Dismantling a pond

13 years ago

My name is Betsy and I'm a lurker. I have my morning coffee with you every morning. I feel like I know some of you personally. Been doing this for a couple of years. Learned so much from you and have passed my knowledge on to many friends and neighbors. In fact, I was the 1st one in my neighborhood to have a pond. Now 5 years later, I have 6 neighbors with ponds - all because of me. Working on getting my whole street going. Our ponds are small but gorgeous.
My best friend (realtor) sold a house that had a small but deep pond. The seller up and left everything except the pump and koi. They left the filter falls, skimmer box, goldies, lillies, cattails and lotus. Yep - lotus. There was also a shrub looking plant that has brances that look like bamboo. Buyers do not want the pond & are letting my friend and I take whatever we want before they have the area filled in with dirt. It's like Christmas in September! My friend only wanted some plants and goldies and some of the flagstone. I want the filter falls and plants - especially the lotus. So we spent the entire day digging everything out after we drained the pond. Brought lots of water plants home, cleaned them and have them in large tubs in the shade. Need to know if a bleach water bath will sanitize the plants (pond was neglected for almost a year). The fish are quarrantined and being treated for ick. We are in Zone 5 - west of Chicago. I know what to do with the lillies but not sure about the lotus. They can spend the winter in tubs in my unheated garage with a filter if need be. My fish and lillies do this every winter because my pond is not deep enough and I'm gone a lot in the winter months. My garage never freezes but the fish do hibernate.
Now questions: we want to sell the skimmer. Thinking about Craigslist but not sure how much to list it for. It's a big one 24" high x 24"x19 with a faux rock lid. No basket or anything inside. Any ideas? We'll probably sell some of the plants as well and put the proceeds in our "Road Trip" account.

Comments (4)

jalal
13 years ago
No suggestions for the skimmer other than ebay??? As for your plants I read somewhere that you can treat them with alum in the water. Can't remember how much. If you google it may come up. Bleach is not a good idea as would probably kill the plants unless it was a very weak solution--maybe google that as well.
goodkarma_
13 years ago
There is another forum that starts with Koi.....that has a trader forum. You might want to try there. Also your post was very sweet in saying you feel you know some of the members personally. Post a little more so we can have the pleasure of your company. :)
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ccoombs1
13 years ago
All parasites need host to survive. For the plants, you could put them in a kiddy pool with no fish for a month or so and that should take care of parasites. But it's not a fool-proof method. A more reliable way is to wash the dirt off the roots and soak them (including foliage) in a potassium permanganate solution for a few hours. That won't hurt the plants, but will kill parasites.

For the skimmer...do you know what brand it is? If you do, try to find out how much it sells for on-line and then ask half of that for it. Craigslist is a good place to sell stuff. Shipping is usually pretty high for large items so selling it on-line might not work too well.
betsyf
Original Author
13 years ago
Thanks for the info - have listed the skimmer with the faux rock lid on the Chicago area Craigslist for $100 but no bites yet. I'll probably just put it out in the shed till spring when ponders are itching to enlarge their ponds then list it again. The plants we have in the big horse troughs after we washed off dirt and gunk. I'm going to get to them again next week after my big party this coming Sat. night. I've been cleaning house like mad and shopping for party food, etc. It's a surprise 65th birthday party for my hubby. His birthday was in July so this should really come as a surprise. The hard part is not letting him know - he thinks I'm having a girl get-together for a Pampered Chef party.
The fish were quarantined with stress coat and Ick for a week. All are happily in 2 ponds. They even got my 3 young koi to come out of hiding when I feed them. My koi are extremely shy. Have not seen the Pleco since I put him in there in early July.
Will introduce myself properly with pics of my ponds after I get this party over with - and the hangover subsides. LOL