Fishy Business

The quartet's living quarters have been upgraded.  A Eureka! moment and the submersible pump in a 'wall fountain' we no longer use is re-purposed for the comet quartet's water surfing pleasure.

The fish are a hoot, it is like they are skin surfing into the water jet. When it was first hooked up, it must have loosened a bunch of algae because they were in dining heaven.

The water garden is now providing ample white noise water sounds.  More importantly, we can worry less about the fish since they will be getting more oxygen in the water.

As for filtering, my opinion is plants.  Water filtering/oxygenating plants and marginal bog plants will help the most to keep the water in good condition.  And frequent water changes.  I use the pond water as fertilizer water in the veggie garden so water change just happens.

In this photo, there are Wisteria and Cabomba water plants.  Mondo Grass and Society Garlic marginals.  Taro and Calla Lily are just starting.  Resurrection Fern and another tree trunk fern provide character and greenery.  A few tillanansia are stuck in here and there.

I gave up on finding pond plants locally.  I've ordered from Catfish Logic more filtration plants (Hornwort) and a floating plant (Water Poppy).  I've been warned that the hornwort will need frequent pruning.  But it should make a nice side dressing for the garden!

All in all, I'm liking how the woodlands pond is shaping up.  Nice and peaceful.  Seeing the increase in dragon flies and other beneficial insects is wonderful.  I found a snail in the pond margins when I was working on the new pump.  How on earth did a snail find our pond?  I'm guessing it came in with the plants from Petsmart, but geez it sure grew fast.  I need to get out with my camera and see if I can get a picture.  It was a rose color, long and narrow.

I think our foursome - the quartet, will like the fountain.  In some ways I miss the serenity of a still pond, but all in all, healthy happy fish are good.  You know, since they have names and all now.  It's devastating walking out and finding one dead.  And gosh, finding a frog you didn't even know you had dead is almost as bad.  

Getting all four fish in the same photo in focus is darn near a miracle.  So let's settle for three.  Not pictured is Pinto, because the orange & white coloring is sort of pinto like.  And Pinto is generally the most brave.  From left to right; Orange, Yellow and Ms White.  Ms White was a very shy fry.  It took her the longest to come out of the cave.  She was a runt for the longest time.  Wouldn't stay out long enough to eat.  BTW, I don't really know the sex of any of these.  And getting an infocus photo with the water spray and current is going to be wicked.