Wildlife pond

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AlaninCarlisle

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Re: Wildlife pond
« Reply #30 on: September 23, 2017, 15:24 »
The goldfish seem to be thriving after they were introduced in late June. They are perceptibly larger than they were, so presumably they are eating the abundant insect life. As we get to winter and the insect life dies out, do I need to start to feed them?

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8doubles

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Re: Wildlife pond
« Reply #31 on: September 23, 2017, 18:05 »
As the water cools the fishes digestive system slows down and they are less active , try a little floating food pellet if they are active.
Goldfish also graze algae and even get nutrients from the green algae in the water.

Even in winter a few insects and worms will fall in to supplement their diet.

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AlaninCarlisle

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Re: Wildlife pond
« Reply #32 on: August 11, 2018, 21:11 »
Well, here we are 15 months since the pond was started. It looks like it has been there for ten years, so well has it naturalised.
The original 12 goldfish are now down to 7 but at least 3 tiddlers offspring have survived as well so we are doing OK with a total of 10 fish plus a couple of newts. Some of the tadpoles made it to frog stage and I even found one in one of the drinking troughs used by the ponies. The insect life is even more fascinating than the fish with a huge variety of aquatic  beetles.
Also fascinating is watching the tiny silvery young goldfish trying to keep up with their elders as they do circuits of the pond.
I'm just grateful for the field standpipe which combined with 60 metres of hosepipe has enabled me to dribble water in throughout the 7 week drought, which now seems like a distant memory

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AlaninCarlisle

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Re: Wildlife pond
« Reply #33 on: April 16, 2019, 17:22 »
No rain in weeks. That along with almost non-stop strong winds meant that I once again had to top it up with hosepipe and stand-pipe. I cannot remember a late winter and early spring as dry as this. Good new is that it's alive with tadpoles, various water-beetles, snails and the population of gold-fish seems to have doubled - no doubt the beggars have been feeding on the tadpoles and spawn!



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