Sunday, May 22, 2011

Funky pond

Last Fall, when we first moved into this house, I decided to put in a pond. There was a tiny preformed pond at my old place, and I wanted to bring my little feeder goldfish with me and not have to keep them in an aquarium. I wanted a much bigger pond, and I had more time than money, so I ended up digging the entire damned thing by hand.

This is how crappy it looked after this winter:


Woo muddy hole!

A combination of rain, more rain, and tons of goddamned rain made it difficult to get any plants in. And then the dogs enjoyed going after me and digging up anything I put in the ground. Or trampled it. Or ate it. Or generally made me furiously angry.

Well, the rain finally tapered off a bit, and I erected a great big White Trash Pride fence to keep the dogs away, and finally things began to grow. It doesn't look too shabby now. I still need to cement the rocks in (the dogs knock them into the water), and do something about the muckiness in the pond itself.


You can see some pots in the water - I am attempting to grow mini cattails and water lilies. The cattails have sprouted, but nothing out of the lily yet.

The filter I have right now is not up for the job of such a HUUUGE pond. I started looking for a larger filtration system, and was a bit blown away by how much they cost. Screw that noise. Then I stumbled across a site on DIY pond filters using giant rubbermaid containers, laundry hosing, PVC piping, and lots of scrubby pads as filtration media. Hot damn! I love DIY projects. And instead of an ugly rubbermaid container sitting around, I can substitute a large plastic attractive planter. The top will be open, and I can plant bog plants directly into the filter, and the roots become part of the system.

When I get that started, I'll be sure to post photos of the great big mess I make out of it and then you can all snicker at me and say, "Man, you should have just bought a damned professional filter." It'll be great!

I must not be screwing up too badly, though, since the fish all made it through the winter and appear to be pretty pleased with themselves. The other day I thought they were all having a seizure and then realized they were spawning. So hooray! We probably had baby fish for approximately two or three days before the parents all ate them for a snack. Ahhh families!

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