Hello

[Phil]

Our house has always had a covered porch off the family room, and two years ago we added a deck off the dining room. My wife said we should fill the space between the two with a pond. After resisting for two years, this spring I got out the shovel and got to work. We started in early April and filled it on Memorial Day. We wanted the more subtle sound of trickling water rather than a crashing water fall, so the design originally started out with a 15' stream and a small drop into the main pond. After talking with the owner at the local pond store, that changed into a smaller, upper pond with a short drop from the water fall box and a short stream empying from the upper pond into the main pond over another short fall. We couldn't be happier with the way it turned out, except, of course, that I wish I had made it just a little bit bigger. The pond is home to some black nosed dace and 6 adult pumpkinseeds caught in a local stream. I thought all six pumpkinseeds were male, but after just a few weeks there were lots of fry swimming around, so obviously at least one was female. We also have all the usual birds and dragon flies and, although elusive, somehow at least one frog now also has made our pond his new home.

We have some landscaping to finish come Spring and I have gotten lots of good ideas looking at the pictures of all of your ponds, so thank you all for that.

 

[Mmathis]

Welcome!

 

[gardengimp]

That is lovely, and what is a black nose dace?

And welcome!

 

[Ruben Miranda]

Hello
Welcome

Nice pond

Ruben

 

[j.w]

Phil
Very nice job you did on your pond! Don't know anything about those types of fish. What do they look like?

 

[Phil]

Both our fish species are natives to our local waters. A pumpkinseed is a very coloful panfish. Our 6 adults range from about 6" to 8" long, with bodies about as big as your palm, and the young of the year that have survived so far are about 1.5". A black nosed dace is a minow, maybe 2" long, that is gold with a black stripe down its length. They are schooling fish and tend to stick together.

 

[DrCase]

Welcome to the Forum

 

[sissy]

welcome and your wife was right hooray for women every where :razz:

 

[Fishylove]

Welcome!! :wave:
Yay!! We are planning our next pond to be a native fish pond. Pumpkinseeds are very pretty fish, we have those here in the striper pits.
I like the schooling fish too. Pumpkinseeds are species of sunfish. Great looking pond, really like the rock look
Can't wait to hear more from you

 

[capewind]

Welcome to the group!

Always listen to your wife, it looks like she has things well under control

I like how the pond works with the house, and even all the rock (I am not normally a fan of this style, but really like how yours came out). Also like both species of fish! So now I have questions LOL... Since they are a native fish for you, are they wild caught? What are they eating? Will you be adding plants that mimic their natural habitat? Sorry for just rattling them off, but I know nothing of these species, just both are neat looking and you have my curiousity up;-)

 

[j.w]

Pretty little fishes!

 

[addy1]

to our group! Very nice pond you built

 

[Phil]

Thanks for the warm welcome, everyone!

Capewind, all the fish are wild caught from local creeks. The pumpkinseeds I caught with a hook and line, and the dace were caught with a small seine. Being wild caught, they are somewhat fussy eaters. During the season I fed them diced raw shrimp, live mealworms (from the reptile department at the pet store), and raw hamburger three times a week. I keep the shrimp and hamburger frozen whole, then cut it up still frozen and by the time I get out to the pond it has thawed. I tried feeding them koi pellets, but they had no interest. They're spoiled by the shrimp, I guess! They readily eat the shrimp and meal worms (and any other bug I throw in), but the largest pumpkinseed will not eat the hamburger. They don't really eat that much. Two 30 count shrimp cut into 20 or so pieces is plenty, and 10 or 12 whole meal worms, three times a week, that's it. They are competitve eaters, so you have to spread the food around to make sure they all get at least some.

As for the plants, the streams I got the fish out of have very little in the way of weedbeds. They see a lot of fluctuation in water levels which I think makes it difficult for the plants to become established. I do have some hardy lillies which I did buy but they are similar to ones that grow in a local state park lake. I also have some reeds from another state park up in the north central part of the state (I'm in Philadelphia, PA) and two types of grasses we collected on vacation at Oneida Lake in New York.

You're also right that it is a lot of rocks, 9000 pounds to be exact. That picture was taken the day we added the water and it looks more like Phoenix than Philadelphia. Once we added the mulch to the beds, some small everygreens, a few grasses around the edge, and of course the plants in the water, the look softened up quite a bit. I wish I had some pictures from late summer, but for some reason once the water went in we didn't take any more picutres. Next Spring we plan to complete the lanscaping with border plants all around the edge of both ponds. We're really happy with the way the ponds draw the porch and deck together. Each of the different seating areas gives you a different view, and all of them are great!

Thanks again for your warm welcomes.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Very exciting to see a nice rocked pond with different native fish types. Hope to see more of your posts Phil!

 

[capewind]

Thank you for answering my questions! I think it is really neat that you went with native species, and even better that they are reproducing with surviving young. That may become an issue later for population levels, but with our traditional pond pets, I love seeing the different sizes. If I was your fish, I would be turning my nose up at koi food too LOL. Have to admit I never thought to give ours shrimp, and know it is in a lot of fish foods. Shrimp and meal worms are on hand (we have a few reptiles too). I'm thinking Baby can give up some of his shrimps and scallops;-)

Here's some snap shots of "Baby";-)