Ferox's pond

Just returned from a month working away from home and a lot has changed in 4-5 weeks! This is a good time to start a diary as I've been promising myself I'd do for ages.

First a brief history and description.

Pond is 1000 gallons, 2.5 ft deep in the middle with a waterfall driven by a 5000l/h pump  and a fishmate 5000 sealed sponge/uv/bio filter. There's a small pond about 3ft diameter and 8" deep at the top of the waterfall.

The pond was filled in June 2006 and 'seeded' with muck from the bottom of a natural pond. The first plants were;
1 pink waterlily
1 white waterlily (bought as a DIY kit with bare rhizome, much cheaper than buying an established plant!)
8 assorted oxygenators
1 marsh marigold
2 irises
1 iris liberated from a local marshland
1 reed mace
1 arum lily

The first fish were introduced in July 2006;
4 2-3" golden orfe
4 2" goldfish
3 ghost carp
All came from the same garden centre. 1 ghost carp and 1 goldfish died fairly quickly, a second goldfish died a month later and a second ghost carp (always a sickly fish) didn't last the winter.
Bad stock suspected as the cause of casualties since the orfe which are more sensitive to bad water are all still doing very well. The ghosties were all obviously distressed when first introduced. Suspect they may have been raised in hard water and mine is very soft.
Later in 2006 a further 2 ghost carp and 2 shubunkins were added.

The goldfish spawned late in the year. Some fry were taken in and raised to 3/4" in a tank and released back into the pond later. No survivors evident now.

5 guppies were introduced in about July. About 100 were taken out when the temperature dropped to 20 deg. in autumn.

6 WCMMs were introduced about the same time. They did very well and were observed to spawn regularly, but no fry ever found. I blame the goldfish.

1 2.5" koi introduced a few days ago.

The current population is;
4 golden orfe - 6-7"
2 original goldfish - 5-6"
2 shubunkins - 5"
1 original ghostie - 9"
2 later ghosties - 4" and 6"
1 2.5" koi




5 weeks ago...
Water crystal clear
Fish becoming active
Frogspawn in little pond
Toadspawn in main pond
Newts (palmate) spotted
none of last year's plants showing any signs of life
bought and planted 4 more plants as DIY kits;
- yellow water lily
- arrowhead
- arum lily
- pickerel hyacinth


1 week ago
Water murky. Filter floss post-filter added.
Fish VERY active
Frog tadpoles in little pond, loads!
Toad tadpoles in main pond must have been eaten by fish, a few seen amongst vegetation
Newts and frogs still very evident
2 original water lilies - leaves now on surface.
New DIY water lily - no evidence of growth yet but can't see the bottom.
Myriophylum - lots of growth.
Marsh marigold - very healthy growth, still flowering.
Irises - growth of leaves from 4" (purple) to 2 ft (wild collected), no sign of flower buds.
Reed mace - leaves 3 ft.
Arum lilies - nothing.
Arrowhead - 2 days ago first shoots just touching surface. Now already 3" above.
Pickerel Hyacinth - healthy growth, not broken surface yet.

Today
Water clearing, bottom now visible. Rain yesterday may have helped.
New koi still in hiding but starting to get a little bolder
Heaps of goldfish eggs - some taken in to a tank in the shed a couple of days ago, and quite a lot hatched already.

Goldfish fry
Goldfish fry in tank now free-swimming and fairly active. How many? Imposible to say but I'd guess over 200.
Trying to feed them by adding pond water into which blanketweed has been squeezed making the water cloudy and hopefully full of infusoria.
The fry do respond to this. Before the 'treatment' they hang in the water not doing much. After it they are more animated, moving forward in small jerks which I would like to think are lunges at food items I can't see.

Glad I rescued these as there are no obvious signs of fry or eggs in the pond now. The fish were obviously feeding on them for much of the time, and although there's probably plenty left I like to think there's a lot more survived as a result of my intervention.

200+ fish won't be able to live in an 18" tank for long and will have to be returned to the pond fairly soon. But at least they'll have 'grown up' enough to stand a better chance than those that were left to hatch there. Plus I can put them into the little fishless pond until they're a bit bigger which should improve their chances even more and allow me to keep a better eye on them.
Probably hold on to a few in the tank just for the fun of it though!

New koi
After about 10 days of hiding away in the weeds finally today the koi has discovered how to shoal around with the rest of the fish. Long settling in period!

Goldfish fry
Most of the goldfish fry have been transfered to the small pond and appear to be doing fine. Haven't started feeding them yet, but a sample of bottom muck showed Daphnia ephippia have at last started to hatch so should be enough little beasties to keep them going for a while. Will have to think about starting to feed before long though.
About a couple of dozen kept in the tank, now being fed with crushed pond pellets and growing fast!
One solitary fry spotted in the main pond. Where there's one...

Plants
New water lily and arums still not showing any sign of growth
Watercress from Tesco salad dept planted around margins
5 water chestnut and 2 water hyacinth added
1 Lobelia and 1 cantrememberthename introduced to the shallow shelf.

Fish
Goldfish spawning about once per week. Both gold goldfish are female. One shubunkin appears celibate and the only active male is Malcolm the Randy Shubunkin.
Little koi just one of the lads now.