The ponds appear to be holding their own. There's some ice in one pond, but not the others. In it's own way, that seems strange, but I'm guessing it's because of how the shadows hit each of them. At any rate, the fish can be seen and they're doing well.

Inside the aquarium in the house, we added mystery snails and some algae eaters to one tank. Both are thriving. In fact, the mystery snails decided to lay eggs and crawled out of the water to adhere masses of eggs to the glass just below the lid to the tank. In fact, one succeeded in reaching the underside of the lid to place a cluster of eggs there. So far, we haven't seen any mystery snail eggs hatch. Also, of the nearly ten batches that were laid, half have fallen into the water.

The algae eaters have their own mystery about them. For one thing, four are definitely of the same species, but two are very different. One is entirely near-orange in color and the other is black with a near-orange colored head. Otherwise, their body shapes are identical to the other algae eaters. So far, the algae eaters have made a significant dent in the amount of algae the tank was showing and the water seems clearer, not that it was bad to begin with. It was clear then, but it's lost some green tint it was gaining.

Well, we tried an idea in the ponds that was meant to help resolve pump clogs. It didn't work, so we're busy working on another idea. What we need now is some good, warm weather before we go sticking our hands in what is almost ice-cold water.

We're experiencing a warm weekend here. So far, the fish and tadpoles are doing well.

My wife and I moved the cattail pond, not that it's really a pond. It's solely for the cattails she's growing as a yard plant. Fortunately, we don't have to trim or mow it, but we'll have to do something to keep it from breeding mosquitoes. Our efforts last year were pitiful. It bred them despite our efforts at putting in anti-mosquito tablets. They just seemed to sneer at our efforts. If that doesn't begin to work this spring, then I'll probably insist that we put some mosquito fish in with the cattails. At least we know those work.

Of course, I'm not looking forward to the spring. That's because I can tell that all three of the fish ponds need to be cleaned of the accumulated much they're holding now. The only good news is that won't need repeating until the fall. Then we'll get to do at least two of them again. The third has so few fish that it can go two years. Ah well, the joys of owning a yard.

We've had some thin ice on the ponds twice already. Despite that, the tadpoles seem to be surviving. I make it a point to toss some fishfood pellets in their direction just to make sure they have something to eat. Believe it or not, they'll latch onto those and actually consume the food even though it was meant for fish. Of course, it can be hilarious to watch them eat when several grab the same pellet and they cause it to spin and caroom about the pond.

Anyway, the good news is they're surviving and there haven't been any little corpses to dispose of yet.

Backyard Ponds

Got up this morning to see our front yard pond goldfish hovering around his pump. It was off. My daughter unplugged the wrong cable last night so he probably had a sleepless night without his pump operating as he was used to. Tonight I'll see to it that the Christmas lights are unplugged and not his pump. After all, I don't want him climbing out to slap me with one of his wet fins for disturbing him yet again. ;)

This was another post from 19 Dec 06 that went astray.

Backyard Ponds
It warmed up some today. In the front yard pond, the goldfish was semi-active. By that I mean he swam to the shallow water and found him a warm spot to hover in. While he and the other fish were there, I dipped out some more much from the deep section.I've noticed that this year we don't seem to have any blue jays and only a couple of juncos. I suspect it's the global warming even though we've had some cold days and nights. Of course, I'm not an expert in that, but I can see these things for myself and the first scientists were little more than observers who took careful notes. I've read elsewhere that other changes in territory have been observed in animals by other people.Anyway, I think this is only the tip of what's happening. It might be interesting to see how our society changes its laws should enough people become convinced that irresponsible individuals and corporations are responsible should the changes become truly onerous and destructive.

For some unknown reason, this post from 17 Dec 06 and another post went to my other blog so I'm transferring it here.

Backyard Ponds

Well, this morning one of the pumps gave out. Fortunately it was the one in the front yard pond where there are only a few fish so the lack of extra aeration wasn't a factor. The last time we had to replace that pump, someone had taken it out and smashed it against the driveway. This time it was just a broken part internally. Still not fun to find that I had to spend a few bucks to replace it. Otherwise, it took only a local trip to the pet store where they had plenty of that model on hand and a few minutes to put it in place once I returned home with it.

I haven't yet caught any of the duckweed in the ice but it does cling to itself and it's fairly easy to use a plain stick to dip it beneath it and just pull out gobs of it. Then a quick flick of the wrist tosses the duckweed on the ground where it can become fertilizer or mulch or whatever it becomes when it dies. I'll probably end up using several methods to get rid of it.

Duckweed has taken over all of the outdoor ponds. We even had some manage to get inside one of the aquariums. Probably happened when a net was used to transfer some snails outside when we had too many. Anyway, my plan is to wait for some ice to form on the ponds and then just lift the ice out. The duckweed ought to be stuck in the ice and it should be easy to rid the ponds of most of it instead of trying to constantly chase it in open water. Seems that a piece always get shoved under that way and escapes to repopulate the weed.

The fish haven't been surfacing too much, but we do see them from time to time so we believe they're doing well this year as they did the year before.

I spotted some of the tadpoles the other day and they're much larger than before. Some measure almost an inch in total length. Not the biggest we've ever seen in our ponds, but nonetheless respectable in size considering their environment. I'm fairly certain now that they won't become frogs until spring. The weather has definitely turned too cold for them to change and then try to find a suitable hibernation location, let alone find something to eat first. I briefly considered bringing a few inside to an aquarium, but that would probably speed them up and then I'd have to find suitable food for them. That would mean numerous trips to a pet store for live food since I'm not going to forage through the yard for them.