A Sad Day

When I went out this morning there were ten fish floating in the pond. They were gone, it was too late. I didn't think losing gold fish would bother me much but I guess it does actually.

Because of my own stupidity they died. I left the hose running in the pond for several hours and for whatever reason, I think lack of oxygen, they didn't make it.

I'm not one hundred percent sure exactly what the cause was still but I think that since the water level was above the spill pipe the water didn't get aerated properly.

They lived through the winter, and the time that the pond didn't even have a filter. So I'm scratching my head on this one.

Later on in the day I lost one more and one isn't looking good. So there are five left, even though I only put ten in originally. Most of the big ones died.

ICE Cold

The other night it got down into the teens! Our thermometer read fifteen degrees. That's cold for us. There was a sheet of ice over the pond.

I could see the fish hovering near the bottom motionless. I tried to break up the ice sheet some and it was about a half inch thick.

Chicken on ice

Officially it was nine degrees but it didn't get that cold here at the house.

Chickens are pretty weird sometimes. Yesterday when the pond was frozen they went down there to drink.

Blondie walked onto the ice and stood there drinking water while her feet were submerged in ice cold water.

She didn't seem to notice it at all. She stood there for five minutes without any noticeable reaction, like it was summer. Weird.

Oh, give me a home...

I scooped this yellow jacket from a glass of beer so he is trying to get all of the Hefeweizen off of his antennas. They really seem to be attracted to German style beer for some reason.

The zoom on the phone camera worked really well. They don't usually stay in one place long enough to film. Pretty interesting little creatures. I know that they built a nest in a hugelbed this summer because I thought they were honey bees and for a minute I got real excited.

After I got closer I saw that it was yellow jackets. I've never been stung by one so I just leave them alone. I only got stung once by a bee and I was messing with them, so I deserved it. On the other hand, wasps have stung me a lot for no good reason. It feels like someone putting out a cigarette on your skin. It hurts, a lot!

Insects don't bother me that much anymore, except for spiders and mosquitoes. There were a ton of big ass spiders all around here last month. I don't see why people put fake spider webs in their yards around Halloween when there are tons of real spiders all over the place. I don't kill them because Jim told Huckleberry Finn in the book that it is very bad luck to kill a spider and the next thing you know Jim got bit by a rattlesnake, or was it a water moccasin. I don't recall. I don't know where those big ugly spiders come from every fall, but they show up like clockwork and disappear just as quickly.

This year I didn't see any snakes, except for one small garter snake under a brick. No copperheads at all. The rodent population is WAY down in the yard now, they've moved on to greener pastures and the ones that didn't get eaten by my cat.

All the trees in the yard are dormant now. It bums me out to see them that way. It seems like they have died. From green to brown in two weeks. It's good to know they'll come back even stronger come spring. But we have already had temperatures in the teens and it's only November. I'm not looking forward to January. It's rained quite a lot too.

All of the pond plants have died too, except for some grasses we planted. The floating plants are all but gone now, I don't think they'll make it. The fish seem to be just hovering near the bottom, not really moving very much. Leaves are in the pond and are down on the bottom and it's too cold to try and fish them out so they are staying until it warms up enough to deal with them. The fish seem to use them as cover and it may be that the decay process generates some heat. Aerobic decay does so I would assume anaerobic decay would as well. It will be good compost come spring.

Saturday night we went to a bonfire a little ways out in the country. It was a nice event. It's been a long time since we have done anything like that. Sure, I've built fires in the yard many times but that's just us. Being around a fire with a lot of people doesn't happen very much, actually not at all in the city. A lot of kids were there and they weren't brats either. They have a vibrancy that livens the atmosphere in a certain way especially outdoors when they are free to roam. There were no "timeouts" or tantrums or bellicose parents yelling nonstop. It was pretty awesome to experience. Fire is a primordial, hypnotic thing for young and old.

I'm not ready to go back to rural america, yet. But I'm thinking about it a little.

"Lively up yourself and don't be no drag!" - Bob Marley

Pond H2O

The pond has been a learning experience all year long. I nearly killed all of the ten goldfish I put into it early on by not aerating it properly.

Now there are not only more goldfish, but different species of fish in the pond. There are also a couple of frogs too, Winder and Tucker.

It attracted a lot of dragon flies and I do not have a clue where they go to at night. I found a drowned chipmunk one day. I've gone thru three pumps as well.

The plants I put into the water divided ten fold without any interaction. The pond has taken on a life of it's own, so to speak.

Birds drink from it early in the day and the dog all day.

Liquid H2O is a pretty rare thing. It's usually either too cold or there's not enough pressure to have liquid H2O. Earth is pretty much a giant pond floating in space.

Most of the H2O in our solar system is orbiting Saturn in it's rings, as ice.
The amount of water in Saturn's rings could fill the Earth's oceans 26 million times.




If there's liquid water there's life, guaranteed.

Skippy Filter

Bio Filter

It turns out that if you put fish into a pond it doesn't take a long time for it to become pretty funky. Our fish were sitting at the top of the pond, listless, gulping air. It was pretty much a cesspool.

I did a lot of research online and came across what's known as a "Skippy Filter". Basically you pump water from the pond into a bucket all the way to the bottom. The bucket is full of some sort of media with lots of surface area like lava rock or scouring pads. Near the top there is a hole in the bucket so that the water level stays in the same place. As the water fills the bucket from the bottom up the water is forced through the filtration media and flows out of the overflow hole near the top.

water is forced to the bottom
through the pvc

It's a simple device but very effective. Since I do not have a/c electricity down at the pond I was able to use the dc pump in this instance to good effect. I did need to run the pump at night as well and I had a car battery that I had just taken out of our car and started using that in the evening. Although it won't crank a car any more, it will run the small pump all night long.


On top of the lava rock that I used as the filter media, I put in some expanded clay grow rocks to support some plants. I've got sweet potato, pineapple basil, and a sweet potato that I started indoors now growing in the top of the skippy filter. So far so good.

It isn't pretty with a car battery and a drywall bucket sitting on top of the pond rocks with water pouring out of the side but it's a stopgap measure until I have time to get something more permanent in place. The water is totally clear now the stench is gone and the fish aren't lingering at the top sucking air because their gills are burning with ammonia. The plants in the filter seem to be thriving as well so it's a little bit of an aquaponics system I suppose.

In due course I will add a charge controller to recharge a deep cycle battery that can run the pump 24/7. The pump draw is miniscule so I might be able to run some lighting as well. We'll see.

Pond Life

Besides our tree frog Lincoln, I've added ten goldfish to the pond yesterday. As of today they are all still alive though they stay pretty deep most of the time, out of sight.

Goldfish cost twenty-nine cents a piece at Pet Smart. So I spent $3 on fish. Not too steep of an investment I suppose.

More aquatic plants are coming in the near future.

I haven't actually seen Link since I moved him out to the pond, hopefully he's still around somewhere.

The pv powered aeration pump kicks on about 10 a.m. and stops around 4 p.m. It runs fairly strongly most of the time. It will taper off some when a cloud passes over. On an overcast day it just trickles a little. Still, I think with the aquatic plants on the daily water flow the water has ample oxygen for the fish. The water has actually cleared up quite a bit lately. I'm not sure if it's the flow of the water or the addition of the plants or a combination of both.

However, it is a natural habitat. I am not filtering the water with elaborate pumps and filters like koi pond enthusiasts do. Any detritus that falls into the water will decompose and create a fertile compost that I can later use elsewhere.

Last year we took a koi pond tour in Atlanta and saw some amazing ponds. Unfortunately, all of the ponds we saw take great amounts of inputs of energy, food, time, and mostly money. They are for all intents and purposes, swimming pools for fish. Still, they were all gracious people and the ponds do give serene and meditative elements for the owners.

 This pond was truly amazing!

He basically had a dock off of his back doorstep. Tens of thousands of gallons of water, all filtered. There isn't one speck of algae in these ponds.

I believe this pond owner was a koi breeder and does therefore earn some income from his fish. This was by far and away the most extensive pond/eathworks location on the tour. From the front of the house you would never have guessed the backyard was like a tropical rain forest.

This was one of the larger ponds we saw, not as ornate as the one above but the fish were huge. There were two more ponds above this one which was probably over eight feet deep.

Lots of ponds featured gorgeous water features. This was the sole owner I heard mention using any outputs from the fish.

He said he used the fish manure to fertilize the banana trees.

This is the elaborate filtration and pumping system for the pond. An incredible amount of time effort and money!

This tranquil looking pond was adjacent to a swimming pool.

Function Stacking

In permaculture every element should have multiple functions.

"Each element in the system should be chosen and placed so that it performs as many functions as possible. A pond can be used for irrigation, watering livestock, aquatic crop, and fire control. It is also a habitat for waterfowl, a fish farm, and a light reflector." - Mollison


In our system we have an arbor. Besides it's intrinsic function of providing a shaded sitting area, it also provides structure for the climbing kiwi vines. In keeping with the second part of Mollison's statement, the arbors placement was chosen carefully.

It's orientation is aligned exactly north to south. The arbor is located in close proximity to the pond so the pleasant sound of flowing water can be appreciated.

Utilizing the southern aspect of the arbor, it makes a great structure for mounting the solar panel that powers the dc pond aeration pump. So now the pond will not need any additional energy inputs from industrial power generation.

So the arbor performs many functions for us:

- sitting area
- kiwi vine trellis
- solar panel structural support
- birds & squirrels often utilize it
- aligned with cardinal directions
- shade
- meditative area

Solar Pump Test

I just installed a 20 watt solar panel on the arbor to power a direct current pump that I want to use to circulate water in the pond. I don't want to have to run A/C power out to the pond and since I am not raising koi, aeration isn't as critical.

I want to have the sound aspect and to also prevent the stagnation that would make mosquitoes an issue.

As the amount of current varies with the intensity of the sun, the pump's flow also will vary. When the sun is bright the pump is providing plenty of flow to suit the needs of this small water feature. Obviously it won't run a night but it should oxygenate the water enough during the day to support some very small fish.

I am still in the process of arranging the pondscape so nothing is final yet. I mainly just wanted to have the pump running now because it is warming up and mosquitoes will be looking for a place to lay eggs very soon. I'm going to add a few goldfish soon as well.

Today was a sunny day, mostly, and the pump was still working just slightly after 5 p.m. so I think the panel is in a good location, so far. I set it to local latitude so it's on about 33 degrees, due south.

Pond

It might be hard to tell but there is a flock of doves in the backyard especially around the pond. The pond has filled on it's own. Aquatic plants are on their way.

More landscaping around the pond is on tap. Trying to make it as natural as possible.