The Pond

The pond teams with life. It attracts all manner of wild creatures, both large and small. We get visits from everything between Dragon Flies to Ducks, from Chipmunks to Raccoons and Mice to Possums. Even Deer have visited our little pond in the city. The Goldfish rt cick for full size

Originally, the pond was stocked with koi, but one winter; they all died. Koi are rather fussy about water quality, and their care can be quite demanding. So after losing three hundred dollars worth of fish, I went to the pet store and bought a dollars worth of feeder goldfish. About half of those fifteen little feeders survived the first week. By the time that winter arrived the 45, half inch feeders had turned into 13 two inch goldfish.

The original pond was then expanded from a oval pond of about one thousand gallons to it present elongated 2500 gallons. This meant that the filtration system also had to be upgraded.

The original filter was good for about 750 gallons, and worked fairly well when backed up with an air pump and an auxiliary filter with a fountain head rated for about 250 gallons. We limped along with this set up while we planned a more extensive filtration system.

When winter arrived, we felt very protective of the 13 two inch goldfish so they spent the winter in an indoor aquarium. After summer came and went, the 13 goldfish were now six inches so again everybody wintered over inside. During spring clean-up, I drained the pond to get all of the leaves that fell in out and I discovered another five fish that were about an inch long. This was a good sign because the fish were going to be too big for the 70 gal aquarium next winter, and if the hatchling lived through the winter so would the older fish!