MariaTeresa's Pond

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MariaTeresa

MariaTeresa submitted a new Showcase Item:

MariaTeresa's Pond

It all began with a small metal cement mixer. The birds loved it but I discovered it was much too small for the coveted water lily. Thanks to a scrap of liner from my dad I was able to upgrade to a small (2'x4') "pond". Unfortunately the raccoons destroyed it, ripping everything to shreds and feasting on the snails and lone fish. My new pond is roughly kidney shaped, 10'x8'. There is a 1' wide ledge about 1' deep around the perimeter for plants and a shallower area ("bird beach") for the birds to bathe. The rest of the pond is 3' deep.

The pond was built on a slope, under large spruce trees that freely shed their needles, primarily in shade with a few hours of sun in the morning and late afternoon, and too far away from any possible electrical source. You work with what you've got! I designed a solar system for filtration and aeration. There are two 100watt solar panels connected to two charge controllers which connect to three 12v 26ah deep cycle batteries connected in parallel. A timer is connected to one charge controller and a 500gph attwood bilge pump is connected to the timer (draws 1.5amps). I sewed together a needlepoint plastic basket for the bilge pump and lined it with filter pad and quilt batting as a prefilter. The water is pumped to a biofalls which holds ceramic pieces, bio balls, and activated carbon.A Marine Metal Aerator is connected directly to the other charge controller and runs 24/7 (draws between .25 and .5 amps). Unfortunately my second bilge pump lasted less than a week running 8 hours a day! At the moment I'm re-thinking the bilge pumps and trying to come up with something else. A few weeks ago we had a giant wind storm that blew one of the solar panels right onto an old tree stump...smashing the panel. But it still works quite well for now.

The pond is home to 4 goldfish and although they had many many babies last fall only one survived and it is currently inside being nursed back to health after having developed fin/tail rot. Two shubunkins and two orandas plus a bullfrog tadpole will be added this spring and maybe some japanese trapdoor snails as well.

So far there are two water lilies (Chromatella and Colorado) a bunch of irises, creeping jenny, forget-me-nots, bog bean, arrowhead, pickerel weed, lizard's tail, and parrot feather. Water hyacinth and water lettuce will be added again this spring. I did have about 30 bunches of anacharis last year, but none of it survived the winter....or perhaps the fish. Either way it...

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