Pond Stuff (floating planter, filtration)
I just went outside to do some work in the pond and mosquitoes devoured my feet and ankles. Ouch.
Well, the original floating planter had to go. When no one was looking, Al would climb up into it and tear up the plants. He ate a few leaves off of the taro (very bad, due to all the oxalates) and also bit most of the stems off of the papyrus. He bit off and even tore out a lot of the moneywort.
(I want to emphasize that Al eats very well. He has a pond full of edible plants and he poops huge amounts of vegetable matter. Every other day he gets meat-based pellets. He just wants to eat different things and tear them up. He's not tearing up these plants because he's hungry, but because that is natural turtle foraging behavior.)
So tonight I took the tortilla planter, set it inside a thin, clear plastic saucer, and put that into the skippy. I hope the saucer will help contain the roots. I don't want the roots going down into the filter media, because it makes it a pain to take apart.
Then I cut the foam and wrapped it around the small planter that the pickerellweed was in. I set that into the pond. Because the planter is so small, it floats very high in the water- it might be too high for him to easily mess with it, and it is too small for him to climb into it. I tucked the remaining bits of moneywort into that little planter. I hope it recovers.
Because I took out a lot of WH the other day, there is now a lot of space in the pond. I need to get some barley straw to combat the string algae- we went to Petsmart the other day but they were out of the straw pads.
The fish are multiplying like crazy! I see a lot of them these days.
The plants are creating a lot of debris and I really need some kind of prefilter. I was looking at the Aquaclear pads and they are actually pretty coarse. I think that I could buy some of the largest of those, and use a small disposable food storage container as a prefilter box- I could make lots of small holes and then layer the foam all around the pump. This might also make it harder for Al to detach the hose from the pump. I don't want the prefilter to be anythign too complex or hard to clean, and I want the foam to be very coarse. We'll see what happens.
I am also thinking that it is time to flush out the bottom of the skippy, just to see how much debris has accumulated in there. I will need R's help with that.
Well, the original floating planter had to go. When no one was looking, Al would climb up into it and tear up the plants. He ate a few leaves off of the taro (very bad, due to all the oxalates) and also bit most of the stems off of the papyrus. He bit off and even tore out a lot of the moneywort.
(I want to emphasize that Al eats very well. He has a pond full of edible plants and he poops huge amounts of vegetable matter. Every other day he gets meat-based pellets. He just wants to eat different things and tear them up. He's not tearing up these plants because he's hungry, but because that is natural turtle foraging behavior.)
So tonight I took the tortilla planter, set it inside a thin, clear plastic saucer, and put that into the skippy. I hope the saucer will help contain the roots. I don't want the roots going down into the filter media, because it makes it a pain to take apart.
Then I cut the foam and wrapped it around the small planter that the pickerellweed was in. I set that into the pond. Because the planter is so small, it floats very high in the water- it might be too high for him to easily mess with it, and it is too small for him to climb into it. I tucked the remaining bits of moneywort into that little planter. I hope it recovers.
Because I took out a lot of WH the other day, there is now a lot of space in the pond. I need to get some barley straw to combat the string algae- we went to Petsmart the other day but they were out of the straw pads.
The fish are multiplying like crazy! I see a lot of them these days.
The plants are creating a lot of debris and I really need some kind of prefilter. I was looking at the Aquaclear pads and they are actually pretty coarse. I think that I could buy some of the largest of those, and use a small disposable food storage container as a prefilter box- I could make lots of small holes and then layer the foam all around the pump. This might also make it harder for Al to detach the hose from the pump. I don't want the prefilter to be anythign too complex or hard to clean, and I want the foam to be very coarse. We'll see what happens.
I am also thinking that it is time to flush out the bottom of the skippy, just to see how much debris has accumulated in there. I will need R's help with that.