Pond in the foothills

[sissy]

Well I got even with 2 hunters on my land ,I bought a paint ball gun and put a scope on it and bought bright pink glow in the dark paint balls and shot the heck out of them .No trespassing no hunting signs every where in the woods .I told the sheriff to just look for the pink guys that glow :cheerful: .The hunters just don't care around here what they shoot at .I noticed last week my metal shed has holes in it and my beloved lawn cart has 2 holes in it and a flat tire .Glad I had put my red lawnmower and new lawn mower in the basement .Oh by the way my son suggested the paint ball gun

 

[addy1]

Wow sissy, just make sure the idiots don't shoot back. We have hunting around here, but it seems they appear to be careful. They hunt in the field behind us, I hear the shotguns go off, very seldom hear a high power gun go off.

 

[MitchM]

I was going to say the same thing sissy. What if they saw you and shot back?
A scope? How far do those paintballs shoot?

 

[MitchM]

Your sunset pic is gorgeous. Thanks for sharing all the critter pics, too. My son got a doe this past weekend, first shotgun weekend in IL. He's only got 2 more days, out of the coming two weekends of hunting, one weekend is 4 days, another 3 days, but he has to work. Oh well, hopefully he will see lots more deer, and get his Mama a nice doe, too! He always leaves the gut piles for the coyotes, fox, and anything else that is looking for fresh meat. The scavengers eat very well this time of year in IL.

What do you do with the meat, CE?
I was thinking of making some sausage from an elk farm near here.

 

[j.w]

Wow sissy I wonder if you hit any of them? Be careful and I sure would not like them shooting around my house like that.

 

[sissy]

Oh yeh I hit them as I heard them yelling .My son bought a high powered paint ball gun ,They have several different kinds and you can not hear anything but the poof when the gun goes off .My son said it was better than bailing me out of jail for shooting one of them .I checked and the pellet travels pretty far with a good amount of hit power .I have video cameras up and there are lots of warnings in the woods about that also .I figured it would help let them know I mean it .Most people are pretty good about not coming back after I yell at them that the property is posted and I mean to keep it that way .They can hunt on Jody's property but not on mine .Since the woods was accidental cut down by that stupid forrester that harvested the trees it is easier for them to hit my house .I am not taking any chances .You can hunt but not on my land .

 

[waynefrcan]

Depends on what "the job" is that needs to be done. A half dozen 6" goldfish in a big, relatively new 2 year old pond shouldn't have a lot of need for powerful aeration.
Unfortunately getting an O2 reading is impossible with the ice cover.
I'm a little concerned that the bottom water temperature is still above 40 degrees.
Of course I won't know for sure until next March - April.

When you had it, Wayne, it didn't work because it froze, or because fish died from suffocation or buildup of bad gas?

I had it in use with another 1500gal pump that kept a small hole in the ice. Never used it as a single source of aeration. Just the info on them was for smaller size ponds as to why I switched to an air diffuser.

With no koi you're not risking much. I love my Koi!

 

[waynefrcan]

That's right Sissy, hunters are 1 level below human killers in my book, shooting defenseless little bambi's.

 

[sissy]

I give my bambies straw to nest for the winter and plenty of good fresh water .Meany hunters . :cheerful: I hate the ones who hunt for the bucks just for the trophy head and leave the rest to rot .I can see hunting if you hunt to eat .Not sure about the moose they scare the heck out of me :faint:

 

[callingcolleen1]

The breather is continuously pumping water from 3 feet below into the tube above the ice and provides the same gas exchange as if there was no ice cover at all.
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I would not bet on that, cause gas can still get trapped under the ice, even with that small breather hole. Gas will rise at other end of pond and get trapped easy. Even in the summer, gases can get trapped if the plants get too thick too. You should be fine though cause you just have small goldfish and a big pond, but if you had big koi that may not provide enough oxygen/gas exchange...

 

[CountryEscape]

Mitch, if my son got me another doe or young buck, I would butcher it just like a steer. We used to put 3-5 deer in the freezer every winter, and ate that instead of beef all year long. It's better, if you ask me, as it is much leaner. If you get doe or young buck, they don't have "wild" taste. The bucks are no good to eat. I make roasts, steaks, and burger out of the meat, then toss the bones, rib cage, etc. out where the coyotes and fox can finish it off. My dogs also get large bones from it. He got me a deer 3 years ago, but not since. There is a locker close here that used to combine all the meat they got and you got a certain number of pounds, depending on what you brought in. They didn't keep the deer separate. Can you imagine if you brought in a tender juicy doe, and they mixed that with a 10 pt buck? Yuck! Other lockers promise to give you back the animal you brought in. I can butcher it completely on my own, though. :blueflower:
Around here, if someone shot a big buck and only took the head and neck to have it mounted, I guarantee the meat would not go to waste. As I said before, the coyotes and fox and any other animal out there (dogs, too) will eat fresh meat for a good while. All that will be left is bones, and the mice and other small rodents will feast on that. It all goes back to the land, in my opinion. Now, the people that shoot just to shoot and kill, that's awful. My son would never do that. Even if he gets a big buck, he will use the meat. He loves to make jerky in his dehydrater, and it's really good. Others take it to the lockers, but when you end up paying for all the labor and extra meat and seasonings they add to make you jerky or slim jims, why not just buy what you like? It's probably cheaper! Just my opinion .... my son won't shoot a young buck, he always wants to know what it will grow up to.

 

[MitchM]

I had it in use with another 1500gal pump that kept a small hole in the ice. Never used it as a single source of aeration. Just the info on them was for smaller size ponds as to why I switched to an air diffuser.

With no koi you're not risking much. I love my Koi!

I like that air diffuser you mentioned on another thread. I'm going to look into that.

 

[MitchM]

I lost contact with my temperature sensor about a week ago, so I decided to go digging for it this morning.
There is about 10 inches of snow, on top of about 8 inches of slush and water, on top of the ice that I was walking on.
The temperature sensor/transmitter was buried in the slush and ice,and the transmitter isn't strong enough to transmit through water.
Thank goodness it was in that Tupperware container, because it was still dry and not damaged.



Once I dug it out and put it on top of the slush I was receiving the signal fine again.
Bottom temperature is 40.1F and the surface is 27.6F

Both pond breathers are still going strong.
Now that I exposed that slush that you can see, it should freeze up hard. It will be interesting to see if the snow that I removed will lower the pond temperature significantly.

 

[j.w]

You are gonna have all this scientifically figured out so you will know exactly what to do next year when old man winter comes a knockin

 

[MitchM]

You're right, jw. The only other thing I would like to know is what the oxygen level is, but I can't think of a way to get that.
I guess the goldfish will have to be the canary in the coal mine.
There's other variables as well - the amount of decaying matter on the bottom, the volume of water and the number of fish that are present.