My little jungle pond….

[LaSelva]

Very nice! Warm enough to have a nice tropical fish pond. love it

It's usually warm Addy1, but it's chilly here this morning. Only 64F/18C! When your home is designed to stay cool in the heat and the warmest clothes you have are tshirts, shorts and flip flops a chilly morning like this can feel downright cold. I have socks on with my flip flops!

 

[Priscilla]

Today is a chilly 77 here in Cayman. Had to send my older guy to school with a jacket. Lol! Happy for some relief from the heat!

 

[Nepen]

I love your pond, it looks very natural even though you said it's not yet compared to the nature around you

What sort of filter do you use? or just plants?

 

[LaSelva]

I love your pond, it looks very natural even though you said it's not yet compared to the nature around you

What sort of filter do you use? or just plants?

Only plants and water changes. I didn't plan on a pond pump and filter when I designed the solar set up for my house. I could do it, but I may not have as much backup power as I designed for during the darker, rainier times of year if I were to run a large water pump every day. I'm using an air pump with a few outlets at the bottom of the pond to provide circulation as that uses very little electricity. So far it's staying really clear and clean. I just have to pick the leaves and twigs out of it that fall from the trees. I'm building a water lift tube to attach to one of the airlines to create a trickle for a waterfall feature. It won't be much water flow but if I break up its path with some nicely arranged rocks I can get enough turbulence to at least hear that wonderful gurgling sound of water falling. I'm testing different tube diameters to see which one capture and lifts the most water.

 

[Nepen]

That's nice, I think the water fall will add nicely to the pond, if you dont make it too high, I think it'll make the water appear more (does that even make sense?)

Anyway, have you ever check your amonia level? I'm wondering if with just plants, will that be enough to absorb all the fish waste. Well i'm pretty much comparing it to my indoor tank but I should be comparing it to my pond (small too)!

I'm wondering how it would be without all the bio filter. I'm guessing that it should be fine for quite a while since my pond only have small waterfall filter and it was enough for a whole year with my fish load (should be similar to yours if counting the big fish = severl small fish) and I also had guppies in the pond in summer.

one of my friend have a lotus tub (probably about 1.5 feet in diameter) with most of the tub filled with clay and whatever else, leaving only about literally 2-3 INCHES of water and she has like 100 guppies in there, every inchs of that tub are covered with guppies, pack and they are totally fine, been like that for a few years and she had nothing else but the lotus and guppies (well, and clay) it's a wonder, really, how the guppies survive that and there are all ages in there, beautiful healthy looking ones too.

back to you, there is solar air pump out there. I bought one but since I dont have much sun it's kinda stupid to even own one so I retured it. but it worked great when there's sun. May be you should check it out, so it doesnt have to take anything away from your house


Just want to add that I love that purple plant!!

 

[LaSelva]

That's nice, I think the water fall will add nicely to the pond, if you dont make it too high, I think it'll make the water appear more (does that even make sense?)

Anyway, have you ever check your amonia level? I'm wondering if with just plants, will that be enough to absorb all the fish waste. Well i'm pretty much comparing it to my indoor tank but I should be comparing it to my pond (small too)!

I'm wondering how it would be without all the bio filter. I'm guessing that it should be fine for quite a while since my pond only have small waterfall filter and it was enough for a whole year with my fish load (should be similar to yours if counting the big fish = severl small fish) and I also had guppies in the pond in summer.

one of my friend have a lotus tub (probably about 1.5 feet in diameter) with most of the tub filled with clay and whatever else, leaving only about literally 2-3 INCHES of water and she has like 100 guppies in there, every inchs of that tub are covered with guppies, pack and they are totally fine, been like that for a few years and she had nothing else but the lotus and guppies (well, and clay) it's a wonder, really, how the guppies survive that and there are all ages in there, beautiful healthy looking ones too.

back to you, there is solar air pump out there. I bought one but since I dont have much sun it's kinda stupid to even own one so I retured it. but it worked great when there's sun. May be you should check it out, so it doesnt have to take anything away from your house


Just want to add that I love that purple plant!!

Thanks Nepen! That purple plant is called Persian Shield. It's a really wonderful plant as it grows well in the shade and is easily propagated from cuttings. In proper lighting conditions the leaves get really large and have a purple/silver irridescence. In bright sunlight it becomes more of an ashy gray and the leaves are much smaller. I've got that pot of persian shield cuttings and dichondra on the center island as a placeholder until my bearded ficus bonsai is ready to take that spot. I just rooted it a few weeks ago from a mature tree and got it started in a hole in a nice rock I picked up. As it matures and I train the branches out over the pond it will form beards of roots that will absorb nutrients from the water and provide more cover and breeding surface for the fish. I don't really do any water testing. I kept planted aquariums and reef tanks since I was a kid back in the US and always depended on frequent water changes and lots of plants, algae and circulation to maintain proper water conditions. I'm applying the same principles to these little ponds I'm making now. I take about 10 gallons of water a day from the pond and use it to water the gardens. Since the ground water that comes from my spigot is already near perfect for ponds I can use the nutrient rich water from the pond to water the plants and replace it with fresh water every day or two. I don't have to fertilize either if I use the pond water instead of ground water for the gardens. I figure I'm replacing the entire volume of the pond every 5 or 6 days.

 

[Nepen]

I'm sure that daily water change made it possible for you to not have any other type of filter, and the plants benefit from it too! that's a win win situation I guess I hardly do water change (for the pond) so that's a totally different story, our water got too expensive these days.

I like your nature approach. I'm adding lots of small container bogs for my pond, I just love to have plants

I'll try to see if doing small water change daily for my indoor tank would make a difference for my Nitrate problem for my tank, i have plants but still not enough yet. I just hardly have algae, didnt do anything to prevent it but it just never came, probably from being in the shade for the pond but dont know why my tank didnt have it either.

I'll have to find that purple plant... been crazy about purple everything for a while thanks for telling me the name!

 

[addy1]

darn only good down to zone 9 Persian Shield love it too real pretty

 

[LaSelva]

My pond is maturing nicely. The water has darkened considerably with the tannins from the logs and plants but it remains crystal clear with no mechanical filtration. I have two air lines, one on either side of the bottom of the pond for aeration and circulation. The papyrus are really growing fast so I just remove them as they get too big and add more cuttings from my mature plants to start growing and use up the nutrients from the fish waste and food. Here are a few photos of the pond as it looks now:

 

[j.w]

Looks cool down there and you have such pretty different fish in your pond

 

[addy1]

Very nice! Great clear water.

 

[LaSelva]

Very nice! Great clear water.

Thanks! The water clarity kind of surprises me. My Dad has a koi pond back in the states with massive pumps and filters and he always has problems with algae blooms in the spring and summer. So far so good with mine but it's still new enough that I may have some surprises in store. It's about to be frog season down here so I'll be curious to see how the pond responds to the thousands of tadpoles it's sure to have in it soon.

 

[LaSelva]

Apologies in advance for the terrible quality of these photos, but it required cat like stealth and stillness to get them. I have 6 little turtles in my pond. The largest is about 2.5" across his shell. If I am upstairs looking down at the pond they will lay out on the rocks and logs to sun themselves and swim around in the clear, open water without reservations. If I am at ground level and close enough to get a decent photo they take a dive. I had to sit absolutely still with my iPhone camera zoomed in and at the ready to get these turtle pics when I fed them a couple of days ago. The fish knew within a week that when I show up food arrives and they race to the surface. The turtles are just beginning to get that message so this was a breakthrough that they would come out to eat their food pellets with me sitting there watching. If I moved at all they would dive underwater again:








Here's an overview of how the pond is looking:



I've lost a few more small fish to the black birds. The smaller guppies that rest at the water's surface are the most vulnerable. The larger, deeper water fish are maintaining their numbers and seem to know to dive when the birds land on the island. The gouramis have all survived the bird plunder and are bigger and more colorful than ever. The sunlight really shows off those iridescent scales.

 

[j.w]

Oh those little turtles are so cute

 

[addy1]

What cute little turtles!