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Well I have brought in the goldfish for the winter. I have had an attach twice this summer of a raccoon. Now that the fish are in the aquarium I don't have to worry about them anymore. I thought of setting a trap but was afraid I'd catch a skunk instead. Maybe this will trick the raccoon and he will leave us alone. I sure hope so.

I have surfed the web to try to find an answer to this question and had no luck. So, I hope someone here has the answer. I have recently noticed that the koi in my pond have been hanging out at the surface of the water. They seem to do it mostly during the time that the sun is on the pond (the pond only gets about 4 hours of direct sunlight/day. So, at first, I thought they were sunbathing. :-) But, I have never heard of a fish sunbathing before! My pond is equipped with a biological filter that I run 24/7. I also have a waterfall which, I'm sure, delivers oxygen to the water constantly. They don't seem to be gulping for air, so I don't think lack of oxygen is the problem. And, they otherwise, appear to be very healthy. I test the water on a regular basis, and all of the levels are within normal range. What's odd is that another pond enthusiast whom I work with asked me the other day if my fish were hanging out at the surface of the water. !!! He, too, had never noticed this behavior before. I want to add that last spring my pond was "blessed" with lots of baby koi! I lost a lot of them, but still have quite a few. So, I know right now I have too many koi for the size of my pond. (which brings me to another question of how to find homes for all of my babies!?!?) My co-worker has the same situation. Could this be the reason for the behavior? Again...they don't seem to be stressed or unhealthy or gulping for air. Anyone have any clues? Thanks!

Beth

and that's as much my fault as anyone else's, as I haven't been here for quite a while, although I still certainly enjoy my pond. So, while I'm here I might as well stir the waters up a bit. Can anyone identify this reptilian creature that I've spotted in my pond?

Hi everyone, I have a problem and hope someone can help me. I used a large horse trough and dropped it into the ground.I used bricks to make a ledge for plants. This was three yrs. ago and now have algae,mud,leech worms,and lord knows what else I have in there. I have a fountain I was using but it keeps getting clogged up and now that it is spring,do I empty the whole thing or what? I need help...

Good morning to all. I just found and joined this group. I live in Washington state near the coast so you can imagine I get lots of rain. I have a beautiful semi-secluded 5 acres in the country. I love it except I am trying to landscape the side yard along a slight slope. The problem is that in this area I have a natural spring that floods my yard in the winter months. And here winter rains usually last about 5 months. I have given some thought to incorporating the spring into a water feature instead of digging yet another deeper drain line. Any ideas on the subject?

Iam in a new place,with a tall deck.thinking of maybe something cascading off the side deck into a bigger pond.
can anyone relate to what am thinking or have some Ideals of how I could build it up.am sure the pump would have to flow from the top.just wondering about some ideals.water flowing over rocks maybe into a fish pond.like a trail
how would you build in and it be strong enough.hope I make sense.

Hi, glad to see this group here. My husband and I dug and built a small pond (10x6 ft) a couple of years ago. Last year we were invaded by blanket algae. I have tried to keep it at bay by using fish and plant friendly algaecide (at least it seems to be plant and fish friendly so far), but during the winter it still grows and this spring completely engulfed all my potted water-lillies so much that I chopped off only a few small shoots and re-potted them and threw the rest of the waterlillies in the compost. I have a small waterfall going continuously (except in the winter) and it even grows on the rocks there, too. This stuff is nasty! Any suggestions? I live in the greater Chicago suburbs, so it gets cold here during the winter!

Does anyone else have an invasion of frogs this spring? Normally we get them moving into the pond in the middle of summer, and they tend to all die off (or disappear somewhere) over the winter, but this year there were at least a dozen of them right away. Our winter was colder than normal, so I can't figure it out. There don't even seem to be very many insects yet for them eat. Any clues?

New member saying hello here! New to water ponding also. Husband and I built a small 10x5 pond with waterfall last summer. Working on permanent landscaping around it this summer. Currently have 2 koi, 2 goldfish, and 8 bullfrogs living there. Evicted a copperhead last year. Looking forward to seeing photos of your ponds!

glassgallm - we installed a UV light in our filter and have had great success controlling algae. Good luck!