#Thegreatpoolpondconversion - 210627
A lot of interactions with the fauna this week.
As for the work, wow like everything went right the first time.
We now have a way to determine the proper pond level. If the level is too low and the water wheel is out, it spins way too fast. Too much water and it spins really slow(ly). So with the daily summer rains we have to drain and adjust regularly. Rather than haul out the electric sump pump, an extension cord and a hose every other day, we added some plumbing to drain directly from the filter tower. Then we thought why waste the water on the grass so we added a few more lengths of pipe and now it will drain either directly into the jasmine bed or to the grass.
We added one more fitting so that if the solar fails like the battery dies or whatever, then we can use the sump pump thru the filter now instead of that temporary garbage can setup. The front valve is incoming, and the back one is outgoing.
We built a new shower to distribute the water better across the top of the filters.
With all this plumbing and a rigid shower, we can’t remove the top bin easily or get the filter pads out. so we added a hinge.
While we were testing the draining to the jasmine bed we dampened the soil pretty good and something must have happened down below.
When we put these rocks down, we noticed a small hole that 10-12 small iguanas crawled out of.
Here’s five of them.
We got our new batteries and let them charge no load for 4 days. During that time we had the electric pump going and that’s how we got all these ideas.
We now have two 35AH batteries and Sunday they went into action.
One of our basic goals is a natural balancing pond.
Fish live off the plants. Plants live off the fish waste. With enough plants there’s no food or oxygen left for algae to grow.
We know we’re still out of balance - not enough plants or shade, and that’s why we’re getting pea soup algae.
While we don’t want to rely on chemicals long term, we thought this was a good time to test out what an algaecide could do and whether it was safe.
We used about a third of the recommended dose for a pond our size and it worked great. We can see the bottom.
There is a new batch of about 500-1000 tadpoles.
The heron has been back 4 or 5 times.
The first day it caught a good sized comet gold fish but didnt eat it.
The next day it came back, caught another one and ate it
Here it’s just about to down it.
Then it caught two more smaller fish and ate them.
It came back today (Monday), eating more of our fish.
Then our resident snake comes out and they stare each other down.
A second after this picture the snake strikes (who knows why)
The bird tosses the snake into the pond.
It slithers out and goes into the trees.
An exciting breakfast (for us)
Here’s an index of all the postings in #thegreatpoolpondconversion