Before we took our trip I first installed a new chopped-foam bag for the filter in the pond, then took it out. This loosed a massive amount of crud into the pond. We got through the 2 week absence pretty well, but the weather has been iffy, a lot of rain, and now we’re getting some murkiness, which I’m fighting.
The marine tank is an absolute mess. We’re seeing some dieback in the corals, and I’m going to do a massive 50% water change. I’d be happier about this if I didn’t have some fears that our reverse osmosis filter is expired, which could put some nasty water in. But I’m also suspecting our magnesium, calcium and worse, alkalinity tests are expired. I got new ones, but they are a bear to do, and I’ve ordered the brand I can do in my sleep. I’m not liking the results: the ones I think are expired, are agreeing with the corals: the alkalinity is massively ‘off.’ The ones I just bought that should be good, are telling me everythings’ fine, which it isn’t.
I am just having more watery fun than I can stand.
Meanwhile Jane is nearly through with her edit, and we plan to get our lives back just as soon as we get these books up on CC!
I used to think it would be seriously neat to add a water feature to the yard. You have convinced me otherwise. Your descriptions sound like more watery fun that I could handle. I must be a failed Aquarian.
It’s so so easy to have water features without hassles. You just need to balance the flora and fauna appropriately. You don’t even need all the filters and such if you are careful. Same with indoor water features, but I can only speak for freshwater tanks. Marine is way way more hassle than I want to take on and I’ve got roughly 23 tanks in the house and about 20 or so water features outside (many are geared strictly to rear daphnia as live-food for critters inside). Only one of my 150g goldfish stock tanks tends to have an algae problem.
I find marine less hassle, actually: this tank has run on care every few months since 2007…and it’s produced about a bushel (literally) of coral. But when your tests age and you don’t notice, it’s a pain.
The outdoor water feature is more pleasure than pain, even so, and I’ll let you know how much so as we get into July and August with no UV filter, which is what I’m trying. I rinse the filter daily, and that’s in a pond overshadowed by a very messy hawthorne. Since hawthorne is a natural laxative, it’s not a wonder the fish poo a lot. 😉 But I am experimenting still with the waterfall filter. I was running it on purely bioactive strands of fiber, but am not convinced it presents enough surface area for a good biological filter—so I added a bag (about your average dufflebag size) of foam chips. Then Jane said the waterfall was running slow—so I took it out. Big mistake. It loosed a lot of crud. And that wasn’t the problem with the waterfall, anyway: the problem was that we’d moved some rock, which made the water stream bounce less. Same flow, less bounce. That’s now fixed. But if these alternate chemicals work—we hope to report a troublefree year.
OTOH, if you REALLY want a waterfeature with no hassle, just get a disappearing waterfall. All the noise, all the water-bounce, all the sparkle, no pool. The rock is piled around its base, filling the 2 foot x 2 foot pool, and what falls in, gets immediately pumped back up. WE don’t even take that front water-feature pump in in the winter: it doesn’t seem to freeze. Probably all that rock holds enough heat it won’t.
When in doubt, go with the dying corals, it’s unusual in the animal kingdom for creatures to commit suicide. I’d say the water needs to be changed.
Both pond and pool turned brown in our last days of warm, steady rain. I know with the pool the filter needs cleaning, algicide, shock and mineral rebalancing. It’s amazing how several days of steady rain can throw a body of water out of balance. Proge is dealing with the pond. We find it easier to divide responsibilities and be helpers to each other…….and then there is the garden. The deer ate my hostas. They’re tough and will come back but they look pretty pitiful right now. Jalapeno and garlic pepper spray work wonders!