Good morning Cafe. Coffee is ready.
A little warmer today but as opposed to yesterday's day long bright blue skies with blazing sun, today we should expect snowy/rainy weather. I've already done some puttering with the pond this morning. Two days ago I filled in the bog with pea stone so no water is visible any longer and this morning, replanted most of the plants I had to remove to do that. The creeping Jenny will put itself back in the bog when it starts growing again and the water celery will spread on it's own too. So I didn't bother trying to replant that stuff.
I had to pump down the water in the bog a bit to put an extension on the bleed port so it wouldn't be buried under pea stone. When I lowered the sump into the cleanout port in the bog and plugged it in, a jet of black water shot out of the hose! That is a LOT of mulm that was captured in the bog filter. I ended up removing maybe 60-70% of the bog water and refilled with fresh water so the pond has now had 2 partial water changes. The fish all seem very healthy and are getting active. I expect they will spawn in a few weeks.
I have so many more babies than I realized. There was about a 3/4" baby in the beach. Well, I lost 2 large fish to the heron so I suppose this is part of the natural cycle. If it looks like I have too many fish, I'll have to give some away to other ponders.
A little warmer today but as opposed to yesterday's day long bright blue skies with blazing sun, today we should expect snowy/rainy weather. I've already done some puttering with the pond this morning. Two days ago I filled in the bog with pea stone so no water is visible any longer and this morning, replanted most of the plants I had to remove to do that. The creeping Jenny will put itself back in the bog when it starts growing again and the water celery will spread on it's own too. So I didn't bother trying to replant that stuff.
I had to pump down the water in the bog a bit to put an extension on the bleed port so it wouldn't be buried under pea stone. When I lowered the sump into the cleanout port in the bog and plugged it in, a jet of black water shot out of the hose! That is a LOT of mulm that was captured in the bog filter. I ended up removing maybe 60-70% of the bog water and refilled with fresh water so the pond has now had 2 partial water changes. The fish all seem very healthy and are getting active. I expect they will spawn in a few weeks.
I have so many more babies than I realized. There was about a 3/4" baby in the beach. Well, I lost 2 large fish to the heron so I suppose this is part of the natural cycle. If it looks like I have too many fish, I'll have to give some away to other ponders.
