My pond diary

It is essential that you perform regular pond tests during the early stages of your pond and when you add new life to it. This is to ensure that the various chemical levels are acceptable. Once your pond has been established and you are no longer adding new life to it then you do not need to test your pond as much. Below are my pond test results performed since the pond was created, as you can see I did not strictly follow the rule of adding fish gradually. I did intend too but after adding the first three I was given the opportunity to get 9 reasonably sized gold fish and shubumpkins for free from a friend. As you can see after adding the 9 additional fish the Nitrite level came close to being dangerous but it soon recovered on its own (without any additives) and is now back down to an ideal level.

May 2004	Pond finished. Water boatman arrived already!! Added plants and 12 fish in total. Did not add fish as gradually as I should have done but was given the opportunity to get 9 fish for free so took a risk and added them. Although Nitrite level did rise it soon recovered to ideal level (See pond results) Randy fish lay hundreds of eggs on plant. Removed some eggs and placed in container as I had been told fish will eat them I left in pond and I wanted to see if they would hatch.
June – July 2004	Added frog spawn from neighbours pond. The fish eggs which I placed in a container have hatched into baby fry (how small are they). None seem to have survived in pond Click here to see how fry were fed. Frog spawn eventually developing into frogs and hoping all over garden.
August 2004	Baby fish in container now getting quite big (there at least 1.5cm long, oooooow). O my god, had closer look at bottom pond which has overgrown with oxygenating plants only to find about 50 baby fish swimming around. Cooolllll Water snails have turned up from somewhere, about 10 baby ones in bottom pond. Some little round water snails as well? Its all going on this month. Have even extended bottom pond to make room for all the life that has appeared.
September 2004	Performed pond test to check pond still balanced after extension. Added oxygenating plant. Added floating hyacinths.
October 2004	Water temperature has fallen below 10°c so have started feeding fish on wheat germ fish food rather than normal fish food. Seen 3 frogs in pond(s) Fish start to become more lethargic and are eating slightly less Can’t decide whether to turn filtration system off, so have compromised and turned UV bulb off but left pump and filter working (Update: later changed mind and left everything on)
January 2005	Water temperature back up above 10°c so have started feeding fish on normal variety fish food. There is a frog making a lot of noise but unfortunately no frogs spawn as yet :-( Fish have become much more energetic and are eating loads Lots of green pond weed has grown over winter so have tried to remove what I can. Maybe due to knackered UV bulb so have ordered new one. May also be because a number of plants have died meaning there will be more nutrients available for pond weed to feed on.
Febuary 2005 to Febuary 2006	Sorry for break in records but due to other comitments including wedding plans and preperation it did not really leave much time to record pond progress. But basically in this time the Pond has maintained an excellent water quality. Have added some barley straw to help control pond weed which seems to have worked. Have also upgrade the bottom pond so it is much bigger now and has a bridge going over to the garage door. Will post some pictures when i get chance.
Febuary 2006 to July 2006	Seen quite a few large frogs and loads of small frogs jumping around the pond and garden. Plenty of frogs spawn, and tadpoles. Fish started of even more lethargic tahn usual and not really eating much but have gradually become much more energetic and are now eating loads. Lots of green pond weed has grown over winter again so removed most of it and added a bag of barley straw which seems to have kept it at bay.
August 2006	Added small Shusui Koi (will try and get some piccys) Wish i had taken piccys of my other Koi when first got them as they have grown loads now!