Late Summer Tub Pond Check-in: How are your ponds doing, folks?

[PineSong]

 

Not sure if mid-August counts as late summer wherever you are, but here the kids are back in school and my guess is that Meijer will have Halloween stuff out the next time I'm there, so I thought it would be a good time to see how everybody's ponds are doing? 

This was my first year with a pond and I learned a hard lesson: be careful what you wish for!

My tub started out with 20+ male guppies, 5 gold WCMMs, and 6 koi swordtails. Since the swords were not all male, I was prepared for babies. BUT not for this many. I'm literally afraid of how many juvenile swordtails I will find when I start pulling from this pond. When I look down below the surface, pretty much anyplace I look, there's a baby swordtail. 

Next year, I think I will stick with the male guppies and WCMMS because the guppies are more visible and interactive--they always swarm the surface when I go out to look at them, while the swordtails lurk in the depths. The gold white clouds are highly visible even though they are skittish. I won't be putting anything in to breed next summer--just to vacation in the sun.

I've had one water lily bloom. Would love to have more but even that one was magical.

Here's my pond today:

 

 

 

[Beau Burkhalter]

That’s awesome. I set up a permanently outside one this summer with longear sunfish. No breeding yet but hopefully this spring they will start. I’m in Alabama and I’m gonna try to overwinter firemouths outside because I’ve heard of people doing it in much colder environments. Can’t wait to see how that goes…