Debris Dumping Bins

[Tiny Termite]

Over the last couple of years I have accumulated 3 Dumping Bins which holds all the Debris from my Pond. I go through all the debris taking Live things out, then put all the debris in Bin number 2, I then repeat this to bin number 3. This year I was hoping nothing would come out of Bin 3, this would have shown me that I was on the right tracks. How wrong I was, I've had more Damselfly's emerge from Bin 3 than of Bin 2.

I done this to answer my own question really.... How much Life am I destroying from cleaning my Pond.... By my Little experiment it tells me that we destroy lots of life without knowing it, because we can't see it. Now I have to make a decision, do I get Bin 4? and, does anyone else do this?

 

[Jason]

Wow, I don't know, I cleaned my small 2.5 gallon filter last week and had a bunch of little red worms come out of the Large Debri Pad and was wondering the same thing "How much little life I kill"? The bottom of my pond is currently covered with Bull Frog Tad Polls (3rd time since spring) and my fish don't even eat them lol. I just clean my filter every weekend as i have enough Wildlife in my poind and around my yard as it is :blueflower:

 

[HTH]

Our ponds add so much more life them we subtract when cleaning. Our score is in the + column and that is as good as it gets. We can't be perfect and to try to do so will drive you mad.

If you feel this is a moral dilemma what will you do when your pond becomes overloaded with fish? Keeping them is bad for all the fish. First choice is to find homes for them. A very bad choice is to release them into the wild. Eating them would be a morally correct choice as they would not be wasted but I could not eat my pets.

I try to emulate nature. Lets say I have a spawn of 1000 fry. Over time I cull 975 of them by feeding them to other fish which is more or less what would happen in nature. The only real difference is that I get to pick which ones stay. Attempting to raise the entire spawn of 1000 to maturity would be very cruel. In time they would end up underfed and not properly cared for. I try to do all the culling when the fish are still tiny little things. The older they get the harder it becomes.

Culling fish spawned in a pond is much harder as you don't have access to them until the are much larger. My wife and I are culling the unwanted fish from our large pond. We dispatched 100s of them in a humane manner. They were eating upwards of 30lbs of goldfish food a month. We still have a group that has many fish that should be culled but we are having a hard time as we really don't like culling adult fish. Shipping them to others would have to be buy next day and that is more then most people would be willing to do. USPS here takes an extra day even for next day and I do not want to subject large fish to that. And I do not think my wife really wants to give up any of these guys.

 

[Tiny Termite]

I think Nature is very good at looking after itself, without the Interference of Man. I suppose my Pond is a good witness to that. My Pond has around 30 Goldfish in it, at the beginning I fed the fish with Fishfood, all day the Fish looked lethargic and slow until I fed them, that's when they became Active and even Aggressive, so I decided to wean them off Fishfood and have a more Natural Pond. This took a good couple of years to Completely wean the Fish from the Fishfood, but now, they are completely different Fish. They are Active all day, they hunt for food all day, they are not Aggressive, unless a Worm accidently finds it's way into the Pond, then it becomes a tug of War between the Once placid Fish and all that Aggression returns. The Fish in my Pond have Little One's every year, I'm not counting but it is only a Handful or two, but It's not the Fish that are my main concern, it's all the other things that come with a Pond. Like Pond skaters, Water boatman, Damselfly's, Dragonflies, Midges, Mosquitos, all the things to Balance Life, one without the other, cancels something out, Surely.

This Damselfly came out of Bin 3, it shouldn't be here, but it is.

The trouble with Time-lapse, is you miss Loads...

 

[HTH]

Nice work on the video.

There are so many variations on ponds and ways to keep them that people can enjoy whatever aspect most pleases them if that makes any sense. Yours is a bit off the beaten track but it is your pond. I say all the more power to you for that.

We keep a lot of water lilies and used to control the aphids with a mint thyme mixture. Our current home is in a small rural town and we have been blessed with seemed to be endless praying mantis which think aphids are candy. This spring we have seen very few, could be due to a late killing frost. Not sure. The dragon flies are also numerous. Nice to watch but the older nymphs kill fry. .

 

[addy1]

Nice video! Great pictures.

I counted 20 plus mantis egg casings last fall. Every time I groomed plants I made sure there were no casings on them, if found I tied the casing to another branch.

 

[HTH]

Up till this year we were up to our elbows in mantis egg cases. We found them on the inside of folded up patio umbrellas, shovel handles, wheel barrow handles and just about anything they could get a grip on. I was a little sad to see how few there are this year.

An adult female mantis lived on our front lawn which is planted with dwarf fruit trees. The mantis would hop on the gas powered mower as it went by. My wife would stop mowing to move her to safety. She said, my wife not the lady mantis, that this went on for about 3 months. If I ever run into an entomologist I am going to ask what would have attracted the mantis to the mower.

 

[addy1]

I have been seeing a ton of little ones, being real careful, well as careful as you can be, to not hurt them.

 

[CometKeith]

Tiny, amazing video!!

 

[JohnHuff]

A quote from Jurassic Park that sums it up for me:

 

[Tiny Termite]

Many thanks for your nice comments on the Video and your replies to the thread.

I've never seen a Praying Mantis in the Wild, but I did read a Story a few day's ago of a Woman finding one in a packet of Fresh Sage that she purchased from a very well known Supermarket chain, in the South West region of the UK.

Those Little Red Worms could be Midge Larvae, I tried Filming them Emerge last year, but Failed Miserably, they are just too quick, so I'm trying again this year, as I don't like giving up.

As for the Praying Mantis being attracted to ones Lawnmower, it could just be the Vibration, that's my guess anyway.

Life does Find away, but not If we continue to destroy it.



The trouble with Time-lapse, is you miss Loads...