Spring 2013

Warm weather has come to stay and the winter weeds and dead plants have been removed from the pond area.  String algae is easy to remove this year because I purchased an "Algae Witch", which works great.  We started the UV filter to try to stay on top of the single cell algae bloom.  Barley products are being added regularly to the filter, and the fish no longer need any medicine.

cold hardy lotus

My friend Susan had an extra cold-hardy lotus and gave me this tuber.  Here you can see the first leaves shooting up.  In late May, despite the rocks I put in the basket, the fish dug up the tuber and I found it floating in the pond.  It was been replanted, but I'm sure that adventure did not help the health of the plant.

fish health in the spring

As noted in my pond books, the fish struggle with poor health in the spring.  I added pond salt this year to help and kept a close eye on things, adding medicines as I spotted fin shredding and white spots.  In spite of these efforts, the large white koi would not heal and I had to remove her and put her down.  She was very unhealthy at the end of last winter as well.  By the time I made the decision to remove her this year she would barely move and was sort of beached in the shallowest part of the pond.  Only a couple other fish were afflicted and they quickly healed up. It seemed like the prettier the fish, the worse their health; none of the non-colored goldfish were affected at all.

floating basket

I purchased this floating basket at the end of last year and used it all winter long (with a round fiber placemat inside) as a sort of cover for the fish to hide under.  The original purpose of the basket is to be used as seen here:  it is a place for floating plants that will protect their roots from hungry fish.  I put one water hyacinth, one water lettuce and a small piece of some other floater in the basket.  As I thought might happen, the basket area filled up with what looked like mosquito larvae because the fish couldn't get to them to eat them. I also saw very, very tiny fish fry (which have now disappeared).  I tipped one side of the basket into the water to try to circulate the water better, which sort of worked.  The occasional fish makes their way into the basket area, hopefully eating any mosquito larvae they find.  However, I noticed the large spotted koi actually IN the basket the other day!  Hopefully that won't happen too often and these floating plants will be allowed to flourish this summer.

bird bath time!

Late winter and all the birds are thrilled to take a bath in the newly started-up waterfall.  Here we see Cedar Waxwings and a starling enjoying the water.

pond in winter with no snow

The pond in winter is beautiful when covered with snow, but at winter's end looks a little bedraggled.  The Irish moss by the stone steps keeps some color, and the Weeping Blue Atlas cedar will eventually add winter interest. (center of photo with brown stake).  There also is a small juniper shrub that can't be seen and a bushy Whipcord Western Red Cedar (on the right, middle of frame) that will get about 2 feet tall.

Pond under ice

The pond heater always keeps an opening to allow for exchanging gases.  Fish are very quiet and don't move or eat much during the winter.