Well, thanks for the compliments--building this was a lot of work--but actually, Gilda's right. Our pond is an open system, constantly being rejuvenated with new water, and it's certainly not being gardened. It's about all I can do to keep the grass on the banks weed-eated.

The kinds of ponds this club is about are closed systems, anything from those black, hard-shell forms that are a couple feet on each side, to setups that are much more elaborate, ponds ten or twelve or twenty feet per side, dug three feet or so into the ground, lined with flexible rubber liners over sand or paper, water pumped and filtered through sand or some synthetic material to encourage the growth of nitrifying bacteria, etc.. That's real water gardening, where you have to put in effort to balance the system, keep the water reasonably clear and free from excessive algae, where you're actually tending and growing plants and fish that rely on you for their care.

So please don't be intimidated--I really just posted this because it's the pond we've got, and I wanted to get the ball rolling. It really doesn't fit with what this club is supposed to be about.

So let's see you guys' setups: maintaining a healthy closed system of any size takes some doing, and the smaller it is, the more fluctuations there are going to be, the harder it's going to be to take care of. If you're successful with a small thing, *that's* impressive, and that's what this club is about--in my eyes anyway, people showing through experience what works in small, closed aquatic systems, and what doesn't.

Ok?

Ok.

So let's see 'em!