New pond, nervous about winter

[snoozer]

Fish load is the determining factor here.

if I could talk them into staying still i could count them one day.

 

[sissy]

Why did you decide on that depth .I would think where you live deeper would be better .

 

[snoozer]

Knowing what I do now, I know it should be deeper. We dug by hand and hit the maple tree roots and everything else hidden under the dirt. The yard is full of fill which consists of rocks, asphalt, concrete chunks and whetever else they found 60 years ago to toss in the low area where the house was built. It is also clay soil here that either sticks to the shovel when soft or is like a rock when dry. My son found a couple of intetesting shaped pieces of concrete and asphalt that he incorporated in the rocks on the berm. The water level ended up being 30 inches which isn't terrible but should really be at least 36. If we had a backhoe to use when we built it, it would have been deeper but sometimes you just run out of ambition when the dig is by hand. I have 3 koi and the rest of the gang are comets and shubbies and they have been hanging in there. Only had one bad year when we had extended below zero and freezing for well over a month. I sat outside and cried when the ice started melting and the dead fish started showing up. That was the one and only time i ran an aerator in winter.

 

[sissy]

I had to deal with shale and couldn't go any deeper and knowing that yours must have been a real bear to dig .Shame they did not bury a chest of money

 

[snoozer]

I had to deal with shale and couldn't go any deeper and knowing that yours must have been a real bear to dig .Shame they did not bury a chest of money

Money would have been nice.

 

[sissy]

I'm sure maybe when you dig somewhere else the cash will show up .Burying things in trash piles is well known to be true ,who would think to look there .

 

[snoozer]

I'm sure maybe when you dig somewhere else the cash will show up .Burying things in trash piles is well known to be true ,who would think to look there .

I'll have to get Addy here with her digging skills.

 

[Lisak1]

We've visited many, many ponds here Chicago and the suburbs that are only 24 inches deep. The fish - koi and goldfish - in those ponds do great in our winters. I think water volume plays a bigger role than depth.

 

[addy1]

I have three small ponds, fish-less unless a egg or tiny fry floats in, i.e. makes it through the pump through the 30 feet of line down a small water fall and end up in the pond.

This fall I saw 4 small shubunkins in the first small pond., around 2 feet deep Tried briefly to catch them but they are too fast. They will be there in the spring, as they get bigger I transfer them to the big pond. There is no heron protection on those ponds.

 

[Spartamets]

Hi, I figured out the cause of the hippo, at last. It is heavy rain. Initially, until my first couple of posts here, I had kept the water level at the recommended weir door level, which is quite low in the pond. When it rained, there were about 6 inches of excess depth available before the pond would overflow. I think it maybe happened only once during that period, and barely. Now I keep the water level about two or three inches below the overflow point, since the skimming action of the skimmer is less important to me than having sufficient water depth for the winter. I've noticed that there is still plenty for me to clean out of the skimmer basket and filter mat even though the water level is comfortably above the top of the weir door, so it's still helping with the filtering process anyway. But the added water depth has made overflowing more likely to an extent I hadn't anticipated.

We have been getting some pretty heavy rain today after a long day of soft, ground-saturating rain yesterday. The pond is overflowing. The low point of the pond is where I put the skimmer, and that is also where I cut the liner so that it is right at the surface of the pond rim. (Before I trimmed it, the liner was totally covering the skimmer opening making maintenance too difficult.) I have watched the water flowing like a stream over this rim and under the liner. The hippo in turn has been inflating like a balloon right before my eyes. I started the siphon trick that morewater showed me (thanks again; it's a lifesaver), so hopefully things will be drained by the time our next freeze strikes on Thursday. Interestingly, I don't believe we've even had an overnight freeze since the last one a few weeks ago. By coincidence, I ordered 15 feet of that venting tubing that Meyer recommended, just last night. It was only about $40, and if it works that will be a bargain. It will be going under the liner when I raise the skimmer after the winter ends for sure.

Thank you again, very much, everyone for guidance into diagnosing problems and providing fixes. I've got the de-icer in, ready for the next freeze. Now that I know where the hippo causing leak is coming from, I think I'm going to keep the waterfall running a bit longer. The next freeze will only last for two or three days, and then we'll be back to the upper 40s again for at least a week. The waterfall is definitely not a factor in the current hippo for sure. Since the waterfall is the reason I built this thing in the first place, I'd like to keep it going until I know we have a sustained period of ice coming. I will change course, however, if events so dictate. Hopefully they won't.

Thanks again.

 

[addy1]

Great! Glad you know how it happened.

 

[RobAmy]

I once had a Bale Eagle sit on a fence about 20 feet away from my pond for about 1 1/2 hours trying to figure out how to snag some of my Koi

That would be awesome. Sorry I would have to clear a flight path to my pond if I had a eagle around This year we had one fly over our pond about 30ft up. That is a rare sight, normally they are very high and seen very rarely.

 

[Spartamets]

I'd like to thank Meyer Jordan for helping me to get my pond where it needs to be. Nature forced my hand again a few weeks ago by blending very heavy rain with a power outage. The power outage shut off my waterfall and the big backwash of water shot out the skimmer holes and over its top to combine with the massive amount of water already present due to the downpour. The effect of it was to raise my skimmer about 6 inches by funneling all that water underneath it while creating another whale/hippo. In the process, the "fix" I had applied to seal my initial skimmer leak (from September) got ripped off, forcing me to deal with everything, because I was going to lose most of the water, in the winter, if I didn't fix it. Not what I planned to do in late January.

Meyer + luck = a lasting solution. Two days after all that happened we had three straight warm days including one that was about 70(!) degrees. Long story short, with Meyer's guidance, I was able to keep the skimmer in its newly-elevated position, raise the pond edging, and reseal the liner around the skimmer properly. I also added a venting system under the liner. That was a real pain, but it's in there now, and so far no new hippos, though it hasn't been too sorely tested yet. My pond is now the depth I had always wanted it to be, and nature is how it got raised to that level. The newly fixed seal hasn't leaked, and it's been about two weeks, so I assume it is safe for now. My fish are much happier and behave in a less paranoid fashion, so I can actually see them now.

I have rocks coming on Monday, which will allow me to finish setting up the pond, except for the addition for pond plants, which still won't be available a few weeks. When all that's in place, I will post real pictures of the pond. Thanks again to everyone for all the help and insight they've given during this winter, which turned out to be really great and not at all what I had feared going in, but thank you especially, Meyer. I feel truly good about the future of the pond for the first time.

 

[Lisak1]

Great news! Will look forward to pictures!