Wednesday 11 September 2013

Pond update

I am totally excited. The pond that we put in last year has so far shaped up to be a real good habitat for a lot of different animals and plants. So this year I added what I actually did not want to add until next year - fish. Actually I had planned to add some minnows this year to establish a food base for trout that were supposed to be introduced next year.
Then I saw that there were trout for sale at the local farmers coop for 55 cents a piece. I ordered 20.
There is no water flow coming into this pond it is entirely rainwater fed. It has no aeration pump. Instead I planted some Elodea, which has completely covered large areas of the pond floor and produces an enormous amount of oxygen that can be seen in form of bubbles stuck to the plant.

The fish arrived on June 8th. I dropped them into the pond and have not done anything else. No feeding, no aeration nor anything else that people might think to do when growing trout.
My slightly conservative neighbour has been laughing at me and my pond idea since last year. He does not think anything will come out of this project, in fact he thought the pond would dry out in the summer. Fish, especially trout would definitely not survive apparently.
I had to try it. But judge for yourselves. Sorry for the bad sound. We are working on better videos and hope to put up a series here next year.