My goldfish pond

[CometKeith]

Finally the spring lilies bloomed!
The floaters are growing like crazy now. I have pulled more than half of them out already.

 

[addy1]

Very pretty!

 

[CometKeith]

Thanks Addy, Well two females took the brunt of the male aggressiveness when my goldfish started spawning. The largest female is pretty beat up and has a lot of scrapes on her sides. Once I had to rescue her by lifting up a rock because she had wedged herself between a couple rocks to get away. Fortunately she has been exhibiting normal behavior and hopefully will make a full recovery. The other one is slightly smaller but I just noticed the other day she was really beat up. She was staying by herself at the bottom of the pond and today she finally came up a little to eat. It looks like she has ich and there are dark marks on her sides. I don't have a qt tank so I can't take her out and isolate her. Overall my water quality is good and all the other fish are fine. Do I let nature takes it's course and either she sinks or swims... or do I take her out and put an end to her misery so she doesn't get the other fish sick. It seems like 9 times out of 10 when I see a fish like this they are a goner.

 

[addy1]

I hear mine slamming around, never notice any damage. But then again with my pond it is hard to spot damage. I watch them on the camera, never noticed anything wrong.

 

[CometKeith]

Addy maybe because I have rocks in my waterfall that they hit against, or because it is small and it's hard for the females to hide. My wife was watching them go at it one morning with me and she couldn't believe how rough the fish got. She started throwing stuff at the fish to make them stop! lol.... There is always a lot of splashing as the males try to tackle the females and it gets pretty violent. I think people that keep goldfish in an aquarium have no idea that goldfish naturally exhibit this sort of behavior.

 

[Sheetmetalman]

Plants look good Keith--this is the first year I didnt put any floaters in--kinda soured me on them last year because of the terrible heat--first they multiplied like mad but then the sun and heat had them dead and dying all over the place--finally pulled them all out early. I was still debating getting 1 or 2 this year but my lillys spread so big this year that I decided against it.

 

[CometKeith]

Thanks Tim, Probably the fact that I get less than a half day of direct sun keeps my floaters from burning out. I started with two water lettuces and two water hyacinths this year. We had a very cool spring and the wh's exploded early on and the wl's looked horrible. As soon as we started getting weather consistently over 65 degrees the wl's took off. Now they are both doing well. Liliies sounds like a great idea for your pond if they grow better. Also you can't really compare the flower of a water hyacinth to that of water lilies. I am happy to give away floaters if anyone in the Chicago area wants some. It's sad to keep throwing healthy ones away when the garden stores are trying to sell sickly ones for 3 or 4 bucks!

 

[addy1]

That is probably it Keith, I don't have much rock that they can reach and smash against. They mainly hit the roots hanging into the pond, or the misc plants in the pond.
I tried wh, not worth the effort to me, my lilies do great, more than enough plant stuff in that pond.

 

[CometKeith]

Every year I vow to cut down on floaters because they overpower the pond. In the past I let the plants cover about 60% of the water to keep the water shaded and cooler. This year I am going to try to keep it at least half open. It's more fun when you can see the fish.... but this year they are all acting like little beggars. We haven't had any raccoons around to scare them this year so they are all fearless and whenever they hear our patio door opening they all come rushing to the edge hoping to get food. Pavlov's goldfish!

 

[addy1]

One reason I just have lilies and a little parrots feather, like the pond being a little open. I floated 3 lilies in the deep end, the fish love to swim in and out of the plants. So fun to watch them.
[sharedmedia=core:attachments:56598]

 

[CountryEscape]

I got Water Hyacinths last year, a BUNCH of them, on ebay. They did great for about 3 weeks, then they all started dying. Still have no idea what happened. I put the last 10 or so in a couple of very large pots, and they did super. I thought they were getting too hot in the pond, but the water in the pots had to be hotter. And, I had them in a floating net, so the fish were not killing them. Something about my pond water, I guess. May try a couple, just to see if they will grow in the pots again!
Yours do so well, wish I lived closer, Keith!

 

[CometKeith]

Addy, That's a cool picture of your fish. I agree. The problem with floaters is the root mass gets large so it would block the light and make it hard to see your fish with the great underwater pictures you take. For me they are fine and give me a cheap and easy way to cover my pond with plants. My total investment is $12 for two of each of them every spring. CE, I have read that high ph or salt can hurt water hyacinths. Also lack of nutrients. Maybe your bog is grabbing all the nutrients and not leaving any for the floaters? Also I read somewhere that you can tell if a water hyacinths is healthy by the color of its roots. Black roots tell you there is a problem with ph but I can't find that info again. For some reason both water lettuces and water hyacinths do great in my pond. I'm sure it helps that the Goldfish leave the roots alone and there are no koi around to eat them.

 

[addy1]

Neat Keith, Glad yours are doing great. I am just being lazy about floaters, my lilies do a good enough job. It might be there are not enough nutrients in the water for floaters, even the parrots feather, penny wort seem to struggle in the big pond. They grow, but very slowly. In the little ponds they do great grow like weeds. Guess my bog is a nutrient hog!

 

[CometKeith]

Addy, I'll bet that's it because CE has the same problem with floaters not growing well and she has a bog too. It's a shame that I have to keep tossing mine out. I finally put the female that was ill out of her misery. She looked awful and I figured it was better to take her out than let the bacteria or virus spread to other fish. I don't have a qt tank so that wasn't an alternative. My wife was besides herself when she heard that one of the females that got beat up by the males died from the bruises that happened during mating. First she thought the male fish raped her and she died from that, but when I told her how it happened; the fact that they they chased her to death and she got beat up by being smashed into the rocks by a gang of them, wan't much of a better explanation. She wants to figure out who the males were and get even somehow but we will see....Another reason to be mad at males and men in general I guess!

 

[addy1]

lol Keith mad at males, nah. I like men........ Sorry you lost your female. Mine get chased a lot, but they don't seem to get damaged.

Yeah the bog eats up anything extra in the pond. We have zero algae, have had none for years. Never get green water, never get string algae. Don't even have a good coating of carpet algae. ............maybe works too good ........lol. I love it, makes pond keeping easy.