yonny

The storm on Friday gone was a nightmare for the leaves.... I put a net over the pond but it was useless. I'm worried about the leaves blocking up the bottom drain and filter, and drawing oxygen out of the water as they decay. I have the local expert round tonight to quote for replacing the skimmer system and I've ordered the best temporary skimmer you can get. Should do the job for now, but we'll wait to see the cost of the the permanent solution 😬

That's an expensive way to feed the nuisance species!

Yeah sounds like it.... shame.

@jh92 how are the nuisance species?

I think you guys misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting they might not be fully waterproof. I'm suggesting the theory that plugs might help with water ingress is preposterous.

You'd hope so 🤣

I personally would be absolutely raging if I needed to plug speakers to avoid water ingress 🤦‍♂️

No idea about a hard reset. Silly question but are you absolutely sure the heads are the remote version?

Yeah I did years ago. I used live ones, dead ones, dehydrated/dried ones.... and they were all rubbish. Imo the carp get on the (natural) snails simply because it's the easiest food source to harvest at the time. They're tuned into the food sources available in their watercourse and I don't think you can compete with that with any snails apart from those that are plucked out of the venue - so @jh92 has the right idea. Even then, there are other natural baits (maggots and worms) that will do a much better job of competing. The snail discussion comes up every few years. Lots of guys try it. Hardly anyone has any real success. Imho, snails are just not a great bait.

The other one (white with light orange - a Kohaku??) aint as big as it looks in the photo, maybe 20 lb at a push. Still, a great fish. It's a Doitsu which for those who don't know means leather/lightly scaled mirror. They sound like bangers mate, especially the zip karashigoi... looking forward to seeing them.

Popped out to get a photo last night. It's the one fish in the pond that's not a koi. It's an albino grass carp. Despite its mental golden colour, this one was always going to be tricky to get a shot of as it tends not to come up for food, preferring to mooch around about a meter under the surface like a massive orange submarine. It has to be nearly a meter long but v tricky to put a weight on. It's certainly the longest fish in the pond but not the biggest. Maybe 26-27 lb? This is the fish that's had all our visitors giving it "oooooh" and "aaaaah" which is silly because there's 2 or 3 that are a fair bit bigger, but the length just blows people way. I just call it The Big Grassie. Again, apologies for the poor pic quality.

Funny, I was looking at these online yesterday! Glad to hear they work!

Destructive creatures aint they?!! I think I'll just take the lily out. I'll want to give them some shade come spring/summer, I'll figure out how in due course.

I'd planned to introduce another kipper today but was busy as owt last night and didn't get the chance for photos. I did manage a quick filter clean on dark and grabbed a shot of how the pond's looking now. You'll notice I've removed most of the plants, basically taking it back to a blank canvas to help me visualise what I want to do with it. The water still isn't quite as clear as I'd like, probably due to the fact the UV filter hadn't been changed in ages. This was done last week so hoping to see an improvement for the weekend. Although I don't want to, I may have to remove the water lily too. The carp are smashing it to bits as it dies back for winter which really isn't helping the clarity. Not sure which would keep the carp happier tbh... keep the lily at the expense of water quality or get rid at the expense of the carps favourite 'toy'!

I have another pond down in the main garden with goldfish in.... the heron can have them! Otters...... now there's a scary thought. We're 3 miles away from the Nene... but there's a small brook just 250m away. Fencing the pond, or the garden, isn't really possible. Maybe a steel mesh over the top of the pond when I'm not around?