Billy's Pot Pond - How to Make a Water Garden Container Pond

Billy's Updates - Updates are in chronological order, oldest first.

06.24.00 - The pond accidentally got a dose of Diazinon. 2 of the little gold fish feeders we bought died prior to the application. Probably from whatever. After the Diazinon, one other died. One feeder is left. We have an ant problem. Be it cold, hot, wet, it doesn't matter, they get into the house. Diazinon kills them dead. Now don't go sending me hate mail about using chemicals. If you're cupboards and showers got infested every time it got cold out or the sprinkler came on, you'd do something drastic, too. Some of it accidentally got into the pond. I can't say for sure if it killed the third fish, but it's dead, Jim. About the same time it croaked I threw in a fancy tailed gold fish. Pretty little thing. White and red with lots of black spots. We call him Andromeda because the black spots look like stars. He was shy at first, but now comes up to the top when we stand next to the pond because he wants to be fed. He's doing great. (Why do I call everything "he"?)

Billy's House 07.05.00 - The algae started to set in last week. The water is clear, but the sides of the pot have a brownish-green growth, more towards the surface. Must be the sunlight. I plan on getting a plecostomous to control it. Problem is, like koi, they get big. I tried catching one of the ones in my aquarium to throw into the pond, but they are uncatchable. Sorta gave me the creeps to feel him wiggling around in the net. I could never get a good grip on him to lift him out so I left him alone. I'll get a baby one at the pet store. Billy got BIG!!! Even Boo-boo the water lettuce did. See the picture? Billy practically covers half the surface of the water. Boo-boo's in the lower left. Still no flower on Billy, though. I don't think the pot gets enough sun, but I don't dare move it because of the intense Sacramento heat. Last week we were in the 100's again, but his past week it's been in the 80's. You couldn't have asked for nicer weather over the 4th of July weekend. I also added a 3rd pot with plants. They were out of azelea pots so I had to go with a larger one. That's why it's sitting higher than the other two pots. Man, we even started naming the plants. Don't ask.

07.08.00 - The algae already has a good start. Even thought the pot only receives a couple of hours of sunlight a day, the part of the pot exposed to the sun had the most algae. If you look at the picture above and divide it in half vertically and then tilt the axis to about 1:00, those are the "hours" where the algae grew the most. So I went to get 2 small algae eaters at PetsMart about 2 inches long. I was surprised they even survived. A clerk had to be paged because no one was in the aquarium section. She came scurrying up the isle, wiping sweat off her forehead. She was busy doing something else, but it wasn't cleaning up the 50 gallon tank that had cracked during the night with water and yellow caution cones down the isles. I told her what I wanted and she chased them around the tank and swooped them up. As she was taking them out of the net, one fell onto the floor. She threw that one back into the tank and chased another. Then she bagged them up and twisted the heck out of them while putting on the rubber band. WAIT! It wasn't over. She double bagged them them and twisted them again. I have never in my life seen a "fish person" abuse fish in this manner. It was as if I had interrupted what she was doing and she needed to get back to it in a hurry. I had no idea if they were going to survive. I acclimated the fish by floating the bag in the pot for about 20 minutes. When I took them out they went straight to the bottom. Most new fish do. The next morning about 75% of the algae was gone. They've been doing a great job ever since.

07.11.00 - The water was starting to get murky. Not really cloudy, but there seemed to be a lot of suspended "things" in the water. I drained about a 1/4 of the pot and refreshed it. In doing so, I busted Billy (the water hyacinth) in half. He was so big that when I lifted him out of the pot I broke his butt. Ok, I felt bad, but the damage had been done so I started trimming the browning leaves. Boo Boo (the water lettuce) is massive also and he's going to need a trimming soon. He's sending out shoots like crazy. Billy still has no flowers.

07.23.00 - Here's a picture of me next to the pond. Today is going to hit very close to 100. It's about 1:45 right now and it's 92. About 4:00 or 5:00 is when we'll really feel the heat. The next two days are going to be over 100. Lovely. I guess "Miller Time" will start early today! What the heck, it's Sunday.

I had to trim Billy again. I also took a few of Boo Boo's new shoots and and put them in my aquarium. We'll see what happens. The fish seem to be happy. Andromeda, the fancy tailed gold fish survived the Diazinon treatment. He's also trained. He knows he's going to be feed when someone walks up to the pond. He comes to the surface and waits, much like a dog that hears the fridge door opening.

And here is the picture everyone is waiting for. It's the Yard Killer herself, Jen. She's getting to be quite famous in the IPS Web Ring. A lot of the emails I get say, "Oh, by the way, say hi to Jen" or "Give the yard killer my regards". She's 22. Her older sister, Karen (24) said, "You put my sister on the internet?!!! The internet is evil!" Yes, Karen, but I did it tastefully. LOL. I'll have to see if I can corner Karen long enough to snap a picture of her.

I had a message waiting for me this morning from Mike in Ohio. You have GOT to see the pond he built. Mike's a member of the IPS Web Ring, also. He really did a super job on his pond.

Until next time, keep digging....or NOT!