Guess what happened to the pond when I took a 6 week holiday?

[emm]

Nothing bad!  We were away from home for 6 weeks and my pond is just fine.  Majorly overgrown, lily pads are climbing out of the pond and the waterfall covered in string algae but everything is okay.  I did have my neighbour keep an eye on things but other than feed the goldfish every few days and top up the water level after we were away for 3 weeks she did nothing.  I topped up the water level again when I got home a few days ago but just started pulling out pads and old blooms today.  I have 5 pots of lilies, 3 pots of pickerel weed as well as bog bean, cat tails, floating heart and oodles of submerged plants of various species in the pond so I was concerned about what I might come home to.  There are 4 large goldfish, 5 yearling goldfish and numerous fat head minnows and trap door snails in a 10' X 12' pond.  It is 4' deep in one area, can't remember how many gallons it holds right now but the fish load is quite light so that is a bonus.  Pump is in the pond inside a bucket surrounded by bio balls in mesh bags that act as a mechanical filter.  There is also a gravel filter that is heavily planted but the whole thing is pretty low tech.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Lots of tidying and trimming to do now though.  Hope the weather holds up for the weekend, I'm going to be busy.     emm

[livetogarden]

Good news!! The algae and old blooms can be dealt with easily enough, huh?
Cath

[Teresa]

That's great!  I'm always afraid when we come home that I'll find something terrible . . . did once get a call that said "The pond is making a funny noise" - needed water added.  I also worry about the animals in the house - a few fish, some crabs, some newts & frogs.  Would be dreadful to come home and find the house stinky cuz they all died!

[MikeW]

Good news indeed.
For a six week holiday, I would tolerate even a minor disaster - so you win on both fronts.

Cheers,

Mike

[Jerry]

Your headline scared me. I was worried about a 3 day absence... I think the biggest fear is having the water level drop below the skimmer and having the pump stop pumping.  I don't think a sitter could handle that

[emm]

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