anybody have ponds?

[XxRachxX]

nobody ever talks about ponds!! so i thought id see if anybody actually has one?
we have 10 koi and a sturgeon. we have 6 really nice koi and 4 slightly manky ones to start the pond off:D but theyre all loved equally!
the biggest are about 14"
i dont exactly know all the stats of the pond etc. but its pretty damn good.
its a bit boring and plants arent exactly flourishing at the moment,its not too fancy, and my gardens a complete and utter mess:)
the waters not exactly pristine at the moment, and these are the best piccies i could get!

[XxRachxX]

ooh and one of the pond!

[corr]

I would love to some kind of water garden if someone would just give me some more time and money. :)

I like yours Rach. I like the thought of being able to sit at the edge and watch the fish. Some potted plants around the edge would be nice.

[Shane Tesser]

Very cool Rach..could you get a pic of the sturgeon for us?

[Emily-Fisher]

I was going to make a huge, 800 gallon pond in my backyard but the price was unbearable and so I just bought myself a pet treefrog instead and that's what got me interested into herps :D but I now have a pond anyways at my country house which I take care of. I always clean it and remove any bad-plants and I always remove all of the frogspawn and hatch it myself to make sure that the mosquito babies don't eat it. Then when the tadpoles grow legs, I release them back into the pond. A good quarter of those tadoles are from grey treefrogs and another quarter is frog spring peepers. Another quarter is just normal green frogs and the other quarter is for the toads :) I also hatch the salamander and newt eggs myself too but I only get about 100 of those eggs a year :( It's a big job but I do it anyways :)

[Stockwell]

Yeah I have a pond. Just put the fish back in yesterday in fact. We bring them in every fall to keep them from freezing. I keep them in my hibernation room with the snakes.
Gold fish and Koi like it cold, and maintaining them in the 50's keeps their winter food requirements down.
With the Current West Nile situation it's very important to keep fish in any water garden , to keep the mosquito population at bay.
Our biggest problem has been keeping the Racoons from eating the fish..They pull the pump hoses out, and this drains the water, then they just walk in and get them...At least that's what happened a couple years ago..The fish had babies too, and boy was my wife upset.
I've installed a level control now that turns the pump off if the water gets low. I also put gear clamps on all the hose connections...
They're smart little guys Racoons! They eat water lilies and other pond plants too, not to mention our frog..It's annoying, but they're just doing what comes natural!

[XxRachxX]

its right on our patio, its nice to site around in summer:)
im thinking about creating a "planting unit" thingy to put over the filter chambers, we have a crappy piece of old kitchen unit on there at the mo!
i was wondering what people over in cold places did with their ponds when it gets REALLY cold! now i know!
i will try and get a photo of the sturgeon! thats if im fast enough to spot the little bugger:D hehe he sneaks up the side when your not looking...tsk tsk

[Matt_K]

we currently have two ponds up and running right now. We have a fairly large 17'x7'x4' in the yard and also a smaller 4'x2'x'2 that sits on the deck. Both are planted with lillies, iris', parrots feather and other oxygenating plants. They all have a numerous amount of feeder minnows (great for the mosquito larvae) and feeder goldfish. Unfortuantly in the early spring we had a run in with a mink or a martin, not really sure, but he decided to have a wonderful fish feast!! He cleaned out the large pond of all the LARGE fancy tail type goldfish a couple of smaller koi. I'll try and get some pics of the pond up soon, our Marsh Marigolds are in full bloom right now!! (Martha Stewert signing out :D )

[Tim and Julie B]

You guys put fish in your ponds? Why? Just kidding but I am building one on my deck for my turtles. It is one of those formed blk plastic ones. I am building it above the deck in a box painted the same as the deck. Little garden fence around it to keep the dogs from drinking out of it and getting a tounge snapped off. I was going to start a pond thread also. :D

[Darlene]

I have a fish & turtle pond outdoors every season. I'm a bit behind this year though as we had bad flood damage.Once we get it repaired we are putting in a couple more ponds for homeless turtles to come to. I don't have a cam for pics but will see if I can borrow one after the repairs are done.

[Jeff_Favelle]

I manage a Koi farm and water plant nursery, so I get my fill of ponds there!! LOL!!

But yeah, because of West Nile, we've sold 6x more feeder goldfish this year than any other year!!

[RachelS.]

My friend Axel (pres.nixon) has a pond like that for his koi! very nice :)

[XxRachxX]

i may sound stupid......but whats this west nile thingy? it has something to do with mosquitos??? bad for people good for goldfish sales then? hehe
do any of you have pictures of your ponds??

[Darlene]

You don't sound stupid. West Nile is a virus that mosquitos carry.It affects mammals (flu-like I believe) & can be very serious even deadly. They thought it was most dangerous to elderly & children but new studies show children to be least susceptible as they are building immunities. You can be infected mildly & not know & build a tolerance. There are vaccines (my horse was done in March). I'm not sure if they are vaccinating everyone, just high risk people such as the elderly , I think. Fish ponds & bat houses are being promoted to help safely control the mosquito population. If you are in good health they are now saying not to worry too much as you will most likely build immunities. Severe cases usually come with poor health to start. Anyway , I'm getting long-winded here ! I'll post some pond pics later in the season as I'm still recovering from some flood damage here. Hope I helped a bit & if anyone knows more about W.N. hope they'll post.

[Crusty]

Ponds rock!!!, I have in one of dem darn thangs in my back yard.The Johnstones got one too, I had tons of fish they lived there all year round. Upntil last year that is, the darn thang froze solid like toirtuss crap in february. Had Coyz & goldies and something else? The thangs made babies POK-HER-EYE(that's port-u-goose fer crazy I think), freaky cross-breeds with far out colors man! Even have wild guarder snakes (spelling?) I don't know,ya anyways, they lived under the lime stone rocks we got set up as a water fall. Also tons of frogs that flock there in the steam'in summer heat along with some freaky lookin bugs. Oh ya last summer while induldging in some frosty brews & smokables, I watched the big mother guarder downed a frog, waz cool, snuk up on the little leper like it was nothin!!! The snakes are all cool they swim about the lillies like they all own the darn place. I wonder if they ever got any of the smaller fish? TOO many to tell, probably too quick for the snakes? You peeps talk about coons givin yall a rash, I've got a bloody BLUE HERON(big @ss fish eatin bird), that stops by for lunch...HAHA, I have a BEEBEE gun (BOOM!!!!!!) Naw! I'd never do that, it's really a cool, one of my favorite hardly seen kinda birds, not that I'm a fruity @ss bird watcher(00) or nothin. It's not a big pond but has alot of action and low maintenance. SHANE!!! you need a pond, yer house is a darn swimmin' hole. The Lass time I waz over at yer place, yer Ma made me put on water wings before go'in down the cellar. She knows I can't swim, remember I flunked swimmin lessons away back in kintergarten. Now that you got that there new job, you bess borrow a couple O them there excavators and we'el (me you & TRACTOR BOB) will dig ya one of them there lakes over a bottle of yer papi's moonshine, so as we can stock it with big bass!!!!! and fish them mothers till are hearts coontent!!!YEEEEEHAH! could even use that there lake to water yer daddy's mEEEEEEEEEEEEn weed field.WOOOWEEE!!!
LOVE CRUST

[Colonel SB]

West nile has also been found to affect crocdillians, the amaerican alligator mostly. I have a pond but it's just a summer vacation for my FSS's so they can get outside in the nicer weater.

[homebrewed]

awsome
I love ponds and have 2 of them.
the first is just a 300gal in the front yard that i keep comets in, and if I catch any small native fish
the second in a 1100 gal in the back yard which i started on 2 years ago.
here are some pics:
http://pictures.care2.com/view/2/909240129
http://pictures.care2.com/view/2/714364566
http://pictures.care2.com/view/2/256255344
http://pictures.care2.com/view/2/586107459
http://pictures.care2.com/view/2/849855562

[XxRachxX]

ooh sweet homebrewed:)
are those butterfly koi i see? i really want some but i cant find any!! god damn! im jealous now....me wany me wanty!
ours is roughly 1000 gallons probably more..
my dad is thinking of bulding a huge pond on our top lawn, (less mowing to do!) but to be honest i think were just dreaming.
last time we dug the hole.....huuuuuuuuuge hole, it was like a crater!! it sat there (bieng a hole) for roughly 18 months!! then we filled it in and forgot about it! id love a natural looking one..... bummer!
colonel sb: whats a FSS's when its at home??

[homebrewed]

yup those are butterflies. I've got 5 of them, just picked up an amazing one that should turn out to be quite awsome, its a metalic gold

[Colonel SB]

Rach a FSS is a Florida Soft Shell Turtle sorry bout that. :D

[Darlene]

oooohhhhh, Crusty !! You should see what happened in my ponds during the floods this year. I'm so scared to let my turtles back out until my neighbors get their fences back up. They have an ostrich farm & sadly without their fences the ostriches keep burying their heads in the sand around my ponds. I'm afraid they'll eat my poor turts the first time they burrow as the ostriches may now see the sand as being theirs.
Oh for the days of the raccoons..........

[Crusty]

aaahhh,Darlene!! I'm truly sorry to hear about your devasting floods. You best get out there and help the farmer rebuild his fences and save your turts from those overgrown, land lovin sea gulls!! heh? how many turtles do you have? do you keep them in your pond? don't they run (well I know they don't run) but take off on you? what kind? where did you get them? What about the raccons?

[Darlene]

ooooh Crusty don't you know ? My turts can take those coons !! Their fence was washed away , too. It keeps them from wobbling away. They are 2 RES I rescued a few years back. They'll have some company later this summer when I get set up at our new place (been off-line a bit while we moved). They haven't spent all year out yet but will when I get my pond deep enough. I'm further in the country now tho & am wondering ....... how do you think they'll do agains't the bears ?

Ciao babay , Dar

[Crusty]

Well I sure hope you moved to higher ground Darlene to avoid those nasty floods. You still in Newfie Scotia LMAO...Just kidding it's the nicest place in CANADA, my mom was born there. Are you on the island or the mainland? Anyways about those pesky BEARS (yikes), that's a tough call. I would have to assume that if your turts can survive an attack from a witty gang of coons, that they can most indeed outwit a dumb@ss bear. But for re-assurance purposes you may want to try leaving the bears a little treat! Like say, bake up some peanut butter cookies for them with plenty of fine grade ex-lax.......are you getting the picture!! It'll send them running to the forests for relief thus leaving your turts unharmed. However & don't say I did'nt warn, you may end up with a bear crap problem

later Crust

[17730turtlegirl]

i had a raccoon problem,
then one night i heard something out my window so i got on my boots and jacket grabbed my hockey stick and went out to my pond to bravley save my babies
i was walking by , noticed a big gray shape that hadnt been there earlier so i nicely poked it with the end of the hockey stick and it made a kind of hissing sound,and tried to bite me so i whacked it with the hockey stick (and i still feel bad about it but it WAS self defence) it ran tearing off and ran in midair for a second, directly into the middle of the pond bounced out and ran in to my neighbors yard this all happened at 12 o'clock at night
did you know raccoons are really big and vicious??? apparently i didnt other wise i wouldne have gone after one with a hockey stick , i would have shot it from my window with my pellet gun ( just kidding dont get mad id never shoot an animal, people on the other hand........)

[Crusty]

HUMMMMMM!!!! A hockey stick, very creative, you must be Canadian. Throw the stick away coons have diseases

[daver676]

My parents have a good size pond in their backyard. Started out with 4 koi, went into last winter with about 16, but only 4 made it through the winter. The ones that died were between 3-5 years, and last winter was REALLY cold. Colder than normal. The plants in the pond are doing alot better now though!