Last Updated: 9/3/14

1. On 8/3/14, I did the usual pond work. It rained in the morning and was supposed to rain all day so I did the pond chores early again (10:40 am), and, of course, it did NOT rain the rest of the day. The 1800 gallon pond was at 72 degrees F, and the 153 gallon pond was at 70 degreesF. I squirted off the Cyprio biothings. The benefit of working on the pond earlier on a rainy day was that there were fewer honeybees than usual. The PondMaster filter material was full of newborn green frog tadpoles, some of whom lost their lives.

2. I linked in some pond photos. I am way behind as some of these photos are from March in the snow!

We got 8" of snow on 3/17/14. Here are some photos of the ponds.
Big pond facing northwest
Waterfall
Deep area with pond fish - I see a big orfe, a small orfe, Colin (big white koi), and Riley (smaller white koi)
153 gallon pond facing northwest

1800 gallon pond facing west on 3/23/14. You can see all four koi but they are tiny in the photo.

I finally linked in the photos from the 3/27/14 cleaning of the 153 gallon pond! It only took more than four months! I am just too busy! Go to that page to see those.

3. On 8/10/14, I did the usual pond chores. The 1800 gallon pond was at 72 degrees F, and the 153 gallon pond was at 70 degrees F. Later in the day, my niece pointed out a terrestrial frog to me in one of my gardens. It was a green tree frog! I had never seen one in the wild before. They are pretty rare here but I guess we have them! There was no time to get a photo as the little guy danced away. It was only three quarters of an inch long.

4. On 8/17/14, I did pond chores. The 1800 gallon pond was at 72 degrees F, and the 153 gallon pond was at 69 degrees F. I had changed the PondMaster filters the day before as the water was barely flowing, and the filter box had floated to the surface. I squirted off the bioballs; they were really heavy with slop and algae on the top layer of lava rock bags. There were too many honeybees on the waterfall for me to clean it; I usually run a putty knife on the rock to break off algae and debris.

5. On 8/24/14, I did pond chores. The 1800 gallon was at 72 degrees F, and the 153 gallon was at 70 degrees F. I changed the Ammocarb. I fertilized the lotus and lilies only. I pulled and cut a lot of weeds out of the waterfall and around the pond. I probably removed 10 wheel barrows full but still only a tiny amount of what is there. You would never know that most of these areas had been weeded and mulched this spring since they were four feet high with weed grass mostly.

6. I did more pond chores on 8/31/14. The 1800 gallon was up to 76 degrees F, and the 153 gallon pond was at 74 degrees F. The air was 85 degrees F, too hot for me. I changed the main filter floss. I squirted out the Cyprio biothings. I put up the mosaic pond for the year.

E-mail Robyn Copyright © 1997-2024 Robyn Rhudy