The koi died in Koimageddon a year or two ago. The pond is now an amphibian sanctuary.  Home to a few dozen Water Lilies, a few gold fish, guppies, lots of polliwogs and a nightly frog concert.

Historical Pond Stories and Photos here

Life is Good

Unfortunately because of Koimageddon the pickings are slim, unless you like frog legs.

Happy Thanksgiving to All!

I am thankful that I can live in beautiful Southern California

with the resources to have an urban lifestyle and a rural ecosystem. 

Life is Good!

To put it in perspective here it is with a ruler:

About 1 and a half inches

This probably would have happened if there hadn’t been Koimegeddon (man induced massive Koi death) which at the time I saw as an unmitigated disaster.

Reuben my “non-executive assistant” and I scooped out two buckets of crap and replanted and fed all of the lilies.  We’ll see if it works in a week or so.

July 24, 2011

July 20, 2011

To be fair some of the number decrease might be the result of dispersion.  You can use the jar impression to judge the growth of the Tadpoles.

Semantic aside:  Tadpoles and Polliwogs are two names for the frog phase between spawn and frog.  Tadpole is more commonly used in the USA and polliwog is more common in the UK.  The Spanish word in Mexico is renacuajo.

As you can see they are tiny and there are lots.  This was one scoop with the tiny net.  This is a top view. Unfortunately I don’t really know how to take pictures of things in jars….yet.

More Pond Blogs

Lily Pond Photos on Flickr

Lillian discovered them over the weekend and found a link to a small website that explains lots about the Bull Frog life cycle.  There are now thousands of tiny tadpoles in the pond.  It will be very interesting to see how many of them survive to become frogs.  We might be eating frog legs soon.  Are they Kosher?

Koimageddon**: The death of the Koi last month was essential to this remarkable event.  Previously even if the frog had laid eggs in the pond the Koi would have eaten them.  What we don’t know is whether the eggs were fertilized.  Stay tuned.

* Spawn is a noun meaning fish and amphibian eggs that have been laid and a verb that means to lay those eggs.  The derivative meaning is to give birth to something.  As in: “He spawned a wave of derivative products.”

** Koimageddon is taken from “Carmageddon” the closing of one of the major freeways in the LA area this weekend.

Last Friday evening I left the hose running into my pond and by morning all of the fish were dead.  No they didn’t drown.  They were poisoned by the Chloramine in the tap water.

RIP Fish

It was the Chernobyl disaster of my pond.  Fortunately I had some mosquito fish in the small fountain and the frog survived so there will be some fauna continuity.  The frog probably survived because he has been adjusting to chemicals by taking nightly swims in the pool.

The plan now is to restart the pond with local fish and more lilies.  It should be beautiful, environmentally sound and much easier to take care of.

This Lily flowered two days after the fish disaster

Stay Tuned  The Lily Pond Album on Flickr

and them used the skimmer net to scoop him back into the pond.  At the end of the ordeal he was barely moving but twenty minutes later he had gone back into hiding.  We have no idea how long he was in the swimming pool or even if he is a he.  Lillian gave him the name Randolph Meyer and it has stuck.

Randolph is bigger than an iPhone but smaller than an iPad.  About the size of a large sunglasses case.

Lesson:  A pool is not a pond.  Or?