Glug. I’m having to clean the pond filter 2x a day, each time extracting about 5 lbs of algae. Next year I’m going to investigate what’s safe to partially reduce this.
Lynn sent us a letter last night: she’s still having troubles, but now knows why. It’s progress. Also funnier than heck. I hope she posts that letter.
They sell UV systems which integrate with the filtration system, to kill the algae. No chemicals, just need a power supply. 🙂
I have one UV bulb, which is running night and day. The system has room for another, and they’re pricey. I’ll get through this year and contemplate another fixture for next year.
I suppose it also depends on the type of algae – ask a friendly neighbourhood biologist, if such a thing exists.
I also noticed that in Japan, koi appear to exist very happily in ponds that don’t look half as meticulously kept as I’ve been accustomed to.
They eat the stuff. I’ve been a little concerned about oxygen at night, but we also run a 5 foot waterfall 24/7, and that injects quite a bit of oxygen. If we find the fish clustering near the waterfall, we take emergency action, but thus far, you can make out the stones on the bottom and the fish seem perfectly happy. It’s not what I’d like to have, but if they don’t mind it, we’ll be through this hot spell soon, and things should calm down for a while.
I always hate summers. I don’t like hot weather. Neither does Jane. But now we’re beginning to think how hard it’s going to be to shut down the pond, come frost, and let our little crew hibernate. We’ve got two pond heaters. I’m going to need some fall-food, which lets their stomachs quiet down for hibernation. And then we just mulch all the plants, remove the pump and light, install the heaters, and let the pond and garden go still for the next few months. We’ve gotten to love going out there. We won’t know what to do with ourselves.
So we don’t feel so bad about summers any more.
they have to hibernate? gosh, yes, that sounds very scary. what happens when the pond freezes over?
my pond has carbon dioxide blowing through it in two fizzing aerator jets, the gas is pumped out of the ground. its good for plants and keeps the ph right, but I suppose it would poison fish.
That’s what our 2 heaters are for, one down on the bottom with the fish, one up above, to keep a circle open for gas exchange, letting off co2.
Koi stop eating when the water hits 52 degrees, and grow torporous and sleepy. When the water warms in the spring, they wake up. These heaters will come on when the area comes anywhere close to freezing.
Their hibernation is the reason you have at least one end of the pond 3 feet deep…and also why you don’t run the waterfall in cold weather, because it mixes the surface (colder) water with the deep and averages-out the temperature. (Besides the pump would freeze, ultimately). So you just let the crew sleep until spring, making sure it never gets too cold down where they are.
When spring comes and the water temperature hits 53 degrees, they’ll be moving about and starting to feed on pond life that has grown during the winter, worms and such. And gradually you offer some balanced, easy-digestion food, until their digestive systems are working again. They’ll go into winter fat and not lose too much during hibernation. It’s helpful if the temperatures don’t bounce around too much and disturb their sleep and their fasting, because you don’t want them hibernating with a full gut. In a natural pond, however, they can do natural things, and I just trust they’ll get by. I hope. We’ll be nervous until we count heads in the spring.
I envy you so much. Even though we’re in the mountains in Arizona, we are in drought conditions and pretty much everything you’ve got in your backyard is a serious no-no — no lawns allowed at all if your home is younger than 2003; no watering plants, which even includes that 60 foot tall ponderosa pine; no pools, spas or ponds after such-and-such a date; no washing your car except on certain days. And we won’t even go into the moronic twits involved in the HOA where we would need permission to plant flowers [what kinds, exactly where and they get to approve any landscaping] — so forget the whole idea of sprinklers. I love my big pine tree and my emory oaks in the back but I would dearly love at least a nice water feature to go down the slope out back. Can’t see it ever happening. So glad Jane has pictures up — at least I can enjoy yours at a remove!
That’s rough. But you’ve got beautiful scenery.
I think those are excellent regulations because you are living in an area where water is scarce – and not only are most of the the things you mention wasteful in themselves, extracting the water and transporting it to your location is causing a whole chain of problems.
How much rainfall do you get, and can you harvest enough to set up drip-feeding for your plants?
Lynn hasn’t blogged since May, not complaining, but it will stop her foot traffic dead. Again I am astounded at the way you are able to blog everyday CJ. I look forward to it every day!
Lynn’s had a series of crises, not to mention the Closed Circle learning curve. She’ll be back, and you’ll see something neat when she gets her side of the circle up and running. She’s our ‘man behind the curtain’, and if not for a stray asterisk (literally) we’d have been up and going today. Just to add to the fun, she’s at the dentist.
Yes, we definitely have the scenery — we can see part of the Mogollon Rim [the edge of the Colorado Plateau] from the patio. Very nice, especially when there’s snow on it. But geez! nothing but dirt or gravel gets very old, very fast. And koi have always seemed like they would be wonderfully peacesful to have around the place.
POOR Lynn!
Can you put in some xeriscaping? When you really start looking into it, it’s so much more than cacti and rock. You might be able to get in some greenery that way.
Yes we could, but we’d still have to have the blessings of the HOA. And it’s somewhat problematic — we’re at 5000 foot, the front of the house is south facing, so it really heats up, the house sits about 15 feet higher the the bottom of the backyard. the previous owner ‘paved’ the slope with rocks and it looks horrid — really would like to have it nicely terraced with some retaining walls — which the HOA has to approve. If we do get it terraced, then we can do something nice, but it sure would beg for a water feature!
How about a manatee to take care of the algae?
😆 we just got some sprinkler underground hose which we already had, a double-ended 1″ hose barb, made a circle of 18 feet circumference (translation, six feet diameter)–and lashed (with fishing line) a 6 foot sheet of 80 Percent shading mesh. We dropped this in on Scotland (you know our pond is shaped like England, and Scotland is the deep end)—and hope this will both cool the pond during our little heat wave and deprive one of our most fertile algae areas of sunlight. I was also able to score some more filter pad.
Of course putting in this giant floating black disk spooked our poor fish terribly, but feeding them improved their mood, and then Renji, the one that *always* gets into the filter, into the rocks, you name it, always off exploring, took a fast U under the monster black thing, and then the rest weren’t so spooked.
This kind of float has another purpose: you can actually install plants on it, and while the fish can eat the roots which go down through the mesh, they can’t eat the plants.
sounds like something that would be good for my pond!
We just got home from Moscow, ID (left DD2 there for college) and it is a beautiful state (Idaho – and that western bit of WA and OR too) but rough. I feel like I’ve been up one side and down the other of more hills than I care to become closely acquainted with! And it is HOT!
Got home today – more heat (98) but at least the humidity is lower (13, as opposed to 36). DD2 has been on the phone with us twice today, once in tears and near hysterical from marching (band) in the heat today. This evening she is feeling better. Redheads shouldn’t be out in that sun all day long!
We have lots of mountains, but the roads mostly stay sanely down the valleys and cross the ranges only in reasonable places.
😆 mountain driving is mostly fine except summer and winter: in summer you inevitably have a long spate of no-passing and a Winnebago in front of you; and in winter, your car is increasingly resembling a cupcake with thick frosting and other people, evidently believing they can cure sheer terror by gunning it through the passes, are passing you like maniacs in Ford Explorers: around the next bend you find them married to a snowbank or upside down in the ditches—I kid thee not, I’ve seen as many as 3 within five minutes.
All wheel drive is a good thing. 😉
But hot? The Oregon/Washington border is HOT in summer, especially the Tricities—Moscow is not the worst. We’re up here in the foothills of the Selkirk range and it’s enough to save us from that wheat-country heat just to our south.
Aha! Another Vandal! Woohoo! The Older Offspring graduated from there back in ‘aught six (and must have learned SOMETHING as he will graduate from Oregon Law next Spring). The Younger Offspring will attend there starting next Fall (’10).
Welcome aboard. I can recommend restaurants for when you vist the Moscow/Pullman area. Like calzone? 🙂
The Palouse is really gorgeous country.
Plus Pullman has the best hamburgers in the Pacific NW: the bacon cheeseburger at Cougar Country, if the young cooks have their heads together that day. Really good. And the huckleberry milkshakes are delish, particularly if you add crunchy peanut butter.
Pullman has the best calzone, too–Sella’s, right across from the Uni (WSU) dorms, on the highway between Moscow and Pullman. Excellent pizza, too.
I wonder what the nitrogen/phosphorus/potassium levels are in the pond. Especially the phosphorus, which was why phosphates were removed from many detergents due to the fact it caused algae blooms in rivers. The algae blooms in the Gulf of Mexico are bad enough without having the rivers choked with algae, too.
I’ve seen drivers from Florida go 55+ on glare ice. They must think because it doesn’t get that way where they’re from, it doesn’t exist anywhere else, so it must be imaginary ice. Yeah, I’ve seen those kinds of drivers all over from different states. I’ve driven through the Rockies, the Cascades, the Appalachians, and you find idiots on the road everywhere.
I looked at some phosphate remover. Unfortunately it’s 20 dollars a bottle and the pond would take 4 bottles. The other way of getting it out is to remove the algae, which of course has uptaken a lot as fertilizer.
I’m thinking this is a phase the pond is going through: in the regular aquarium world, you get ‘blooms’ of things with excess nutrient, and the phosphates (recently banned from our city) are a known local problem (especially since many people go to Idaho, 20 miles away, for dish soap)—we don’t. But anyway, the frequent filter washouts are dumping a good deal of phosphate out and into the plants on the margin, which will like it, and ultimately, if I keep fighting it, the phosphate will diminish. This is the pond’s first year with fish, and blooms are likely in ‘new’ water.
The algae will compost nicely for the front garden!
yes, I’m sure it’s a phase …. I too am hoping mine will be better next year, when the plants have settled in. its just a bit tough on people who need to swim in it!