Water Gardening: Dusty's Pond Dilemma, 1 by DustyDS

DustyDS wrote:
I moved into Cookies old house the week of Thanksgiving 2008....We are Zone 6a/6b Ohio, just south of Dayton....Cookie built this pond, put in plants and fish, and did pretty good with it for a couple years...Till Bro decided he wanted the house next door, and they moved last Spring...Cookie busted her hinnie getting all of her plants moved over there into new gardens all last year into Dec...She had no clue I would be coming into this house then...She did not winterize the pond, didn't net it, and basically left it to fend for itself...No heater to break the ice, nothing...When I got here the end of Nov., I had no clue what to do with it...except don't feed the fish...
I have lived in Florida most of my life, gardened and ponded there on the balmy Gulf Coast...Please don't ask why I am here in OH...Suffice it to say it was NOT my choice of places to be, but now I am trying to deal with it...I have been up here nearly 4 years now...and am finally at home...I am in my 60's with a disabled hubby, and I just finally retired on SS...I can still do alot of things, but pay for it later on usually...
I now have a leak somewhere, most likely in the waterfall...I heaved out quite a few huge boulders, and it slowed considerably...As of this weekend, Cookie aquired a pond liner 25x36 feet, some massive rocks and a Savio filtration system...so she will have her new pond at her new house....In this existing pond at MY house, I have some Koi, and some Shubunkins...and some lil kids that are only about an inch long...Can't tell if they are Bunkies or baby Koi yet...
On Wednesday I put in the Fall/Winter treatment after calling Microbelift...Any water under 55* needs the Fall/Winter treatment....For my zone, it was suggested I use that one from September thru April, and May thru August to use the Spring summer one...He told me to wait 24 hours and dump in the Sludge remover which I did on Thursday and fired up the pump...I have done nothing yet other than surface skim the leaves, and clean out the waterfall and I put in the Sludge remover...The pond has cleared already by alot, but it is a pig wallow pit ...
There are rocks on the bottom, and many plant holding containers that will soon be divided and most gone....There is a ton of the green machine algae already into production...
With Sis taking alot of the plants (thankfully), and I offered all of the Koi to go and I keep the Bunkies...I can house them in my 250 gal preform pond for a holding spot until I completely refurbish everything...
I will get some better, close up shots tomorrow hopefully...

Cookie in the meanwhile is laying out the hose to shape her new pond diggings... Hopefully she will join me here soon...

This is a shot Cookie took last Spring...

This message was edited Mar 15, 2009 10:03 PM