Ponds in Canada

[callingcolleen1]

Thanks right back at you, I really needed some sun, was getting down after days of non stop cold rain! I going to sun bath by the pond now

 

[herzausstahl]

I never turn off the main pumps that circulate the three ponds together. The creek runs all year under the ice, and my pond does the same. I keep the heater where there is good water movement, this will evenly heat the pond and keep the fish from hanging out at the heater. I have fairly large volume of water so it does not freeze as quick and I only heat the pond when temperatures fall below 15c or just below zero fahrenheit.

Its good that you have the flow from pond to pond set up that you can leave it going year round without having to worry about ice dams forming. If it wasn't so much a month to run my stream I would probably look for a way to leave it going year round. But for the pump I have that would be $30 a month (so $360 for the year) and I would probably have to knock out ice dams in the stream.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Could you not run the stream and just get a smaller pump for the pond?

 

[callingcolleen1]

Today is a good day to discuss the effects of caterpiller dung. Caterpillers here now are about half grown. The dung is falling everywhere. All dishes with clean water near trees quickly turn brown from capterpiller dung. The same effect is taking place in my pond, as it has every year now for a very long time. The pond water is turning darker now and so is the pond in the front yard, which is smaller (80 gallons) (it has no leaf litter from last year cause I take it apart and restart each year). Caterpillers are very abundant now that the city quit spraying the trees a long time ago, and so are the little wild finches and canarys. They sing so nice by the pond each morning and evening, the sound is so wonderful to hear, it really is a jungle out there! When the city sprayed the trees years ago there was not many of these songbirds, as their food was not as plentiful.

Its nice that the caterpiller dung falls into the pond, as it dyes the water naturally and prevents the suns hottest spectrum from shining into the pond, thereby preventing algae. It also comes at the right time, when the sun is very high in the sky (June) Soon the summer solstice will be here, and the sun will be at its highest peak in the sky, and it will shine directly on the pond. The caterpiller dung acts like a black water dye, you would need lots of trees in the area to see this effect. The caterpillers eat the freshes, greenest leafs and this makes their dung a very good and natural pond fertilizer for the pond plants as well. I also believe is lowers the Ph of the pond as well.

Below are some examples of caterpiller dung that fell on the deck, and the clean dish of water that turned brownish due to the dung. You will also notice that the pond looks darker too now, as it is getting harder to see to the bottom. this effect is only temporary and will clear up as soon as the caterpillers are done eating, (couple more weeks) . Notice the last picture of the dark water against the orange fish, it makes the fishes color stand out more, with the natural black water dye.

 

[herzausstahl]

Could you not run the stream and just get a smaller pump for the pond?

That is the cost for just the pump that runs the stream. Its a 5100 gph pump. Maybe when it dies in the future I'll look into getting a laguna which uses a lot less energy than this one and try it then. I have a 1500 gph pump for the pond that only uses about $6-7 a month to run 24/7 so not bad. Really the only part that I would have to watch for ice dams is at the very top where the water flows out of the upper pool. Does your pond have much evaporation during the winter months?

 

[callingcolleen1]

I am very careful to not overheat the pond during the winter. I heat the pond when the temp falls below zero fahrenheit. I like to have some ice on all the ponds, about two or three inches. The snow will fall on top of ice and help insulated and prevent excess water loss because when it is really cold, like minus thirty or below, the water will evaporate like steam because the water is so much wamer than the air. Also some water be lost because it will be displaced and turned into ice.

I have a hose hookup in the bathroom that overlooks the pond and I open that window and throw the hose to the pond and top off the bottom pond as needed. It is sometimes hard to tell what the level is in the bottom pond cause that pond freezes the most, so I look at the waterway cause generally it will have a small hole there open but not always. Sometimes I just listen to the sound of the water under the ice, it will sound louder the lower the level is because there will be more of a drop. If I'm not sure, I will top off the bottom pond with the hose from the house will make a little hole there so I can see the level. The bottom pond pumps to the top pond and so I just check the level in the bottom pond.

My waterways all ice over completely but the water always still flows under the ice, used to think that the ice would freeze the waterway completely but that does not happen, just like a small stream in nature, the stream will appear frozen completely but it's really not, if you listen, the water still flows under the ice, only the top freezes. Water seeps to the lowest level, so it generally flows under the ice.
If you have a very small pump, like under 300 Gallons per hour, and if the filter is clogged and it slows to much, it could freeze completely. I do not run small pumps like that anymore because I discovered that a few times.

 

[CometKeith]

Colleen, my neighbor raises plants that butterflies like to lay their eggs on. Every summer he gives me a few really tiny newly hatched Caterpillars he puts in jars and I have to keep feeding them leaves from these plants until eventually a butterfly emerges which we let out. He tells me these butterflies migrate to Canada and lay eggs and then the babies of these go down to Mexico and then back up to Chicago for another cycle. Maybe you are getting some children of these Chicago Butterflies!

 

[callingcolleen1]

Keith I think you may be talking about Monarch butterflies, we do have them here, as a matter of fact we had a very large one that seem to like some of my old fashion dianthis flowers. The type that I have living by the pond in the trees above are Tent Caterpillers, which most people hate, except me. I have always liked these caterpillers since I was a very young girl, got in trouble in grade three for climbing on the outside ledge of the school building to collect these little buggers. One teacher in grade two chased me in the school playground because I had my little hands full of these things, and he took my hand and squeesed it tight and when I opened my hand the caterpillers were all squished and slimy, he though he could teach me not to play with bugs, but that didn't deter me either. Now here I am over 40 years later and some people still think I'm weird for liking them. Sometimes when I'm outside under the trees and it's real quiet, and you think that you are hearing rain drop sounds falling on the trees, but there is no rain or clouds, then you feel dirt like pellets falling in your hair, its not dirt folks, it caterpiller dung! Just look around the yard, if you have the trees they like, like birch, oak, aspen, apple or other fruit trees, just some of the trees that they like, them you may have seen them. I tend to see the good in all bugs, even wasps! All bugs have a purpose, even if most people can't see or understand it.

My water experiment is not doing much, only had a couple days of nice weather, rains mostly every day, these days. Oh my next day off is Monday and Tuesday, and guess what the forecast is... you got it rain and lots of it is supposed to be coming. Here's some pics from today by the pond...
New pads on the pond finally!
So little sun these days I thought I could capture some beams sitting on my new chair.
My lovely German iris booms beside the Pond.
Bottom pond
Very very large floating yellow flag.
The hard to capture on camera... Blackie!
The cutiest puppie in the world... Poppy!

 

[Shoestring Ponder]

I will certainly look @ caterpillers in a new light after reading your synopsis of Caterpiller Dung. We have no caterpillers working here currently. I remember last season, I had lots of black grainy stuff on a section of the pool/pond rails. Now I know what it was! LOL I brushed it off to the ground and thought maybe it was from the caterpillers, but was not sure. I cannot, however, remember when it was. I now know what to do with it! LOL It may be too early here for the caterpillers though. I also have not seen any tent caterpillers yet, and I believe that may be later in the summer. I have enjoyed your pics. Lovely pond and what a beautiful dog! :goldfish:

 

[pugle1]

Colleen,

I love your photos.... keep'em coming Winter here in southern Ontario where I am can be pretty brutal too as it's not unusual to see minus 32C or so. Summers, well we can easily see up to plus 34C with humidex readings into the 40's .... what I call Florida hot with all that high humidity. This winter was unusually mild though, with the average temp around minus 5C. Many above zero days and hardly any snow at all. My fish did well over the winter, but I'm curious to see what will happen when a more "typical" winter happens. I guess my minnows will be ok, but I don't know about the goldfish. They did alright over this winter, but as I said, it was an unusually mild one. I kept a duel outlet aquarium pump going all winter with diffuser stones to keep the water circulating. That kept the ice thin, but I have a fairly shallow pond. A hard winter may see a different result. I turn off my water fall and take the pump out for the winter..... that little machine cost me close to $600, so I didn't want to chance any ice damage on it.

As for water changes, I do a 25% change maybe 3 times in a season with occasional top-ups if the rain isn't forthcoming.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Dear shoestring, Thanks, I just love my puppies, your tan color puppy reminds me alot of Sadie who left me just before Christmas and now watches me and the puppies from heaven. When I saw his picture, I just wanted to jump though the net and squeeze him and possibly and run off with him! Someone once told me that tan colored puppies are more work than other dogs, and I think they were right. When Sadie was a puppy she was always in one pond or another, even though she had her own pond! There was'nt a fence that Sadie could'nt get out of, she was constantly "Leaking out" of the yard, running down the street "at large" but for some reason I loved her dearly, even though I wanted to strangle her sometimes, why is it we love the troubled ones the most?

 

[callingcolleen1]

Puggle. I never change my water, I never have, in the 20 years that I have been "ponding it" the only time there's a vast water change is if I tear one of the ponds apart to rebuild and of course make bigger, nothing every gets smaller! I find it strange that people are changing their water all the time. I think an outside pond loses enough water through evaporation, spitters, waterfalls, and when those big five pound koi get moving fast they can throw alot of water over the edge too. Even when the fish were small, I would just top off the pond every other day and found that to be enough for me. Sometimes the wind here can be very hot and dry too and then the water level can also drop when those big heavy sedge plants take a big drink too, I'm sure! Of the three large ponds that I have that flow together, the bottom pond shows the water loss, which is about one inch a day, that's for all three ponds.

If your pond is overstocked with fish and not many large sedges to balance and clean the pond, and maybe not enough water movement, then it may be necessary for you to do those changes. Everyone's situation is different, and in Ontario the humidity is also very high so you may not lose as much water through natural means. Medicine Hat sometimes has next to no humidity and combine that with strong hot winds, I most likely loose more water than you for sure. When I was a Sergeant in the (SALH Militia unit) in the early 90's, I was in Borden for a month on a course and the humidity was so high that the sweat would just pour down my back sometimes. Was very happy to get back to the Hat after that steamy hot place, your most likey used to that now.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Tomorrow's featured plant, the WATER HYACINTH (the good, the bad, and the ugly truth exposed!)
AND why it's a BAD sign if it FLOWERS!!! Say tuned....

 

[addy1]

lol go on colleen love your thoughts, I don't change out my water unless it rains, then the pond gets a flush. This is my best ever pond, crystal clear, no algae, no green water, the bog and plants do a great job, it takes 6 ponds(lol for me) to get it right, and of course the room and time,(finally not working) , and a hubby that buys me a tractor for our anniversary

I am not doing hyacinths, this year, to much work and lots of hardies that come back just fine without effort.

 

[Shoestring Ponder]

Madhatter, you have piqued my curiosity! I cannot imagine why it is bad when hyacinths blorrom. Hmmmm other than that dead blossom adds to the decaying things in the pond? I am so very curious! Gonna be a long 24 hrs. for me as you got me on the edge of my laptop!

:goldfish: