Great Success!!

A lot this week

A lot has happened this week.

I took the pump back and got a smaller one, a filter box, and a fountain attachment for less money than I had spent on the super huge pump.

After grabbing some large branches from my mom's yard, I made a new turtle basking area. It's a shelf, braced with large landscaping bricks, with the wood on top all locked together. I hope they start using it soon because it's within the view of my bedroom window so we all can watch the turtles being awesome turtles. I also put their little houses underneath it and braced those with other bricks.

We set up the pump, the filter box, and the fountain attachment in the pond this morning. We set it to the three-tiered setting and it's making a lovely noise out there right now. Very relaxing. I'm going to check the filter tomorrow morning to see how it's doing. I wrapped the cord around the top of the filter to try and keep the lid on in case of turtle accidents and then I put the cord under the brick the box is mounted on.

And, on the inside of the house, we have new additions to Baby Timmy's tank. I was at $petstore last night and saw that some fish were on sale. Some SPOTTED fish were on sale. Dalmatian Mollies - and, of course, every fire truck has to have a Dalmatian, right? So I bought two for $1 each, a boy and a girl, because of the fire truck that the boys bought for Baby Timmy. We have enough tank room for the two of them and the itty bitty turtle, so it works out. I also bought a cave for the tank and the first thing Timmy did was swim inside and stick his head out the window. I wish I had had my camera ready for that because it was so funny. The fish are named "Spotty Fish" and "Spotty Fish."

Pictures:

 Happy basking turtle.

Dragonfly! Baby Timmy's new friends.

I found the turtle like this when I walked out. I wasn't even noticed in the first picture, and right after the second picture, there was a turtle hidden in a basket.

 BABY TIMMY














Hi there.

This is my new wooden basking area. It's all sturdy and has enough room for multiple turtles. 

 Meet Mork and Mindy, two new rescues. The husband doesn't know about these yet so hey, honey, if you read this, we have two new ones I got while you were sick.

This is a turtle in my reeds. Kind of hard to see but if you look closely, you can see a shell.
















And these are my smashed reeds. 

Pictures

Not Good at Math

3600 gallons per hour equals 60 gallons per minute. That equals one gallon per second. A 14 gallon rubbermaid container fills up in, oh, a little under 14 seconds. Even with three two-inch drainage holes.

I apparently didn't think that one through.

3600 Gallons Per Whoa

Learned a lot of stuff today.

1. The constant trickle refill of regular tap water I've been running might be killing the bacteria (because of the chlorine in the water) that kills the algae. Overgrowth.
2. The fertilized soil in the pots may be contributing to the algae's food supply. Overgrowth.
3. A 3600gph pond pump is like a boat motor and will move quickly and violently if you point it wrong.
4. Making your own pond filters isn't so hard, but you have to make sure you have one big enough to handle the pump output.
5. I'm going to need more pipe to slow the gph at this point because holy moly, shoving a gallon a second through this filter just won't be good for the filter or the pump. (3600gph / 60 minutes / 60 seconds)

Bought a TotalPond Submersible Waterfall Pump (3600 Gallons Per Hour). The next lowest was a 1200gph pump and it was only $50 cheaper; the pond itself is between 3000 and 4500 gallons, and one day I hope to run an irrigation system from it, so the gph x 3 option for only $50 more was something I was ok with. I certainly don't have to cycle the water THAT OFTEN, but I'm sure I can make this work somehow, even if I pump it up a few feet and then back into the filter. However it works.

The filter is going to take two rubbermaid 14gal containers run in-line with one another along the side step, which would give me access to them from the outside and allow me to run the pumping line up some to decrease the gph for now. I'm not setting them up initially to be biofilters, but rather to help clear some of the junk out of the pool, so having only 28 gallons of water space won't be too detrimental; biofilters are supposed to have less push-through than what I'll be charging into them, but for now, it's fine. One day I'll add a much bigger filter box in the line that will slow the flow and let the good bacteria have its way inside the boxes.

I need to go make some filters to stick into these boxes, and get some pipe fittings so I can attach them and detach them without breaking stuff. I think I'll make a draw out out a design and see how it looks.

Plaaaaaaaants

Received three yellow water irises today, so I went to $homeimprovementstore to get some soil, since I was out. Well, in the clearance section, there were three pots of horsetail reeds for $3 each. So of course I bought them.

I did something I might regret later, though. I sunk the pots into the pond without changing the soil to organic natural good soil. They were in pretty harsh shape, and I didn't want to stress them further (more than half he stalks we're crispy and crunchy). I hope the soil won't affect the fish or turtles.

I also had to use non-organic potting soil (with slow-release fertilizer) in the irises. I think the pond is big enough to withstand a jump in nitrates without a lot of damage. It wasn't much and the water and surface area compared to what I put in has a good ratio, so I'm not TERRIBLY worried, but I'll certainly be keeping an eye on the wildlife this week.

Because the piggy fish keep devouring all the food I put in for the turtles, no matter what it is, I sunk a kiddie pool into one of the shallow ends (the one opposite the plant end) so the turtles will have a separate eating area that has no fish in it. The lip is just above the water and accessible to turtles, both from the outside and the inside.

It also has a slide if the turtles are so inclined.

Three horsetail pots, three irises, and a feeding pool for the turtles. It has been a productive afternoon and evening.

Now I'd have pictures if my computer's power supply hadn't set itself on fire. Later.

Snails and Plants

Got some large plastic pots to upgrade my planting. I put my three small clay pots with my watermint cuttings into the long shallow pot and sank it into the pool with rocks. The water doesn't cover the plants but it reaches just far enough into the clay pots to wet the roots of the plants. It seems to be ok at that level.

With one of the large pots, I un-potted one of my big watermint plants and put that into it with some rocks. It should take over the whole pot that way, and I hope it will pretty fast. I love those plants and they are crammed into the six inch pots, which isn't great for them, so I hope they expand to fill all the room they want in these new big ones. I'll wait a week and see how this watermint is doing in the large pot and then I'll probably transplant the other one too.

There were snail eggs slathered all over the bottom of the original watermint pot. I saved a few of the blops in a jar so the kids could see the process, but I put the pot back where it was as well so some of them will hatch in the nursery water. Snail eggs do look kinda gross. Like snot with dots.

In other news, I talked to someone who used to build ponds for people and he says I definitely need a pump to keep the water moving. He says it keeps the fish healthier and the plants will grow better. I'll work on that next.