Two Many Leaves

Today was uneventful but very windy and as a result we had bunches of leaves in the ponds. We did the best we could to remove the leaves. It is a tough battle to fight with the leaves coming down almost as fast as we pick them out. Another issues is the tree above the pond is an apple tree so the apples are dropping either by themselves or with some help from the squirrels who eat half an apple and then throw it down. The biggest problem with that is the bees are attracted to the half eaten apples so its pretty scary to grab the apple and throw it into the woods.

It is a two Bullfrog Night

Pretty exciting night. Two bullfrogs one on the side of the large pond and one in the water at the other end. The picture doesn't do justice to the size of bullfrog on the side of the pond. He is sitting next to some floaters that are 5 inches in diameter. So he is one big boy. The one in the water is smaller but not by much.

Bullfrog in the Morning

We don't usually see the bullfrog in the morning but he greeted us today. He was just floating on the plants looking really proud and in control. He dove under before I could get a good closeup.

Split the Sweet Flag

Our Sweet Flag has grown like crazy this summer. We have split it several time and today we split two more plants to plant in other planters. The Sweet Flag grows easily in just a pot of rocks and like to be placed just at the level of the water in the pond. Here is one of the plants in a new pot next to the fence.

Clean the Filter

Today we cleaned the filter for the large pond. It was really dirty and it has only been a month since the last cleaning. The filter is a 20 gallon waterfall in a 1/2 whiskey barrel fed by two 600 gallon per hour pumps. The water flows into the bottom and pushes up thru 4 inches of lava rock, 1 inch of coarse filter material and 1 inch of fine filter material. One of the pumps pushes the water thru an ultravoilet filter to keep the water clear. I float some water hyacinth on top to filter and hide the top of the barrel.

Watch Out for the Snake

Today was a quiet day at the pond but that wasn't the case a month ago. We saw a 2 inch long goldfish laying on his side looking pretty sad but when we looked closer, he was in the jaws of a water snake. The snake with his dinner swam away and it took about a week for me to catch him in the open and grab him with my homemade snake stick. He was evicted and thankfully we haven't seen any more snakes since.

No Action Last Night

The bullfrogs were quiet last night so there must not have been a party. This evening I caught a goldfish with my hand and moved him/her to the small foster care pond so I now have the two foster care fish and 11 or 12 new fish. It will be worthwhile if all survive and I can populate Gayle's pond at her new house with a dozen healthy fish. Check out the huge Elephant Ears surrounding the large pond. And that is our 12 year old Great Dane surveying the site.

Two Bullfrogs

I just checked the pond and there are 2 Bullfrogs. I suspect a male and female so they may be getting ready for action tonight. Some nights the frog noise is deafening - we'll see what happens tonight.

Hundreds of Baby Frogs

20 fish in large pond were waiting for food in the usual feeding spot this evening. I feed some pond fish food for the smaller fish and Friskies dry cat food for the big fish. I have one 8 inch Comet that is always first in line for the buffet. The bullfrog was especially active tonight as I was removing some water hyacinth, he was darting around like I was messing up his arrangement. I see some bullfrog tadpols sometimes but earlier this summer we had an explosion of green frog tadpols hatching and moving from the pond. This picture shows a bunch of them.

Pond Setup

Two ponds - one 750 gallons and one 90 gallons. I built the 90 gallon pond to do foster care of two goldfish for a friend at work. I added 10 babies from the large pond to help populate her new pond. She had two ponds but lost all but these two fish to unknown causes. She will be moving in October and I volunteered to foster her remaining fish until she builds a pond at her new house. The large pond started with 10 fish last fall. Now it has close to 100 - it seems all the babies must have survived.

Bullfrog who lives in Large Pond