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Fri, Apr 15, 11 at 20:29
| I've been lurking since last year when I built my new pond (November of 2010). My old place we had a concrete pond that I built in 1990... a fair sized pond, teaming with life (fish, frogs, etc). I missed it so much after moving, I decided to build a new pond late last year (we built a new house in 2008). This new pond is 8X12. The tropical water lily's have started to bloom and the frogs (both Leopard and Bull frogs) have shown up. Anyway, I plan on doing some more work around the pond this summer, this is it as of now, 5 months after building.
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Follow-Up Postings:
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| I love it. There have been a few chorus sung around here at night and have spotted some Gray Tree Frogs. Hope all of them come back and see me this year. |
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- Posted by jayinflorida USDA9 (My Page) on Sat, Apr 16, 11 at 7:55
| Thanks and hopefully your frogs will return. It just doesn't seem right to not have some frogs hanging around the pond. :) |
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- Posted by catherinet z5 (My Page) on Sat, Apr 16, 11 at 12:10
| Looks great Jay! I wish my pond was about that size. I have a 300 gallon Rubbermaid sunk in the ground and another one in the ground as a lotus bog. But I wish they were the size of yours. Love frogs too. We have snakes that live here too, which limit the number of frogs. We make up for that with tons of tree frogs, which I love! Right now there's about 8 toads in my pond laying billions of eggs! Thanks for sharing your pics. Looks great! |
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- Posted by jennyb5149 3b (My Page) on Sat, Apr 16, 11 at 16:08
| Thank you for sharing Jay! Your plant life is gorgeous! It gives me hope that someday my lilies will bloom too. I only have one tropical that I have to winter indoors. I'm so jealous yours is already blooming! After the 2 inches of snow last night, looks like I might need to wait a bit longer. Thanks for sharing until I get to see some in person! Jenny |
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- Posted by jayinflorida USDA9 (My Page) on Sat, Apr 16, 11 at 20:07
| Thanks, catherinet and good luck with the toadpoles! :) You're welcome, jennyb5149. We've been really warm for a while now... been breaking into the 90's on several occasions... the other 2 lily's have buds and should be blooming soon... I'll post more pics when they do. |
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- Posted by sleeplessinftwayne z4-5 IND (My Page) on Sat, Apr 16, 11 at 23:27
| Oh my, this time of the year I do miss living in the south. There are so many plants I can't grow here and it seems winter lasts so long. But on the other hand, we lived in Texas for a while and it seemed the winters were so grey, at least in Beaumont, rather than the crisp outdoors we had in Wisconsin. I just remind myself I wouldn't have the ephemerals, and tulips and daffodils that I have all over the yard here in Indiana. Your great photos make me want to get to work on using my digital camera. Thanks for the inspiration. |
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- Posted by jayinflorida USDA9 (My Page) on Sun, Apr 17, 11 at 21:42
| sleeplessinftwayne, thanks! I fertilized all of the water lilies today, they should really take off now... I'll post more pics soon. |
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| Jay Curious as to having a problem with cane toads?? I have a below and above ground in Palm Beach county and they completely overrun the below. Also what trick to growth on the edge.?? When cut it all ends up in the pond lol gary |
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- Posted by jayinflorida USDA9 (My Page) on Mon, Apr 18, 11 at 7:26
| garyfla, I know what you mean about the Cane Toads. I haven't seen one yet in my pond, but I would get them in my old pond at my old home. I would always catch them and "dispose" of them as they are really putting a dent in the native toad and frog population and they are also extremely toxic and have killed a lot of dogs, cats, snakes, etc... Cane Toads are bad news, and we do have them here. My neighbor had one in his little pond just last week... the only thing you can do is net them and "dispose" of them... that's the only thing I know to do... sorry I can't help more. As to the mowing/weedeating around the pond... as you can probably see, I haven't weedeated around mine yet... I'll end up using scissors when I do for now, but I plan on planting some stuff around the pond so that I don't have to worry about that. I left the grass and wildflowers there for now for the frogs, to give them some "cover" to hide in (the Leopard Frogs seem to like that as of now). I do want to make some changes to what's there now... I hope to do it by this summer. |
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- Posted by pashta_2006 Z4 ADK NY (pashta@aol.com) on Mon, Apr 18, 11 at 17:42
| Wow Jay what a great pond. You did yourself proud on this! Anne |
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- Posted by jayinflorida USDA9 (My Page) on Mon, Apr 18, 11 at 20:15
| Thanks, pashta_2006! |
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- Posted by greengardener07 (My Page) on Tue, Apr 19, 11 at 12:45
| Jay, Great pond! Do you have a filter in there? That water looks great! |
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- Posted by jayinflorida USDA9 (My Page) on Wed, Apr 20, 11 at 11:47
| greengardener07, thanks! And no, I don't have any type of filter. I've had ponds for over 20 yrs and have never used any type of filtration. Not that anything is wrong with using them but if you have the right plants and fish and so forth, you don't need them really. My old pond was 19 yrs old when I moved and it had never had a filter or running water and was crystal clear and full of life. |
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| Very Nice! Looks almost natural. No filtration, well, I'll be.. I love the way you managed to cover the side edging with the rocks and was able to hide the liner totally. Sandy |
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- Posted by jayinflorida USDA9 (My Page) on Thu, Apr 21, 11 at 21:02
| A few pics from today... 2 blooming, tomorrow, the 3rd should open... it's yellow... I'll post pics of it soon.
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- Posted by jayinflorida USDA9 (My Page) on Thu, Apr 21, 11 at 21:08
| Thanks, sandyl! I worked real hard to try and hide the liner as best as possible. |
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- Posted by blessedfamily 5 (My Page) on Fri, Apr 22, 11 at 9:53
| How deep is your pond? I am very interested to learn how to build a pond and not have to use a filter/pump for running water as I want another pond but have no more outlets to use.Your pond is beautiful by the way. Thanks Amber |
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- Posted by jayinflorida USDA9 (My Page) on Fri, Apr 22, 11 at 19:21
| blessedfamily, my pond is a little over 2 ft deep. My old pond wasn't even quite that deep and it had no running water or filtration for almost 20 yrs with no issues. I know that a pond like this would not be a good thing for Koi, but I only have some feeder Goldfish that I put in there and 4 types of native Florida minnows... I also have some crawfish, freshwater shrimp, snails, tadpoles, plenty of oxygenating plants both under the water, in the water and floating. I use well water to keep it tapped off with no chlorine. My pond is 8ftX12ft and is thriving in the hot Florida sun. I'm not trying to preach "don't use a filter or running water" but that's just the way I've always done it and with excellent results. Here's a pic from today's new opening... and also a link for you to read.
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Here is a link that might be useful: Pond info...
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| Jay I have never used pumps or filters on both the above and below ground ponds . Interestingly I kept tropical fish (swordtails from 82/08 when the freeze wiped them out completely. i was unable to keep goldfish due to water birds when I first started but I was afraid of mosquitoes after the wipeout so added some feeder goldfish thinking the waterbirds would take care of them. Wrong!!! They jumped from 7 to well over a hundred and spring has just started lol Guess I'll have to add some sort of predatory fish to keep the numbers down but can't decide what kind. Any suggestions?? gary |
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- Posted by jayinflorida USDA9 (My Page) on Sat, Apr 23, 11 at 8:32
| garyfla, try adding 1 bluegill... that should do the trick. :) |
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- Posted by jayinflorida USDA9 (My Page) on Sun, Apr 24, 11 at 8:41
| A few water lily pics from yesterday...
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- Posted by blessedfamily 5 (My Page) on Tue, Apr 26, 11 at 13:52
| Thanks for the information and the beautiful pictures..I am in Indiana so I am still waiting on it to warm up enough for my plants to bloom. Question do you get tons of algae? If so how to you take care of that? Just curious and love to learn about what works for others..I am thinking about putting a small pond out in a wooded area,some sun but mostly shade,no filter/pump because I have no outlets.. :) Thanks for responding. Amber |
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- Posted by jayinflorida USDA9 (My Page) on Wed, Apr 27, 11 at 20:44
| Most of the algae is taken care of by the goldfish, mollies, snails, etc... it's never been a real big problem. I actually like to see a little bit, it looks more natural that way. |
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- Posted by blessedfamily 5 (My Page) on Wed, Apr 27, 11 at 20:26
| Yeah I have the carpet algae but the string algae can get really bad sometimes and doesn't look so hot :) |
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- Posted by jayinflorida USDA9 (My Page) on Thu, Apr 28, 11 at 8:17
| I have yet to see any string algae in my pond... if there is any, the pond critters are keeping it in check. |
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| Jayinflorida: How do you prevent your goldfish from eating the snails? I was thinking about trying to find some snails for the pond that came with the house we just bought, but read pretty much everywhere that goldfish would eat them. I'm also having trouble finding snails that won't be invasive and will last the winters (I'm in New England). Any suggestions? The reason is because of the pond sludge problem that I'm hoping snails would help with. We do have a (mechanical) filter, and some water flow that we hope to turn back into a waterfall soon. We currently have 7 goldfish in about a 500 gal pond, and from reading this forum, some of the plants are apparently water lilies. Not sure what the others are, yet. :) Thanks! Suzanne, new to this forum, but not as new to GW |
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- Posted by jayinflorida USDA9 (My Page) on Sun, May 1, 11 at 7:01
| wispfox, I've never had any issues with my goldfish eating snails that I'm aware of... I think Koi are the ones you need to watch out for eating snails, all I have are Comets and 1 Calico. Go to some of the on line pond stores to see what kind of snails are right for your area. Seems like Rams Horn and Trapdoor are the ones I always used over the years (at least I think that's what they were called). Just make sure that you avoid Apple Snails! |
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- Posted by Lori_Carlos none (My Page) on Sun, May 1, 11 at 18:30
| It's so beautiful... I can only hope that we have success with ours too! |
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| jayinflorida: huh! I could have sworn that goldfish were supposed to eat anything that fits in their mouths. Trapdoor does appear to be something I recently found online that makes sense in terms of surviving our winters, and apparently not overwhelming a pond because they have live births. Thank you! Suzanne PS your pond is gorgeous. :) |
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| Really beautiful and inspiring! We have a newly dug elongated kidney shaped pond which we will line before long and then haul river rocks from our river frontage to hide the edges. I am nervous about sinking money into koi initially, as, on our farm we have herons, hawks, owls, snakes, herons, foxes, raccoon, possums, stray cats, etc. It will be much cheaper to begin with some fancy goldfish, plants and rocks for cover and see how they fare. I only hope our's will be as gorgeous as this! |
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