Four months ago, we built a fish pond out of a galvanized stock tank.
Did it survive its first summer? How did it turn out? Pretty good,
I think.
Hi, I'm Tim and welcome to this episode of The Shades of Green Show,
which is basically just a end of summer update on the first summer for
our stock tank koi pond. We, uh, unveiled this back in early to mid-May,
and we've just had one of our hottest and driest summers on record. So,
I thought it'd be a good time to see how we fared our first summer.
I've always said that if anything can survive it's first summer in Texas,
it's probably gonna be okay. So here we are in mid-September.
You can tell because my, uh, gator here is chomping on pumpkins.
So it's that time of year. Definitely approaching fall. Anyway, uh,
I would say it was a smashing success. Uh,
starting over here on my far left with the, uh, hardy hibiscus.
This one's called Airbrush Effect. It has been blooming all summer. Uh,
flowers the size of my face. That's been very nice,
and I expect next year that to be maybe another foot taller.
That's been going great.
My American Water Willow here in the center did fantastic. Behind me,
we had a Chawan Basu Lotus. It actually bloomed twice,
which I normally don't expect a lotus to bloom the first year,
but that one gave me two gorgeous blooms. Check out these photos.
Just looked amazing. My yellow water lily, my white water lily,
again, blooming all summer long. We do have a little bit of shade over these,
and I think that's a good thing.
Had this been out in full sun with the summer we had,
I would've lost a ton of water to evaporation.
We had 70 plus days of triple digits. Uh,
that's either actual temperature or heat index or both.
And we also had one of the, uh, top five driest summers ever. So,
I would've been constantly topping this off if it was out in the sun.
I also think being as shallow as it is at only two feet and having a metal
edging, if this were out in the full sun, the water would've gotten really,
really hot and koi and goldfish tend to die if their water gets above a hundred
degrees, which I couldn't promise that this wouldn't.
But here under the shade with all this thermal mass around it from the soil and
the rock, uh, it's been very well insulated.
The water has maintained a pretty constant temperature of about a 15 degree
range. And, uh, all the koi are happy. The koi, the goldfish,
they're doing fantastic. My Gambusia population has exploded, as it often does.
I would say the biggest success is this filter back here.
The Dollarweed has just gone nuts, Folks, that started with one little,
uh, pint-size plant and then two little sprigs at either end.
And it has taken over the entire filter that again, is filled with LECA.
That light expanded clay aggregate, those little bitty lightweight, um,
expanded clay pellets. Looks like cocoa pebbles. Um,
doesn't taste as good though. Anyway, the uh, dollarweed has just taken over.
If you live in Houston, you probably see this growing in your yard cuz it's,
it's, uh, warm enough and wet enough for that to happen. Uh,
but it makes an amazing filter because it has such a, uh, massive root system.
And our water has been crystal clear.
From the time we filled this to the time the water cleared up,
probably about two and a half weeks,
and we've had perfect water quality ever since. Lastly,
I'll point out the elephant ear behind me.
As I mentioned back in our previous video,
which you can watch by clicking this link right here. Uh,
this was a one gallon plant that we found, uh, neglected,
abandoned in the corner of the shade house behind some other larger shrubs that
we shove everything in there to keep it safe during the winter.
And how this one wound up where it did, we don't know. Uh, it was almost dead.
We put it in the ground, it's gotten some fertilizer and has just exploded.
Looking amazing. About the only thing that's,
that we planted that suffered at all was this, uh, purple Creeping Jenny. Uh,
the, uh, green or yellow Creeping Jenny is doing fine. But this, uh,
darker colored stuff just did not farewell.
It's starting to green back up again. Uh, give me a little color.
It did not like the intense heat that we have. And I am facing south,
so it gets a lot of sun. Uh, but other than that, happy fish,
clear water, beautiful plants. What more could you want from a,
from a fish pond? Um, all in all, a success.
We made it through our first summer. We get through our first winter. Uh,
we should be good to go. So that's it for this episode.
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