Some photos for your enjoyment.

For you aquarium lovers. The first two photos are of Albino Cory’s that just finished spawning in a 25-gal brass fish aquarium. One BCB is being used in a sump underneath the tank to help biological filtrating and to keep phosphates and nitrates down below 5-ppm. The BCB under the tank has been there far the past 15-years now and the Cory’s are still alive today but much bigger in size than 10-years ago.

[ED: I still have one small Bumblebee catfish still alive in this tank far 15-years.]

The next photo shows a very crowded but clean pond using an AFS of about 4000-gals. This pond is use as a grow-out pond for the fry that are born in early spring. About four years ago a child fell into this pond during the Midwest Pond and Koi Societies pond tour and the owners determined that showing their pond(s) was not a good idea any longer. That’s one reason my pond is an above ground pond because of safety reasons and the simplicity of maintenance.

The last photos are of a planted large ceramic half moon container that was planted up at the end of my pond for the summer. To water the container all I used was old pond water and it seem to do just fine for the plants to flourish.

This morning it was 11˚ F [-11.67˚C] but the pond is still at 44˚ F [6.67˚C] because of the plastic cover over it. A lot of hobbyists here in Illinois cover their ponds because of the extremely cold weather we have here to keep their ponds from freezing over. The B&W photo shows just how bad it can get; there is an above ground pond somewhere under all that snow.

This last photo shows the plastic 6-mil cover that I place on the pond in October every year. The PVC pipes are bent and fasten in with brass 3/8 screw holes in top cap. PVC bent fittings with S/S screws glued into them holed the bent 1/2" PVC pipes that you can get at any hardware store. Because my pond is above ground it’s easy to cover with just one person doing it. The cover will come off in late spring after the trees are done flowering. Without this cover the pond would become a big mess with fall foliage and spring flowers and stamens.

The AFS runs all year long with never getting shut down in winter because of this setup. Five years ago the AFS was shutdown far the winter months and allowed to freeze up then restarted in early spring with no problems to the inhabitants of the pond because the filter would never really die off like conventional filters do. The Facultative bacteria just use other food sources or go dormant until food availability is there once again.

I hope everyone has a good 2015 New Year.

Cheers,

Kevin