- Joined
- Jun 22, 2018
- Messages
- 45
- Reaction score
- 20
- Location
- Southern Ontario
- Hardiness Zone
- 6b
- Country
Hey there all. After moving into my new home about 4 years ago, I found that there was an old filled in pond. Liner was ripped out and it was filled in and used as a garden, but the waterfall was still there! I dug it out and re-lined it, and found that the owners who filled in the pond kindly left the pump and filter in the garage! fast forward three years to today and I've learned a lot through failures and success. The first year I simply dug it, lined it, filled it and stuck a few cattails in planters and a few hyacinths and ran the pump. Upgraded the next year and discovered a few new plant types. Got a water Lilly that got some caterpillars, and there was my first struggle. Never managed to save the poor plant. Sunk the rest of em that winter and they all survived. Third year i decided to experiment. I found that many of my plants had roots spilling out of their baskets, so I decided to fill the bottom of my pond with soil. Big mistake. All the clay floated and made my pond a murky mess. Thus started my second quest. I found out about the existence of flocculants after several hard days of research, and decided to go with the cheap method of buying aluminum sulfate. Another mistake, as when all the clay was bound and sunk the bottom of my pond looked like a grey mess. I decided to start fresh, so i emptied it, scrubbed the whole surface, and refilled. That year became a success, I found my favorite plant, the water canna, and actually managed to get a few koi and some goldfish in there. That was the best that the pond has ever looked. Then winter came and I sunk all the rushes and brought my canna inside. I left my fish in the pond with 2 air stones pumping 24/7 and a heater going as well. That didn't work, and the fish died. As the strange hot then cold Ontario spring came along, the decaying fish bodies and surplus of air promoted an enormous bloom of string algae that took over my pond before I could get rid of it, so I had to yet again not only empty and refill my pond but also throw out all of the plants that I sunk. That was a month ago. After that I added some plants and it was looking pretty nice. I had a green water problem that AI just solved last week by using lots of bio filtration and adding lots of beneficial bacteria. Now I have a sever pH problem that I'm working on solving. That's a brief history of my pond! I was only able to fix all of these problems with the help of this forum, so thank you all very much.
TL;DR this is my fourth year with a pond, and I've had lots of problems that this forum has helped me solve, thank you all very much and I'm looking forward to working with you all.
TL;DR this is my fourth year with a pond, and I've had lots of problems that this forum has helped me solve, thank you all very much and I'm looking forward to working with you all.
