WOW!!! Lovely! Love the turtle on the rock! Nice lighting too! Very well done, what kind of fish do you have? How big/deep etc is your masterpc!?

calamity

thanks so much for your comment, I have 5 goldfish (Rosie,Lips,Wiggles Baby,Junior(is a her).They had 100 babies which I have all in my basement for the winter, they'll go back out in April. The deepest is in front of the waterfalls 27". On the otherside its maybe 15-20"..I use three pumps 2200gph, 600gph and just a small I had laying around. A 600 gph surface skimmer.Here's a pick of the fish in the basement with all my flowering plants, the one in the plastic bag is water iris's, I have all my water lilys in bags for the winter to in the basement, I have a flickr acct, sheribuch711 you can see the whole building process........ Have a great weekend!!!
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Pond looks very nice! Looks like you have plenty of Goldfish... are you going to put all of them back in?

Wow very nice pond and I love the bridge..I am wanting to go bigger already with my 1500gallon pond but it will have to wait on funds. Do you take all your fish in for the winter?

Yes, all the fish are in my basement until April or whenever I get the outside pond up and running.Thanks for your comment....

Cool pond! In the first photo what is that widespread plant in the middle of the pond (not the lily)? Is it in a pot?

Jclimber,

thanks for looking. No,the plants are called water lettuce and are free floating the just keep on spreading, they will take over the pond if you let them...

Magnificent pond you have there!

I wonder how 100 extra fish will do in there. I know they are your babies and in your charge but you should see if you can give some (most) away. A pet store is likely to put them into the feeder fish tank so make sure they don't!

(I myself have several very lovely goldfish from the pet store feeder tank stock. Got them to start the pond and they did great!)

I know how hard it is to part with babies, mine had babies 2 years ago. While I was able to give half away the small ones in my pond did not make it thru the first winter (bad freeze took out the waterfall and drained it before I knew we had a frost). I kept 3 in a tiny tank, bought a new tank, and just realized they ain't goldfish as I thought but Koi!

I don't have room for 3 more mature Koi. Guess I need a bigger pond.

Hey Ernie,

Nice to hear from you, I guess I'll try putting them all in the pond even knowing the water quailty will suffer from that many fish. I heard that if you put a bluegill in the pond it will take care of the over population of goldfish, but then what do I do with the bluegill, I do alot of fishing so getting a small bluegill wouldn't be hard to get. Just don't want to keep it over winter, no room. I guess there's always the frying pan (lol).
I enclosed a couple of my fish pic and other friends in and around the pond.

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This is there home in the basement over winter, the babies have there own pool
The babies pic are back up a few comments.
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Sheri

Hi Sheri,

What an amazing pond! You've given me inspiration for my improvements this spring. You know that once you have a pond its always a work in progress, right? LOL

Whereabouts in WI are you located? I'm always looking to connect with nearby ponders. Unfortunately, there are not many of us in northern WI!

Jenny

Hi Jenny,

Sorry to say I',m on the other end of the state outside of Milwaukee in New Berlin (Waukesha County). My husband and I do alot of camping in Northern Wisconsin though. We stay at state campgrounds( Big Lake and North Trout are our favorite campgrounds). We've been camping sine 1976, our kids grew up in a fishing boat (lol)Would love to see a pic of your pond..I know what you mean about always wanting to change thing with the pond. This year I want to do more landscaping around the pond.

I just wish they wouldn't have babies, right now I have so many goldfish

It's been such a long winter, I am ready for spring, post a pic of your pond here.

Nice talking with you Jenny.
Sheri

Gorgeous pond! Love the lighting.

Beautiful! I love the night shots, i used a lantern a couple of yrs too. So inviting!

The first pic looks like a tropical paradise! Gorgeous pond and plants you have there. Love your photography skills as you have truly captured the beauty of your oasis. I could live in your backyard!

Thanks to everyone who has visted with me, your comments are so much appreciated !!!!!!

Sheri

What a great pond Sheri! And welcome to our 'hood!
You take great pics too.
Isn't ponding fun? Life would seem so dull without them!
Look forward to hearing more from you and seeing more of your pictures!

Gorgeous!! I love your pond. You have done a wonderful job. I love that turtle sitting in the pond.

Sheri: Your pond is absolutly beautiful. Your photography skills are impressive as well. I like the oil lamp in the fourth photo.
I live up in Green Bay and I had a concrete pond for 19 years at our old house - now we have moved and I need to start over and build a new pond - with a liner. I built a little experimental pond last year with some scrap rubber roofing - now I am ready to go bigger. You mentioned that you have a surface skimmer - what do you do with that in the winter ?
Jeff

Jeff,
The skimmer I have just floats on the water surface, it has a 660gph pump in it to draw surface water into it. When I shut the pond down for winter I just pull it out and put it in the basement along with the filter which I use to filter 1 of the pools I use for my fish in the basement.
I just started cleaning out the pond by draining it and pressure washing the liner and rocks. Hope to have my fish back in there by the end of the month, all 105 of them (lol). Thanks for your grnerous comments, have a great week...
Sheri

Hey Jeff,

One more thing the oil lamp I use was real at one time but
now I have 12V lighting around the pond and took apart one of the lights except fot the wire and bulb and opened the latern as if you were gonna light it and pushed it in there so it turns on and off with the rest of my 12V lights.....I also found 1 pic of the skimmer and have enclosed in the message
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This is the shallow end about 1 1/2' deep.

Sheri

Hi Sheri:

I have that same skimmer. It's called the swim/skim. That thing is great in the spring time. It swims around the surface of my pond and collects all the pollen and the whirlybirds. I usually have to empty the basket several times a day during the spring. Sometimes it turns off before I get home from work if the basket is full. IMO it more than paid for its cost last spring. You just reminded me I forgot to hook it up when I started my waterfall. I will put that on my list of things to do this weekend since they are forecasting 70+ degrees. The trees in my area already have yellow and pink pollen on them just waiting to drop. Then there are the flowering trees. I don't have a tree in my yard, but I swear every petal, leaf, whirlybird, etc. blows into my pond when it's windy.

Your pond is gorgeous. I just love your pond pics. You are getting me though the rest of this "ugly season" just knowing my pond will blossom like yours soon. I am so ready. Just wish Mother Nature was too.

Jenny

Sheri: I might have to borrow that idea - we have several of those old kerosene lanterns. That skimmer looks pretty interesting . . . I see it isn't inexpensive . . . but within my budget. Thanks for the additional info on the skimmer, Jenny.

I was walking around my backyard yesterday - for the first time since the snow receeded and I walked past my little "experimental" pond . . . I was shocked to see a fish swim by . . . under the ice . . .

Now, I have to tell you a little more about my little "experimental" pond: Like I said yesterday; we moved into a new house last year. We were pretty busy with the move and everything - we had alot of inside decorating and outside landscaping - so I really didn't have time to start a big pond. However I wanted to experiment a little with a liner-type pond. I wanted some type of pond - even if it was small. Our old house had a concrete pond - so I wanted to experiment with hiding the liner under edging stones and stuff like that. I got some scrap rubber roofing and dug a little pond - it is maybe three feet long x 2 feet x maybe 12" deep. I made a Skippy-type filter out of a five gallon bucket and made a little waterfall out of rocks. I added a few goldfish and did a pretty good job of edging the liner. I will have to say it turned out pretty good.
I cought all (I thought) the goldfish in October and brought them inside for the winter.
Yesterday, I see I missed one of the goldfish and it somehow survived our -20F Green Bay winter . . . in just 12" of water. That is one tough little fish. I sure surprised me.
I have been ponding for over 20 years now and I never though a goldfish could survive that.

Jeff

Congratulations on your survivor, Jeff. One of my biggest joys of ponding is observing how amazing Mother Nature is. Now if you knew that fish was in there and said "It'll be OK, I'll just leave it overwinter in the pond" it would have been belly up when the pond thawed. Just goes to show you no 2 ponding seasons are ever the same, and that's why she is called Mother Nature.

Jenny

hi sheri, your pond is fabulous and i know it gives you a lot of pleasure. thanks for sharing it with us!
you asked for suggestions and the only one i have is to paint or stain that tall white strip of lattice a brown color to match the fence because it really stands out and diverts the eye from the prettiest parts of the pond and greenery. it may be covered in a vine in the growing season but the rest of the year it will get too much notice.
just my 2/cent opinion. happy spring! min

Your pond is gorgeous. Love the night photos. Very nice!

Gorgeous pond, you did a gread job.
Your photography skills are great as well.
Enjoy your bid of heaven.

Beautiful pond and garden.

Absolutely stunning!!! Thanks for sharing! Joanne

I don't have the words to say looking at your pond. Amazing! I hope you have had many happy moments by that pond.

MIke:-)

Thanks crazycat for bringing this back up. I missed it somehow. Great pond and wonderful night viewing. Also nice to see how to handle inside fish. Sheri (if you see this is up) how did you determine that you had 105 babies?

chas045, I tried to count them last fall ( in groups of 10 to make it easier to keep track of)when I was taking buckets of them to the pools in the basement. This spring I lost a few due to me not paying attention and some got caught in the filter and died. They had babies again this year but I cut back on feeding and the little baby ones from last year took care of the new babies of this year, almost like nature would.. I have 2 females ond 3 males golfish and of course all the babies which are getting big now to, I should of listened to my husband when he said no fish (lol) it sure would be alot less work, time and money oh well....

Thanks so much for your lovely comment on my pond...
Sheri

Awesome pond. I'm hoping to get mine to the point you have yours.

You welcome

Mike