How many ponders are out there ?? List your names - Update!

Here is mine. The irises were beautiful this Spring and the lilies are everyday surprises.

And mine - put it in Fall 2003. This is the view from the top of the waterfall. It's about 2400 gallons. I have koi, lots of plants,including two floating planters.

Victor

tgif, very nice pond, but I had a problem bringing it up so I could see, just my computer I think. Do you have both koi and goldfish.

victor, Your pond is lovely. What is growing in the large pot in the pond on the left.. DonnaS

In the floating planter on the left is a number of plants including lobelia, rush and chameleon. The large green shrub is not in it, though it looks like it is in that shot. It's an aralia growing at the pond's edge. Thanks.

Victor

Beautiful ponds! I never get tired of looking at ponds. They are all so different, and all so lovely!

rutholive - I started with comets and shibunkin(?sp) but they crossbred so now I have a delightful mix of colors. Some orange, some orange & white, a few cream and even three blacks!

tgif, great that you had such good luck with your fish crossing. Bet they are really pretty. My pond is so full of waterlily pads that i can hardly see the fish or find a space to feed them. Some of the pads are more than 14 inches in diameter. Don't know why they are so large, didn't replant of even fertilize them this spring. DonnaS

Victor, I enjoy just looking at your photo of your very nice pond, and looks like you also enjoy sitting there and seeing all that beauty. DonnaS

Victor - how about a picture of the waterfall? Two reasons for that, 1 - I love to see them and 2 - while your back is turned I'm going to steal that beautiful blue Hydrangea
and put it by MY pool!!!
ginni

I have a small 75 gallon pond we put in last summer. It is really starting to look pretty good. It has come a long way. The only problem I have is that I didnt map out my garden so I have a couple of plants that are unidentified. LOL

Pic 1: Just set up

Deb

Here she is by Aug last year.

Here she is now......well last month actually.

She has come a long way!

The waterfall ...

I've been working on this entire back yard for about 8 weeks, I hope to be done with this by summer's end. lol

and the view from beside the waterfall at this stage.

nDEBt, Great name. Very nice pond, Looking good.

BogweedBuck, Great name you have too. Love your waterfall. Mine is the way we built it 10 years ago, not knowing much about waterfallls, etc, and at my age don't think I will try to change it. DonnaS

Bogweedbuck.....funny! I love your waterfall!!!

When is a garden/yard ever done???!!??

Donna,

Thanks, she aint much but I love her!!!!!

NDebt and Bogweed, looking good!
NDebt, your retaining walls around the pond would look lovely with trailing lobelia and sweet alyssum spilling over them. I think I would be tempted to treat that as a huge hanging basket! It's a great pond!

BogweedBuck, if you actually manage to finish you better share you secret with us! I don't think my pond, or my yard , or my house for that matter, will ever be finished! (Note hysterical laughter here...) But your work is impressive nontheless.

Well, perhaps I should define today's use of the word "finished" ....

Hmmm, on second thoguht, perhaps that is word which very well may never be effectively definable within the confines of this subject nor this crowd of lovely people.

Okay, what I meant was this: finally hiding all the "evidence" of shortcuts taken, etc. I don't want to see the pressure treated lumber and that nasty old black plastic liner on the waterfall basin, therefore I still have a certain amount rocks to move and plants to plant to effectively achieve the masking of these most unsightly things.

I want there to come a day when my sphincter doesn't begin to maniacally twitch whenever the weather man begins calling for torrential downpours.

I look forward to the day when my wife stops bellowing, "Do you REALLY need to have ALL of this $&!+ lying around here?!?!?!"

I look forward to the day when I can finally rid the planet of the 'coons, herons and ergrets who seem to take such extreme pleasure in the maiming and torturing of my Japanese and Israeli koi. I would really like to replace the explosives and constantine wire with something more befitting a residential garden.

(for those of you who are overly sensitive, that was a reference to racoons, not a racial slur, okay?)

So, I guess my idea of "finish" is the day when the "heavy" work is done for the season. Since Mother's Day I have been busting my arse in grand fashion. We extended the deck with a 14x14' hexagon, which required the use of a huge auger drill, jack hammer, a walk-behind trench-digger, etc. etc. etc. In the past 9 weeks we have built a deck, ran one trench from the garage (electric panel) to the deck (for the hot tub) and another out to the pond ... because the line going to the old pond was severed by a friend of mine helping me deal with a flood back in May. We have hauled 2,500 cubic yards of top soil from the driveway around to the back yard, followed shortly thereafter by 8 and a half tons of gravel that had to also be hauled around by hand.

Then, there was the episode from hell involving this 8hp 'tilller that I rented ... hell, literally, because I had that puppy for the 2 hottest days of the summer thus far: 100 degree+ and upper 90's for humidity ... and it had not rained in WEEKS so the "soil" (bedrock and clay, to be more to the point) was packed beyond belief. It was like trying to roto-till a sidewalk. But alas, dozens of bags of perilite and fertilizer was tilled in with the clay, rocks, leaf mulch and top soil. We have our own manfactured "potting soil" ... but I did a horrible job planning for excess water flow. All three of the neighbors have had their yards re-graded since moving in ... and all three of them divert their rain water right towards this VERY SAME CORNER OF MY YARD.

But I'm okay, really, I am.

Yes, I know, it will NEVER be done ... but the really frustrating physical labor part of it will be "done" each year ... right up until I cook up some other goofy idea that leaves my wife begging for a hand full of demoral and a bottle of tequilla.

By the way, thanks for the compliments! :o) It used to be a cute, small pond, surrounded by a very modest sized flower garden. It is now somewhat larger, and the surrounding garden has expanded like a super nova to now occupy a better part of our back yard! None of this will ever ... ever ... be finished.

Buck, can I call you that ? You have certainly worked very hard to get your deck and yard into great shape. Wish i could see it for real.

I am trying a fairly new product to keep animals at bay. It is called Plantskydd deer and animal repellent. Longest lasting year round protection. I want to try to keep the darn cottontail rabbits and gophers and deer (when I forget to close the gate) away from my plants. My daughter lives in Fairfax VA. I am going to send her a container of it to try to keep the voles and chipmonks and squirrels away from her plants and bulbs. Comes fully guaranteed.

DonnaS

Oh, thank you Bogweed. You make me feel much better about the "mess" in our backyard. I only THOUGHT we had lots of stuff going on..... Hubby says if he could just finish the hardscape projects, he could keep up with the routine maintenance stuff... or keep up with the maintenance, and get to the projects later... vicious cycle! I say, lets just move!

We will move in under 3 years, so there is an incentive to get the projects done, and make the maintenance look like "low maintenance" in time to sell! LOL

Thank goodness that the pond is finished, and it is very little maintenance these days! Hurray! Now to get those pathways and beds done, and the weeds down..... Time to rip out more, and add more, too! Neverending!

Yes, Donna, Buck works just fine ... been a given nickname for over 20 years now, so I suppose I should get used to it.

The VERY best deer repellent I have found is also known as "Bouncing Betty." It's a explosive that is catipulted vertically less than a meter into the air prior to detonation and sends off tens of thousands of fragmented shards. While highly effective on deer and teenagers, it is really somewhat of a waste when it comes to the smaller creatures and vermin. A bench mounted .20 cal. RWS Dianna outfitted with a competition scope and muzzle break does a great job with them ... although, you really want to watch out for stray shots puncturing your liner. The muzzle break allows each shot to exit the barrel at an impressive 1,350 feet per second with hardly a noticible "phuff" of noise from the rifle itself. This keeps the neighbors blissfully, albeit ignorantly, unaware.

We have tried various incindiary devices, but it always seems like the bunnies instantly head for cover under the house or, worse still, under the neighbor's house as soon as it realizes it's fur and flesh are aflame. While it is mildly entertaining to watch, it is still more than a little unsettling to have to come up with new stories to ward off investigations from the fire chief.

Perhaps you could send me a link to this fully guaranteed product! I am certain my wife will love you forever if you could dissuade me from these more Neanderthallic, yet highly satisfying, methods I have heretofore adopted.

And, of course, there's the old school option ...

OMG Buck! You have me LOL! I'm sure my mom would like some of your ordinance to take care of her deer problem since they, just this week, got INTO her pond and ate every lily leaf, knocked stuff off shelves to make a muddy mess in the bottom of the pond and ate all the hostas and blooms of the daylilies.

Here's a pic of our pond we started in mid-June. It's at 2300 gal right now and still needs to come up a few inches, then, when we add the plant pond it will be around 3000gal. DH works either late or out of town most every day so the only time he can work on it is weekends. I can't do any of the heavy work because of back problems so it goes slowly.
Lana

WVDaisy, Almost looks big enough and deep enough so he sould go swimming. HaMust have been really provoking for your Mom. For some reason when the deer do come into my yard they just prune things like my cherry tree branches, raspberries, etc. have never as far as I know been very close to my ponds.. I better not brag tho. DonnaS

Donna, if it was a little deeper it would be good swimming :~) My mom and I started the pond while he was at work, that night when he saw the area we had already taken sod off of he said "I've fished ponds smaller than that!" LOL
This is the first time the deer have actually gotten 'into' her pond.
Lana

Buck, you have me rolling! Man, can I ever relate to the on-going "it'll never be finished" demise! I had to read your descriptions of explosives out loud, as my son was highly entertained by them. Wicked sense of humor! Keep it up! It's probably the only thing that allows you to survive your suburban death camp!

Actually, it sounds to me like you need ....MORE PROPERTY! Just put a little more space between you and the neighbors and you won't even need that silencer on the gun!

Your wife will never understand what drives you. People like her never do. They must just love us from afar!

I've decided that if I lose fish from herons or kingfishers, I'm just going to keep cheap fish, because I love those big birds every bit as much as I do the fish. Guess I better not get too attached to them, huh? I don't think ordinance would even phase the birds around here. We live close to Ft. Lewis, the army fort where the 'play' wargames all day and all night. Is it an earthquake? No... it's just the army blowing things up for practice! The birds around here are used to it!

Mornin, Pixy, Daisy, all ... and thanks!


Pixy, about your birds ... as much as they may be used to that noise, they are NOT accustomed to having razor-like shards of metal searing through their flesh at sub sonic speeds as an angry "old" man maniacally giggles at the random clumps of feathers and desicated flesh that splatters against the fence... they've never heard the peels of laughter as I watch my koi get their own little taste of revenge as they nibble at the unidentifiable remains of these evil minions of the sky sinking towards the bottom of the pond ...

Ah, but a girl can dream ...

Sorry about that little flight of fantasy ... I just woke up this morning to find that yet another little evil beast of the field has discovered my make believe sanctuary: a racoon. As much as these critters are entertaining to watch from afar, this one has now crossed the line. I just re-stocked on some QU'WALITY koi food only to have one of these vile beasts find a way to pop the top off of my 5 gal. "tool bucket." I KNEW the little bastard was around ... my dog (a mentally deranged Jack Russell terrorist ... er ... terrier [ever see Ren & Stimpy? Think "Ren"]) occasionally spazzes out at night for no obvious reason. On these occasions when she's chosen to overnight it outside, she inevitably makes a bee-line to said pond. NOW I KNOW ...

A mere couple weeks ago I was blessed enough to begin my with the discovery of one of my prized Israeli koi (I know, Jewish Carp ... who'da thunk it?) trapped inside of an "aqua pot" with a gouge along one side of his head, and his poor little eyes bugged out, a'la Marty Feldman. I blamed the teenage step-son at first ... they really made Mama-san happy ... I then proceeded to blame the cat (why not? the dog gets blamed for far more by said spousal unit) ... and, ultimately, I had to simply chalk it up to "fate."

I still prefer the term "dumb luck."

This morning, though, I experienced what those involved with Alocoholics Anonymous commonly refer to as "a moment of clarity." Behind my half completed waterfall was an overturned bucket. The contents of said bucket strewn about, fish food EVERYWHERE ... and there, on a piece of black, charcoal-impregnated filter pad, I saw something disturbingly familiar ... not-so-tiny footprints that bore no resemblence to those left by the aforementioned feline/canine duo who otherwise torment my life.

"Yes," I thought to myself ...

Hmmm ... my father-in-law, an Elgish professor, would not like that. Who the hell else would I think to?

Nevermind!

"I've seen those malevolent little tracks before! I've seen them on the pond liner. I've seem them in the dirt! I've seen them by my trash cans! I've seen them on my skirt!"

It was at that point that my masculinity took over ...

Anyhow, here's a picture of my beloved "Lemon Drop." I know, not a very Japanese name. Heck, not really all that Yiddish either, but that was his/her/its name all the same.

Rest in Peace, my slimy late friend from the pond. May God bless thee and keep thee. May He make His face to shine upon thee ...

Ah, screw it. 'Eres my late, great feeshy...

Oh, No! If I lost one of my KOI, I would be devistated! I'm sorry that you lost one!

Mine are my babies! (Only creature that I have that just wiggles in delight when I walk past the pond, happy to see me!)

melanie

Wow, you've yet to lose one? Man, I do envy that!

This season alone I've lost no less than 5. Loss #1 was an unassisted "suicide." The little bugger (a 2 year old Shusui koi from Japan) up and jumped out of the pond. Sadly, the little fart was unable to find his way back to water. More of a comic tragedy than a "long story" so I just won't go into it ...

Losses 2 through 4 were my own fault: ALWAYS make sure to QUARANTINE NEW FISH! I introduced some nasty bacterial/fungal gunk into a freshly cleaned out pond and I had a number of non-lethal victims beyond the 3 confirmed deaths. It's was a true bummer, but it also happens to mostly be my fault. (side note: all fish that fell ill were newer additions to the pond. All previous occupants proved wonderfully resilient ... of course, none of them were koi. Shubunkin and Sarissa seem to be noticibly more robust than their relatives from Japan, so ... well, these are dots that are easy enough to connect)

Loss number 5 was Lemon Drop (see above). I have numerous theories, but it is starting to seem like it was the cat or a 'coon.

Loss #6 was truly bizarre ... and I really should have documented it for future reference. Out of NOWHERE, one of my domestic koi suddenly bloated on top of showing fungal damage to the tail. It was a very quick transition from seemingly happy to dead.

Loss #7 was my wife's newest introduction to the pond, a cute little domestic yearling she affectionately named, "Groucho." Cause of death: Unknown. It was one of the more passive residents of the pond and never showed any noticable vigor or growth in the 8 weeks since its introduction to this particular pond.

I ultimately over-stocked this pond knowing that some attrition would occur and also with the intention of giving many of these critters away to friends and family as they grew. It has been frustrating to watch this happen, but sadly, it can happen all too easily.

Buck, my local fish store has been having problems this summer with finding healthy koi. He had a bunch in a tank that just kept getting sick and wouldn't stay well no matter what he treated them for(he always has clean tanks and healthy livestock). Finally, about 2 weeks ago he treated them for internal pests and put salt in the tank and now they are healthy and fine. Just a thought for loss #7.
Lana

Judy,did you ever find out what or which kind of dog food to feed the fish?

Thanks, Daisy! What surprised me is that Groucho (aka: loss #7) came from a really healthy stock from Lilypons, in Maryland.

I now have one last straggler who lost a good amount of his tail but appears to be recovering quite well. He eats like a fiend and is not the least bit bashful about pushing his way around through his pond mates at mealtime.

Not meaning to black-ball anybody out there, but my worst experience with sickly fish was with Zet's Hatchery, located in sunny, metropolitan Inwood, WV. I would probably stock a large pond or lake with their game fish, which look very robust and healthy, but I will never again dip my net in their koi holding tanks.

so sorry to hear about your loss. made me do a koi count!

Hmmm, hadn't heard of that hatchery Buck.
Lana

I just joined the group in June. My hubby and I live in Fort Worth TX. We have been ponding for about 5 1/2 years. We started out with a preformed double pond, we were so proud of it. We only had fantail goldfish in the preformed ponds, but sadly we lost them during a 3 day electrical outage last spring. As with most ponders the desire to go bigger hit us about 3 years ago. After a lot of trial and error of where to dig, we moved the small pond set-up to the otherside of the yard and dug an 11 x 14' pond with shovels, just ourselves and my son on occassion. We had to haul rocks from the front of the house down a slope to the back yard in a wagon. A bobcat won't fit in the space since prev owners enlarged the house.:-(( It took us a two week vacation and lots of Advil to accomplish the task. Finally we finished and filled it with water, plants and fish eventually. It is our labor or love for sure. Like TXMEL, we also have a Aquascape system. (Whose pond I will be able to see soon! We are just a few miles apart!!). Don't hate me....and quit drooling on your keyboard! Here is our large pond and waterfall. We plan on extending it to encompas the flowerbed near the skimmer, and also add a drybed and bog area. We should have at least double the size eventually.
I have enjoyed looking at all of the pictures and reading your future plans and descriptions of your ponds. I already feel at home on this site.:-))
Sheila in FWTX


This message was edited Aug 3, 2005 9:25 PM

Well, Sheila, I guess you know us already, considering you already know to warn us about the drooling bit! Had to do a bit of wiping off the old keyboard after viewing your picture! LOL Welcome to DG! We'll try hard not to hate you because of your beautiful pond!
Hey, I was born in Ft. Worth, oh so long ago, so many, many years ago..

Buck, I'm discouraged about your koi! You've got to be careful about posting those pictures of beautiful dead fishies! Makes some of us ultra sad for you! I've got two baby koi, which I never see because they hide in the shallows among all the water hyacinth roots. I see the water celery twitching in there and know it's them, but they don't come out until sundown. My comets and shubunkins are all over the place. I'm trying not to get too attached. Only one fish is named so far, The Lovely Lady Lily, and her entourage of breeding males on her tale! LOL She's a large shubunkin, white with a blue stripe through her tail, and blue and orange spots. I have lots of hiding places, and the pond is deep, so I continue to hope for their survival.

pixydish, my baby kois do the same thing: HIDE. yesterday i saw a TAIL moving about. i know they hide under the lotus leaves.

sheila, beautiful pond and surroundings! welcome to DG.

Thanks for the comments on my pond, sorry about the wet keyboard there Pixydish. LOL!......
I didn't realize until I got the late night post finished that previous to it was the sad lost of Bogweedbuck. Sorry for your loss. We do get attached. ......

On the fry subject, I have nine little ones, not in the big pond, but in a smaller pond that I use to put extra plants in for sharing. I guess I had pulled the plant material out just after spawning. The little ones wouldn't be there if I hadn't, because my Koi and Shibunkin are hot for the eggs as soon as they are out. Guess I have to expand now for sure!
Sheila in TX

Oh Sheila, your pond is just gorgeous! I can't wait to visit and see it all in person! And you have shade! Some of which we have VERY little of! I love the flagstone next to the pond too, and ..... I could go on, but I will wait for the personal tour!

Buck, yes, I am sorry to hear about your little fishies. I am so attached to my koi, and I do have several fantails and plain goldfish. There was a time when I did lose 2 of my goldfish. Strange event, as the fish were each laying on a rock next to the pond, with a puncture hole near the head. Nothing else. We eventually found a Large.... water snake sunning near the waterfall. We suspect that it was either him, (but not able to swallow the large goldfish) or a prairie hawk that had been hunting in the early mornings....

I hadn't thought about those 2 fish until now, as I always feared that something would happen to a Koi and I couldn't bear that!

We only had one "love connection" in the pond this year, and it was ... uh ... interesting. I wasn't sure if I should feel sorry for her, ashamed of her, or assume the role of cheerleader for her.

Her name is Darrel. J'yup, pronounced just like the dude(s) from the Bob Newhart Show. There's a story there, actually ... we had 3 of these nasty little buggers survive an intentional "stress test" on a new pond last spring. Being the impatient fool that I can sometimes be, I decided to try and "jump-start" the pond's artificial eco-system. In retrospect, I believe "shock" may be a more appropriate term. Last year I built a simple gravity driven bio-filter and was anxious to get it up and running. So, with a fresh bacteria culture ready to be added to the water it was off to the pet store I a'went to buy a bag full of 1"+ feeder comets. After a quick swim in a salt & antibiotic solution, I turned them loose into said new pond. A dozen feeshies soon worked its way down to 5. Some became food for our ex-pet, an alligator snapping turtle named Ziggy. (he was later released back into the wild, but he was so stinkin cute as a hatchling)

ANYHOW ...

And then there were three. Of course, at that age, they were identical ... at which point the wife found herself inspired.

"Honey, look! It's Darrel ... and his brother Darrel ... and his other brother Darrel!!!!"

Since then, one of the three Darrel's fell victim to a tragic ponding accident. The other two sprang into action this spring, although one looked conspicuously ... well ... bloated. It turns out that he was a *she*!

Now in a much larger pond she attracted quite the following of would-be suitors. It was nice being able to get an idea of who the males (or possible aqua-dykes) were in the pond. The other Darrel seemed to want a piece of the action more than most anybody else. My largest Shubunkin (Mars), the pond's social director, was almost equally as assertive. Several of the koi showed more than a passing amount of interest; in fact, the Shusui koi from Japan that I've mentioned before (yeah, I'm corny ... his name is Sushi) is a prime cadidate / suspect. Just a couple of weeks ago some eeeeeety, beeeety little bronze colored fry were seen mucking about in the suspended roots of the Parrot's feather plants.

There were times where the scene would get almost pornographic, though. Imagine every virile male in the pond chasing this one poor estrous female around the pond. The wife strolled up along side me one morning and asked, "What's the all commotion about?"

"I think it's a gang bang, honey ..."

She looked over at me, gave me that empty stare and slow blink, much like one would expect to see from a confused, bleeting sheep, and she just turned and walked away. I guess her being on the phone with her sometimes prudish 70 year old father took the humor out of the whole moment for her.

Oh well ... as I started off saying, a love connection was made at the pond this year. That was the only moment of ichthyo-voyeurism (yeah, that's really a word! I "invented" it a few years back and am pushing the Webster family to have it formally recognized). Our tree frogs have been somewhat prolific. Okay, I've only seen a handfull of tadpoles, but I KNOW they've been hittin' it like bunny rabbits on X, but anyhow. Sometimes I look at all the foamy gunk in my skimmer and think about all the hot aqua-monkey lovin that goes on in and around this pond and find that my left eye just sort of starts twitching.

But anyhow ........

Pixy ... how can you NOT get attached?!?!? My sons and I were under direct orders to get all of the fish named before the 4th of July. I refuse to admit how many fish that is, but it's more than few ... LOL.

Well, I admit a certain admiration for The Lovely Lady Lily, and I'm sure I could get attached to my koi, but I never see him/her. Lily is the only one with a name so far. My pond is 4000+ gallons and I put in 7 12 cent comets to get the filter going. They're all growing like gang busters. Not an attrition in sight. I figured I get some comet deaths, and then replace them with other fish later, but I think they are going to be staying. Good thing I spent some time choosing the ones I really liked, just in case they lived.
i've seen two baby fishies so far but don't know what they are, because I have two mosquito fish in there as well, so it could be that kind. Don't know how many babies will survive in this pond, because them's good eatin' for the larger fish. Since I don't really have the resources for hundreds of fish, I'm just letting nature take its course.