about those until last night. At first I thought they were only for bird baths and then read they can work for ponds as well. Plus if I made it shallower and bigger, let it freeze (at least I know Addy's bog plants froze and came back ok), it would make a nice little winter ice rink/decoration in the back yard. Might be a selling point for my wife.

 

[CometKeith]

Sissy, i'm sure she hasn't figured it out. She tends to know everything I ought to be doing or brings up everything i have done and shouldn't have done on a very frequent basis. If she figures out how to open the gpf on my computer I am in real trouble! Herz, a pond for natural wildlife sounds pretty neat. I love watching birds, butterflies, and dragonflies by my pond. The last 2 years I have had a nest of yellow finches right next to the pond.

 

[CometKeith]

Hot news flash..... after one year of thinking about it, I finally ordered a couple watonais from Hawaii for myself as a belated birthday present. This is the first time I have paid more than $10 for a fish. With shipping it is setting me back a whopping $135! These are the little guys:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=7596+watonai&aq=f
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=7593+watonai&aq=f

 

[addy1]

Wow nice! happy belated birthday pressie to you.

 

[CometKeith]

Addy, One of my daughters were going to buy them as a gift but never got around to doing it. I think she is going to chip in now that I ordered them. They are coming Fed Ex. Hopefully I don't have to be home to sign for them. I know UPS just leaves packages for us.

 

[addy1]

Depends on how they were shipped, you may want to ask the shipper if signature is required. Some fedex I sign for some I don't.

Well still a neat pressie.

 

[CometKeith]

yep, I was looking forward to the present all summer and when nothing happened at the end of August when my birthday rolled around I gave it a little more time and decided to pull the trigger myself on it. Better late than never! They are going to be left at my front door with no signature required. I feel bad bringing them from the nice weather of Hawaii to what we have going on here now; 42 degrees, constant rain and overcast skies, and wind gusting up to 50 mph!

 

[herzausstahl]

wow, CometKeith, your weather is worse than mine up here, at least we are still in the 50s during the day and the wind has been strong today, but not that bad. I know I can't expand my current pond, but like the idea of having more than one. I would just assume your wife will figure it out, lol, mine usually does. The important selling point is ask her how the pond looks first, if she says good and she's ok with it, let her know you expanded it while she was gone. And hey if you didn't move the edges of the landscaping further into the yard, it didn't change too much right?