Water Gardening: Pond Inhabitants

Every spring I look forward to my little green friends starting to sun themselves. One warm day three of them were hanging out around the edge of the little pond. We used to have a lot of trouble keeping these Green Frogs around. I decided that I had 2 main problems: I kept the pond bottom too clean and I had too many big koi in the pond.

The frogs need muck to overwinter and if the pond bottom is thoroughly cleaned every year maybe the frogs don't have as natural a habitat as they need. I left our larger pond uncleaned for about 4 or 5 years and that is when our frog population grew. Now I clean it every couple of years early in the summer so the muck can build up again. It needs it this year.

(I think this guy thought he was hiding...not his best side!)

Around that same time I had a massive spring die-off of our koi. We had 12-15 very large koi in our larger pond and if any died it was always in the spring as the temps warmed and the koi had to adjust to the rapid changes. Every spring we might lose one or two but one year we lost them all. After that we switched to goldfish and the frogs multiplied. The koi were eating the eggs, tadpoles, the smaller frogs and also most baby fish. Watching the frogs that did visit we could see that they didn't even like to go into the water with the big fish. Now, several years after losing the koi, one day last summer I stood by the two ponds and counted 23 young frogs on the lily pads and around the edges. A bumper crop!
So those are my theories based on my observations around our ponds.

However, coming into this year we have way too many goldfish in the ponds. You can see some of them here. Goldfish breed like crazy! They seriously pollute the water if they get out of balance. They are also very hard to net without pumping out most of the water...expensive.
And so now I have one koi in the pond to help keep the goldfish under control - they will eat the eggs and babies. Sorry! Just part of natural selection! I actually put 2 koi in there last year but in our big flood this spring when I really hoped the goldfish would swim away, one of the koi left for parts unknown instead. Oh well...I might get one more this year. I really like the koi but they are also death on water lilies and other plants. When I clean the pond I'll get most of the goldfish out, too, and take them to a local pond nursery.

I'm hoping with just one or two koi the frogs will still be able to stay and multiply. One of the biggest challenges in keeping a water garden healthy is achieving a good balance in lots of different areas, including the critters. (My granddaughter who loves the frogs wasn't too happy to see a snake around the pond last year as it helped keep the frog population under control. We've also had egrets and kingfishers visit our outdoor diner.)
Pond tip of the day: when you get into the water to clean the pond don't forget to pull the plug on the pump!