I am new to this wonderful site, hope to learn alot from all the postings. I put a few of my pond pics on here, let me know what you think, any suggestions are welcome...

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!!!

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...

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.

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.

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

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

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

Sheri

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
This is the shallow end about 1 1/2' deep.

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

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

Jenny

MIke:-)

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

Mike