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I started construction in November 2003 and had it filled
up with water within a week. The stones I use are Bermuda stones I salvaged
from the destruction caused by hurricane Fabian back in September, 2003.
For liner, I bought some Permalon 20 mil liner from the USA. The pond
measures about 3 feet by 3 feet by 2 feet deep.
Since the weather started to get cold at that time, I only put in 7 mosquito
fish (Gambusia affinis) I captured from Bermuda’s City Hall pond
to keep the mosquito larva out. As far as I know, these mosquito fish
did not breed over the winter. They are voracious eaters and I’m
sure if they did have any babies, they were all eaten. I took the mosquito
fish out in early May and returned them to the City Hall pond. I was surprised
they all survived the winter. They looked rather thin.
I replaced the fish with 4 guppies (Poecilia (Libestes) Reticulata) I
got from Jonathan Flood and within a week, I saw babies swimming around.
These babies were growing at least twice the rate as the babies I had
in my office aquarium. I also put in 3 Red Wag Platies (Xiphophorus Maculatus)
in June, 2004.
I also got some water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) from Craig Morfitt
and tossed in some Java Moss (Vesi-cularia dubyana) I got from Jay Exner.
I’m not sure if the Java Moss will do well in an outdoor pond environment.
Due to the location of the pond, it was getting pounded by wind from the
north in the winter months. The water hyacinth Craig gave me, which had
foot-long stalks at the time, started to turn brown and died off from
the cold wind burn. They’ve since recovered and are growing a more
bulbous stalk than the elongated ones.
I haven't seen any tadpoles or tree frogs in the pond and thought it was
weird. The Bermuda tree frog (Eleutherodactylus johnstonei and Eleutherodactylus
gossei) usually just laid their eggs in pools of water collected in leaf
litters. I found one the other night and thought it would be cool to have
one in my pond. I put it on one of the water hyacinths, and it hopped
off right away into the water. It looked back at me with all 4 limbs outstretched
and sunk like a rock into the dark depth of the pond. I had a sudden horrible
flashback of Leonardo DiCaprio sinking into his watery grave from the
movie Titanic.Oops.
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