Spent a couple of hours pulling excess growth and dead pads, etc out of the pond today. Everything is looking much better. Last year on a hot, hot (30 deg Celsius) day the power was off for about 8 hours. The goldfish didn't show any signs of stress that day and the water was still very cool in the deep end so I was quite confident that with my light fish load things would be okay while we were away. I have a spare pump that could have been put into the pond if the one in there now failed. It's not enough to run the waterfall but it certainly is enough to aerate the water. The lily pads provide good shade too.
Yes Mike, our long holiday was fabulous and well worth waterever I may have come back to as far as the pond was concerned.
Teresa, we don't have any animals other than our dog any more and she came with us. We used to have to find critter sitters for our various creatures and I used to worry about them when we were away.
Jerry, no skimmer for me to worry about and the water level would have to drop about 18" before the pump ran into any trouble so I knew I was okay there.
The down side to being away for so long is that I have missed the peak lily blooming season and it's so short here. My little Helvola is blooming like crazy though, 12 open blooms today.
emm