Plant Pond Progress

[capewind]

It has been just about two and a half months since hubby built the 600 gallon plant pond in the basement, and it has worked out really well. The water hyacinths were VERY short lived tho:-( Friggin spider mites got nearly all of them, and the few (maybe 5 out of 70-80) "saved" were really in bad shape, and just have a couple really ugly/dying specimens left... oh well.. the Taro plants are all happy (they were tiny when we got them and all have doubled in size so far), which was the main goal...

I wanted to throw some baby fish in too (why not use the space LOL), so hubby made a super cheap filter out of crap laying around the house. I tease him that it is butt ugly... he calls it his "cheese ball filter" just because it is USING a cheese ball container LOL. Whatever... it is doing the job, so I cant complain. I "snuck" 53 fish into the pond, and between his spare parts and plants, it still consisting not registering any ammonia or nitrites.

His "cheesey filter" LOL

and some baby pics... of the 53 babies, 17 are comets, 5 shubunkins, and the rest are koi

 

[callingcolleen1]

Hey that looks really good! You have done an outstanding job! If you have problems with spider mites, take the problem plants out and shower them very good with water in shower or something and that will keep there numbers down. You could shower them in pond but I see you have overhanging lights and you would not want lights wet. Spider mites can be easy to control if you shower plants regular.

 

[capewind]

Thanks Collen. By the time we figured out what was wrong with them, they were pretty well infested. Dont know where they came from (no new plants in months). Didnt seem to affect any of the other plants, and had no issues outside (but maybe natural weather kept them in check?). At least we'll know what to do next year

 

[j.w]

That looks really nice and neat place to sit and view the fish and watch the plants grow. Friendly little fishies

 

[mtpond]

Very nice set up. I have my plants in the basement as well, but they are just in containers with water and no lighting. They are a couple feet away from windows so they are still looking pretty good.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Those baby koi are very cute too and I see you have them hand spoiled already!

 

[sissy]

looks great and a lot of my plants died this year as no time to tend to them correctly .When I am home just don't feel like being bothered with them .No spirit left for it this year .The sooner you start fish getting to know you the better and filter you have set up seems to be working great

 

[capewind]

I was really bummed out at first to know I was going to lose the water hyacinths, as I like to have a lot of them (both a need and a desire), but are able to get them in bulk, so will just start over in the spring with those. If we hadnt been so busy during the time the mites took them over, we probably could have treated and saved them. Oh well... next year

I think everyone in the house is a bit obcessed with the babies. It is too cold out to hang out with the outside fish much. I think the fish in the 600 (plant pond) are some of the most overfed fish there are. Even the youngest batch of shubunkin babies (October spawn) are now down to being fed 2-3x a day. Everyone is supposed to only being fed am and pm, but everytime you walk near the 600, they hit you with those starvation looks LOL. Their water is heated for the plants (at 70), so no harm in the extra meals as long as the filter can keep up. Hubby says it will be fine... I asked what he was running for a pump, and its 1000 gph (but some flow is sent to the heater). The next smallest pump he has as a spare is 4000 gph... that might be a bit much.

 

[callingcolleen1]

You will find next year that you may not need or want so many floaters as it will start to choke out the ponds oxygen and gas will slowly build up. Trust me, eventually you will find that with so many fish you will need more large upright sedges like grass, iris and catails that will clean, and shade the pond better without smothering the surface of the water. You fish load will be much higher next year with all those fish so you may not be able to get away with smothering the water surface so much like you did last year. It happned to me many years ago when I had a love affair with those easy peasy floating tropicals. They lower the oxygen in the water greatly when allowed to take over 80 percent of ponds surface. If large healthy fish suddenly start to die off in summer for no good reason and only the large fish, then you will know why. The largest fish die off first from lack of oxygen and gas built up.

Your taros are doing great and by spring they will look real nice in pond. Just a note, you should have a fan of some sort to simulate the wind or they will grow big but stems will be weak and break off when you put them out them outside in spring.

I used to grow all kinds of pond plants and all the different kinds of tropical floaters in a big green house for years and I made tons of pond plants back them, and I also used to have a setup in the front porch for tropicals and floaters years ago so I know a little about this stuff and I am just trying to be helpful cause I've been there and done that. Now I find that pond perennials are just much easier less problems with bugs and they can be left in pond to freeze and come back so fast each spring and grow sturdy with the natural weather wind. You most likely will have to brace the taros in the spring before you put them outside or wind will destroy them fast.

There is a picture of early spring and late fall of my hardy sedges. You can only are mostly the bottom pond, but there are two larger pond upstream, but just to give you an idea of how hardy plants that can be left outside to freeze and what you could have in spring and fall. I still do keep some tropicals like the white lily but I let that go dormant now in a cool spot in my greenhouse and then get it growing in spring.

 

[capewind]

I know what you are saying, and agree with you, but for this situation, I need them for a few seasons (relates to landscaping). This pond (6400-6500 gallons) gets full south/south west sun, all day, no shade. It is all deep, no plant shelves. Can only squeeze small items between rocks. Once the connected bog is working AS a bog (acting as a 2500 gallon POND at this point, very few hardy plants) , wont need many at all. Will add pictures here of how it looked with all the water hyacinths at their max. Note the string that contains them to one side on the main pond, so that half the surface area isnt totally covered in them.

This is a shot across the main pond looking towards the so called bog...

This pic just shows more of the corner of the main pond where the above shot got cut off, the little water fall, and "most" of the parrots feather...

This shows the so called bog looking towards the pond... IF you held all these water hyacinths back with a string, they'd cover about half of the suface area. There's only 17 comets and shubunkins up here, and a few babies (maybe a half dozen?)

You are absolutely correct but two things... #1 not planning to keep all the babies... We have a total of roughly 200 babies inside right now. Half were spawned here, and the other half we bought as 2-4" babies for variety... Planning on keeping about 10-12 shubunkins/comets, and sit on maybe 25-30 koi with the plan to cut that number in half again later.

#2 - The existing 6400-6500 gallon pond was a slap in, in an area of the yard that was available (aka not held up by hardscaping that needs to be done)... shooting for next spring to get our "planned" pond in, which will be large...



Again, you are absolutely correct... went out the other day hoping to find some local cat tails... no luck.



Dang it... totally forgot about a fan! Hubby is doing it right now LOL... Totally forgot! and I know better too... aka do it when starting the veggies inside. First year we grew tomatoes in the house, they were over 2' tall when we set them out, and they couldnt handle the slightest breeze... I was a bit worried about the taro plants too... just wasnt sure how they would do in the basement,,, but when we bought them, we were lucky to find them, and they were in little 4" pots. Really didnt want to start over next year with 4" pots, so was hoping. Hubby repotted them this summer into 5 gallon nursery pots... they were heavy coming in... think he will need a dolly in the spring to get them back outside LOL.



Hubby has said he wants to do something similar. We have an 18x32 ft green house but it needs a bit of work before he starts that project. He wants to get more into the hydroponics. For now, we just season firewood in it LOL.

 

[callingcolleen1]

Sounds like you got it all down pat Capewind! I just love the black taro, used to have a really big one in this big greenhouse that I used to work at, but when I put it outside the wind made a big mess of it as they sure don't like the wind and we can get lots of wind here, so I gave up on trying to grow it outside here.

As for those cute little babies, I would have a very hard time saying good by but it is hard to keep them all. Years ago I used to have lot of babies until the big dragonflys started making babies in the tall sedges, those baby dragonflys look like scary sea monsters at about one inch long, and they eat lots of the babies before they get big, so I don't have to worry about having my heart broken giving such pretty babies away.

Love your babies!

 

[callingcolleen1]

Yes, you are right about the iris, the ones with bulbs cannot be out in pond. Some irises can take more water over the rhizome than others. If you have no shelves, get a yellow flag water iris like mine, it is not in any pot or dirt or soil, it simply floats in over three feet of water. Just take the tuber and wedge onto the side of pond, tie it to a stake on the outside of pond, with the roots dangling into pond, it will grow really well just like that. It will anchor itself to the outside and spread quite nice. It will take a couple years to get a nice size clump that will float nice. My big clump have been divided over the years many times, now it is too darn big to lift out and is like a floating island now. It never blows over as it is anchored to the edge of the built up pond somehow, not sure how it is anchored to the landscaping ties and rocks, but it just never moves and now takes up half the middle pond, but it does wonders for cleaning pond, I swear that big clump licks the bottom of the pond clean now!

Here is a picture of what a dragonfly baby looks like, this is the shell it leaves behind after the final metamorphosis.

 

[callingcolleen1]

looks great and a lot of my plants died this year as no time to tend to them correctly .When I am home just don't feel like being bothered with them .No spirit left for it this year .The sooner you start fish getting to know you the better and filter you have set up seems to be working great

Sissy I need to teleport you over here for a extra special nice green tea to help you find some spirit again my friend... you will find yourself again, I have faith in you

 

[capewind]

Some of it;-) I just have some gaps (in education) that I need filled in.



Thankfully, there are only a few koi in the plant pond that we want to keep. Several are similar, so that makes it easier. We dont need say 5 fish that look exactly alike. The babies we bought on the other hand, well, they are going to be tough to pick through. I bought them through ebay in groups, and with having a number in mind of what I was willing to spend, bid on several auctions that stayed within those parameters. An auction may have only had a couple fish we were interested in, and another may have had several. I'll post the auction pics of what we ended up with. Initially, we'll keep 2-3 of the colors we are interested in, and as they grow, reduce it down to 1 or 2. The intent was always to sell the extras. The fish available locally really are pretty blah looking, and sold about 40 babies this spring with no problems, and most of what we are not interested in keeping blows away what anyone can buy around here, so they should be easy to place.



The sides are near vertical/sloped down 4+ feet at the shallow end, and goes to 5'.

>

That is a really neat idea!

 

[capewind]

the baby pics...