There's a frog in my bog!! (load warning)

[Conner]

About 6-7 weeks ago, I put 10 tadpoles in my bog filter and pond. I've seen some of the larger tadpoles still swimming around as recently as last weekend, developing legs but still having a tail.

I finally saw a fully developed frog this morning! He was sitting on the driftwood in the pond. I'm not sure if this guy developed from one of the tadpoles I put in (he's quite a bit smaller than all of the tadpoles were) or if he just came to the pond naturally. Either way its cool to finally see one!

The pond is really starting to come together and look more finished, although its still too brown/green for me. I need to do a water change and maybe at a UV sterilizer soon.

I also added 3 koi last Tuesday! Although I've only seen two of them since I added them, and they seem to be doing great. Hopefully the 3rd koi is just being shy.

Pics of the frog, and koi, plus general pics of the pond.

 

[Conner]

As you can see, my water hyacinth is taking over! I'm having to thin it out almost every weekend to keep it from choking off the bog filter...

And the flowers that you see are from the Umbrella Plant. Its a gorgeous plant, and we were really surprised by the flowers. They're very pretty, but very different from most of the flowers we're used to.

 

[knifegill]

It's coming alomg nicely. Is that a baby bullfrog? Very cool. I also have to remove plants from my filtration, but I use water lettuce and it's indoors.

 

[Pharaoh]

Pond is looking good!

 

[Muske]

Have you rinsed off the roots of the Hyacinth?

They hold and trap a lot of sediment. I rinse mine at least weekly. Just fill a 5gal. bucket(s) to 2/3 - 3/4 full. Remove one plant and shake it in the bucket. I do one plant at a time so I can replace it in about the same spot in my filter. If I don't pt them back how they were, they can end up in the pond.

If they get to clogged with debris, they will not have the holding capacity and release sediments back into the water column. Since there was a lot of sediment prior to the wall install, I would rinse the plants to remove sediment from the system. Again, might be a couple of time per week.

I just did mine this morning and had three 5gal. buckets looking like chocolate milk....

 

[Conner]

Yeah, I've got 30 odd gallon metal tub that I rinse them in when I thin them out. It is amazing how much muck and mud those roots can hold. When I was finished washing the roots, and emptied out the tub, there was about 5 lbs of loose gravel at the bottom that had been caught up in the roots .

I haven't gone through and washed them all, and I need to. But that's what I've been doing each weekend as I pull plants out to put down in the pond. I'm hoping to get the pond to about half covered with plants, to help block out a lot of the sunlight and really get good plant filtration going. I also need to do a large water change to clear out a bunch of the mud that's still suspended. I may end up doing that this weekend, since its supposed to be nice out and then rain all next week (finally! we haven't had rain in over a month!).

It's amazing how interconnected all the hyacinth are. There will be 3-5 of those little tubes running between each plant and its neighbors, and you have to cut them all and untangle the roots to get one of them out. Its hard to believe I started with 11 plants, and now there are so many I can't even count them all.

The comets are really starting to put on a growth spurt. More and more of them are starting to reach the 4"+ mark, and I may have to start thinning out the herd and net some out to use as feeders soon, before I'm overrun with huge comets...

I'm also looking to add several more similar sized koi (4-7 inches each) over the next few weeks.

 

[DREAM-faw]

Thats one beautiful pond

 

[polish]

That looks really good, nice job.

 

[Conner]

Thats one beautiful pond

Thank you!

That looks really good, nice job.

Thanks! It's not even done yet. I still need to get some rock work and gravel done around the near side of it, some mulch around the back, and get a big water change done to finally clear out most of the silt. And THEN it will really be looking good.

I am liking how the rock edging and all the plants are turning out. We just planted some periwinkle groundcover and a blueberry bush next to the pond. Hopefully the periwinkle will fill out that dirt area nicely, and maybe dangle over into the edge of the pond a little bit as well.

 

[nitrofish1]

looks great!