Friday 23 January 2015

Converting our Swimming Pool to a Natural Pond with Edible Fish (2)

Our lilies are blooming right now, and thriving in the stabilised pool
Why would we take a perfectly good swimming pool and make it go green?
because......

Now We Have Fish (and Marron)
 It took us about three months to stabilise our swimming pool so we could introduce plant life and not have it die. At this stage it is still an ugly swimming pool shape and leaves much to be desired aesthetically.

But we have plans.... Right now the focus is on getting the aquatic life balanced so we can see the bottom of the pool oops I meant pond. Then we'll work on making it more attractive.
Marginal plants sit temporarily on the pool steps
 I did some reading and discovered there are three types of plants I need.  Submerged, marginal and floating plants. All filter the water, by converting the nitrates produced from fish poop into leaves. They are expensive, so we are buying them a few at  time.
Floaty things look horrible but gets the plants into the deep end


We went to a local lake and Nick waded out into the mud and scooped up a heap of duckweed and azolla. We took two buckets home and dumped it in the pond. What we should have done, however, is first soak the weed in a strong solution of potassium permanganate ("Condy's Christals") for 24 hours before washing it and introducing it. This treatment would have killed the parasites which could infect the fish. It was after the weed went into the pond that I remembered my parasitology unit from my Medical Science days: a significant number of parasites rely on fish, snails and poop being part of the ecosystem for the lifecycle to continue.
Our silver perch have increased by 60%  in 18 days

Not to worry: we have no snails in the pond yet: lifecycle broken and crisis averted. Next time, however, we will take precautions when using wild plants.

On the fifth of January, 2015, I bought 30 silver perch and 10 marron. I had wanted barramundi but they were out of stock. I also wanted yabbies, however they had escaped their prison and run away during the Christmas break, and so were also no longer in stock.

With great excitement, we introduced our purchases into the pond. Because we are not loading up the pond, we don't need aeration: the surface area is sufficient for self-aeration from the wind. And certainly, even during the hot days, the fish have frolicked happily in the deep end.

Every morning I cook up an egg from the girls (our hens), chop it up finely, and toss it into the pond. The fish boil the water snatching the pieces of egg. The gambezi scarper with it in their mouths for later consumption, usually followed by 10 or so muggers, and the perch just hoover up the larger bits. Feeding fish is hugely entertaining!

Watching the silver perch hoover the larger egg pieces explains why we don't see any baby gambezi any more: they fit neatly into the perches' mouth. As the feeder fish, they are doing a great job! We could go away for a month, and our system will survive without us.

We think we have around 25 perch left. I think the marron got the rest because we have never seen any bodies floating on the water. I found half an adult gambezi floating in the pond the other day, neatly snipped in half:  evidence they are still hidden in the bottom of the pond.


No comments:

Post a Comment