.

Here is Milton at feeding time. I give the goldfish some "goldfish flakes" from Wal Mart. They seem to like these. I sprinkle them in one area of the pond. So far they do not come when they see me; instead they hide and once they see the food floating around and I step back, they start munching.

After months of "pea soup" water, I refilled the entire pond and started over. My pond water has been very clear for about 6 weeks now. It does not even have a green tint. Contributing to this success are: my mechanical filter, my gravity bio filter, my trickle tower, and all the hyancith and water lettuce that has finally grown to a reasonable size. Before, I had only the bio filter which I think was having problems because water retention was low - the bucket is small and the pump was going at 450 gph (now it sends half to the trickle tower.) Also, flowers were there but water lettuce which has now expanded to 6 or 7 florets per plant had only one floret each - same with the hyancyth. I would like to isolate the effect to see if it is one thing or all that are contributing, but I don't want to sacrifice water quality to do this! I have only been treating the pond with beneficial pond bacteria (from Petsmart) and no chemicals.

I can see down to the bottom of my pond completely clearly (it is about 2 feet to the bottom.) The fish are visible even from the house through the window. This is amazing to me.

The first photo is of Samuelson, he is only about an inch down. It is hard to catcha nice pic of anyone but Milton, so this was a success. The second photo is my ever-photogenic Milton. He is about an inch down also.

The last picture to the left here is almost the whole crew (missing Samuelson.) We've got the Shubunkin (speckled one) named Nash, below him the little white one is Vernon. Bazerman is higher than everyone else, and you can see Milton's tail below him. Milton is pretty much laying on the bottom of the pond 2 feet down.

I added goldfish to the pond right after my filters were ready - this was about a month ago now. I bought 5 goldfish at Wal Mart - 3 plain ones for 28 cents, and a fintail and Shubunkin for $1.88 each. (you can see the fintail and the head of one of the plain goldfish at left, hiding under some roots from the hyancyth). They have grown a lot already since I have gotten them, and they are almost trained now to come over when they see someone coming to the pond since we like to feed them. They dart around the pond in a little group which is very fun to watch. The Shubunkin is particularly cute, but difficult to see in the water against a dark background. The fintail is one of the most friendly and is almost never scared - I do not know if it just maybe can't swim as fast? The others will usually dart away under the plants if I come too close. I think they have a nice habitat in the pond with all of the shade from the plants that I have.