The Pond, Part 2

Excitement is brewing in the pond. After feeding the fish yesterday afternoon, we spent some time studying the pond closely, and to our great surprise, we discovered several baby fish. They are all less than an inch long. Five was the count yesterday. Maria went back and counted carefully today and came up with nine. We are sure they're either koi or goldfish, but will have to wait until they're bigger to know which kind they are.

We began stalking the pond with plants and fish on November 12. Things have progressed quite a bit since then. The koi are about three times a big as they were at the beginning, and between koi, goldfish, and swordtails, there are about 25 fish now (plus the nine babies). We're pretty sure some kind of heron or egret went after the fish one time, because one morning when we went out to feed the fish, they were in hiding, and didn't come out for almost a week. For a while we thought we'd lost our big white koi (aka Moby Dick), but he eventually came out of his hiding place.

We haven't seen the frog for a couple of months now, but hear him croaking occasionally. He likes to sing while the waterfall is flowing.

During the heavy rains and high winds in December, the water became crystal clear. It is now green with algae, but we keep the waterfall running much of the time to keep the water oxygenated.

Our two types of water lilies seem to be multiplying, but the leaves are still fairly small. Two weeks ago we planted water lily seeds. No sign of any sprouts yet. The water hyacinth have sent up a couple of blooms.

Water hyacinth: newer plants in upper left and lower right; older plants in middle and right middle.

We do have one mystery. We purchased about six clumps of water hyacinth in November. They have multiplied rapidly, and we now have 25 to 30 clumps. But they seem a paler color of green than they should be, and the new leaves are only about one-fourth the size of the original ones. Recently a friend brought us some more water hyacinth from the lowlands, and the leaves are gigantic, and dark green. So, what could be the problem? A search on the internet suggests nutrient deficiency. Maybe that could be solved with more fish. Another possibility could be the cool temperatures here. However, we are only three or four hundred feet higher than the location of where we bought them. I think, it may be the wind. The plants we bought were in a protected location. Even though we have constructed an eight-foot wall to protect the pond, it still gets raked by gusts of wind. By the end of March the winds should die down and it will be relatively calm for the next six months or so. Perhaps then we will get bigger leaves on the hyacinth. We shall see.

Newer plant from lowlands is in middle, and stretches from one end of the photo to the other

Happy gardening!