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

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yogurt_21;4312082; said:
ah such is the problem as it woud be better health wise for the koi if they didn't get eaten lol.

if it were really a concern you could always get a fishing net and divide the pond in half.

personally I would speed up the 220g project.


I would, but I'd be afraid of the gar getting caught in it and drowning.

I'd love to, but I'm all outa cash at the moment. I've got most of the components, but I can't afford to buy what few things I don't have right now. I've just got too many other things that I need to spend money on at the moment :(.
 
Well I did it. I went ahead and put the true spotted gar (11-12") and the shortest shortnose gar (~14", longer than I thought) into the pond. They both seemed to react alright to it, and the spotted gar was going after feeders before he'd made it to the other end of the pond.

However, I do believe I have some of THE stupidest feeders in the world. They're trying to school with the gar... I swear, if the shortnose had happened to open his mouth at one point, a feeder would have just swam into it for him...

I did take some pictures as well as video, but I don't have time to upload it at the moment. I will do so later today so you guys can see. They look good in the pond, although its hard to get good pictures unless they're close to the surface (not to mention I've got a crappy little point and shoot camera).
 
Looks great with those gar in the pond! I may add one next year if my fathead minnows start breeding for me (they are still small this season).
 
looks good thus far, hoepfully all the space will keep the agression down we'll see how long the feeders last, if you're gar is anything like my Oscars, not long. lol
 
yogurt_21;4317791; said:
looks good thus far, hoepfully all the space will keep the agression down we'll see how long the feeders last, if you're gar is anything like my Oscars, not long. lol


One thing I've noticed, is that the gars aren't spending much time out in the open during the day. They mostly hang out down at the bottom of the deep end, or right underneath the water hyacinth.

Between that and just the sheer size of the pond, the feeders really aren't being bothered too badly. I think the only time feeders are going to be taken is at late evening/night time when they're falling sleeping and the gar are more active. Maybe if a feeder wanders too close to the gar during the day they might snap at them, but they can see them coming and evade them pretty easily.



As a general pond update, the water is clearer than its ever been. Its unbelievable just how clearly I can see everything in the pond, except for the deep end, which is just too shadowy to see clearly. I can see the fish in complete detail anywhere else in the pond, and I can see the crayfish in detail crawling around on the bottom as well.
 
nice to see the filters matured enough for that sparkling clear water. I've seen that several time sin my pond's renditions and I always loved it, but alas with my luck right afterwars the pump dies, or mr hedgehog found the pond or mr pleco decided to go hand out in the filter area and etc.

this time I'm, gfuarding against all of that so here' hoping it works. lol
 
Got some updated pictures of the pond. I finally got around to adding mulch around the back and side of the pond, so there's no more bare dirt there :D. It looks soooo much better now. I also picked up some creek rock over the weekend to finish lining the edge of the pond, although I'm not real happy with the placement of the pieces I got. Probably going to redo it. I also still need to pick up gravel for between the sidewalk and pond. Maybe this week, maybe next week, who knows.

With the help of my father (and my fiance), I also built a pergola over half of my deck this weekend. Its 10'x10', built out of 2x8's, 2x6's, and 2x4's. Thing is sturdy as heck, although we want to wrap the posts with 2x boards, since they're just 4x4 posts, and the pergola's pretty heavy.

The last thing is, I was cleaning the filter pads in the skimmer tonight, and I found 2 leaches in the bottom of the cradle that holds the pads. I'm wondering if I should be worried, or if I need to do anything about this? I left them out on the concrete in the sun to dry (haha, DIE leech scum!).

Anyways, here's the pics! Let me know what you think of the pond, deck, and pergola (all hand built by me, with the help of my dad).

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Pergola looks great...

Miller time by the pond. Although I'm a Bud man.
 
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