Pond in the foothills

[Troutredds]

View attachment 111934

View attachment 111933

Progress!!

 

[RobAmy]

Oh ya, now we a moving forward Hurry up winter is almost back up there

 

[MitchM]

Excavation done in one day.
We left an island in the middle for maybe some bullrushes.

... Hurry up winter is almost back up there

That's depressing!

Now to figure out what I need to do with some bentonite. Could probably use @MeyerJordan's input about here.

 

[Tula]

We all miss @Meyer Jordan 's wisdom. I love the island

 

[addy1]

Nice Hole!

 

[MitchM]

While I was draining down the pond I found 6 dragonfly nymphs, so I caught them and put them in the 320g greenhouse aquarium that has a soil substrate.
I also found a couple of 6" leeches. I didn't rescue them because I wasn't sure of their usefulness in an indoor aquarium.
The dragonfly nymphs were all about 2" in length. The dragonflies we see here most often are about 4" in length.

 

[addy1]

I save them anytime I find them on plants I might pull or in the skimmer.

 

[Troutredds]

Any new pics of the progress, @MitchM? Those darner dragonfly nymphs you collected must be getting hungry, too. They’re accustomed to a limited growing season in your neck of the woods, so your greenhouse aquarium must be a luxury for them.

 

[MitchM]

No progress, Troutredds.
I haven't seen the crew for 2 weeks now. It's been cold with rain here and apparently their landscaping equipment broke down. We're also working on cutting in a new driveway, so the pond is second priority.
I have a feeling the goldfish and minnows will have to enjoy their greenhouse aquarium for this winter.
Hopefully not.
I noticed one dragonfly nymph that did not survive.
Perhaps no acclimation was the reason, or maybe because the fish are constantly moving so the nymphs don't get a chance to grab a slow moving one.

 

[Tula]

I hope you can get the pond finished...we'd all miss your pond reports from the great white north !

 

[MitchM]

Thanks Tula!

 

[Lisak1]

You've got what - two, three weeks before the first snow? You can do it!

 

[MitchM]

My wife is asking me when we can go shopping for pond plants. The pond plant supplier here closes in September.
The guys I hired to help with the pond construction look at me and say ...bentonite...really? That's used to close off wells.....
I haven't been able to find a supplier I can buy 750 lbs of the stuff from yet.
They only want to sell to oil companies.
I'm kind of busy with my work right now too.

It is a nice hole in the ground though.

.

 

[MitchM]

The landscaping company said they would be here this week. Haven't heard from them at all. I paid my bills within 1 hour of receiving them, so I don't think that's the problem.
I have heard that fuel prices are becoming a real problem for landscaping companies and I empathize with any small business and their expenses...

Current state of my pond:
(It's growing weeds)

Current location of the pond inhabitants:
(inside our heated greenhouse 320g aquaponics aquarium. The plecostomus will not be outside, of course) For scale, the pleco is 13 inches long.

Something I've found interesting is that the goldfish/shubunkins have lost weight since coming inside even though I've been feeding them a lot on an automatic feeder.
I'm going to bump up the amount of food from the automatic feeder.

.

 

[Lisak1]

The landscaping company said they would be here this week. Haven't heard from them at all. I paid my bills within 1 hour of receiving them, so I don't think that's the problem.

I sympathize completely with your plight. If you saw my post about our home remodeling job and the difficulty getting people to do work - it's ridiculous. And we contracted with a landscape company to clean and re-sand our paver patio. They took our money and we didn't hear from them for 7 weeks. Finally called them and said to forget it, refund our deposit - we'll find someone else. They were here the next day. I don't get it.