Relief!

Never thought I'd be thinking of 94 degrees as a source of relief, but this past week we've seen day upon day of triple digit temperatures.

100, 101, 102, 104 and, yes, 105!

I don't think I have ever before in my life experienced 105 degrees in a place I called home.

Pond Mates

This picture was taken yesterday, the second day of the magically clear pond. Believe it or not, today it looks even clearer, but I didn't do any shooting. It's still a complete mystery to me how the pond went from being the absolute murky mess it was on Sunday to such clarity, literally overnight.

This was taken as some sunlight fell upon the pond, which is necessary in order to capture a decent shot of Blue. Blue and Dreamcicle are now the only remaining pond mates in the Buddha Pond.

Magical Mojo Mystery

This is more good news, but a mystery nonetheless.

Besides the loss of Keybo in June, the most anxiety producing aspect of the Buddha Pond this season was the fact that, after 7 years of relatively painless maintenance, it seemed to completely lose its Mojo.

I have an over abundance of theories as to why this happened, but most will remain just that, theories, and untested ones at that.

Was it the bizzare Winter we had in '06/'07, where frigid temperatures came in October, nearly two months ahead of schedule, then turned into an unusually warm Winter that last almost to the end of January? Was it the early hot Spring we had in March that made the trees leaf out 3 weeks ahead of schedule, followed by a killer 3 day frost in early April that killed them all, making the trees have to start over and make new leaves?

Who knows? My earliest problems did have to do with way more string algae than I'd ever had a problem with before. I blamed that on the warm Winter and then the extended lack of shade over the pond after the leaves all fell off.

Perhaps it's how I tried to deal with that problem. I used an algae control chemical, from TetraPond, that I had never used before. It's active ingredient is Poly [Oxyethylene (Dimethyliminio) Ethylene (Dimethyliminio) Ethylene Dichloride]. For years I had been using these little white cake things called PondBlock (active ingredient Copper Sulfate pentahydrate), but they don't seem to be very effective when the water is cold. Again, at that time, in the early Spring, my main problem was string algae, with no noticable suspended algae.

For the longest time it seemed that neither product was working. The string algae wouldn't budge.

Then came all the health problems and the eventual death of Keybo. When I first saw Keybo's infected eye, I panicked. I started using a Fish Treatment from TetraPond that I had never used before. It contained Formaldehyde and Quinine-Hydrochoride. Previously the closest thing to an anti-bacterial I had used was MelaFix. For several years that seemed to do everything I needed insofar as healing various fish sores, etc. But like I said, I panicked, and I started using stronger medicine.

Then came the day I tested the water and Ammonia and Nitrites were off the charts. It's been so many years since I had any problems controlling these that I can't remember the last time I saw them above zero.

Right or wrong, I came to the conclusion that I had managed to kill off too much bacteria, even the beneficial stuff. Soon after the death of Keybo things got to a point where it was as if I was starting the pond anew. There was no algae, but also, apparently, no Mojo. I was back to where I was in the first season we had fish in the pond, chasing my tail trying to manage toxicity and clarity in the water.

During the entire month of July I was making weekly water changes. The toxicity was getting under control, but then a new problem came in the way of suspended algae. I would change water and it would look great, for about a day. As the week progressed, each day the pond would get cloudier and cloudier. Within 3 days it would be nearly impossible to see the fish unless they came right up to the surface. Water changes, clarifying agents and plants seem to be doing me no good, at least not in the long run.

My last water change was on July 29. The water continued to look good a little longer than previously, maybe about 3 days, but it was obviously clouding up again, just a little slower than usual. I had to accept that as progress. It looked certain I would be doing another water change on the weekend. But the weekend came and I didn't do it on Saturday. I also blew it off on Sunday, and it was looking pretty bad. I had been monitoring for toxicity all along, and that was zero, as it should be, but the water again looked like thick, green soup. So I told myself I was going to have to deal with it by Monday for sure.

Monday morning, as if by magic, the water was clear. The clearest water I had seen since early June. You could see the gravel on the bottom of the pond, easily. Better yet, Tuesday morning, today, it's even clearer. Like sparkling clear drinking water.

Just to make sure there wasn't something wicked going on, I did the whole battery of water tests this morning and everything tested out great.

We're having a heat wave. The water this morning was 82 degrees F. Could that be it? I dunno. I'm a little weary on theory at this point.

It's a Magical Mojo Mystery.

The Boss is Back

I'm referring to Dreamcicle, the queen of the pond. Some good news, for a change.

She had me worried through most of July. She just was not acting like her old self at all, and there was no way of being certain whether it was from illness or trying to get used to the new configuration of just two fish, herself and Blue.

In the past I've always treated the pond and not the fish, per se. So, for the first time, I used Medi-Koi food to treat the fish, believing that Dreamcicle was possibly dying a slow death, just like Keybo apparently did. I used it for 10 days. They seemed to ignore it for the first two days. They're used to floating food, and I think the first day's dose just sat on the bottom of the pond and crumbled, dissolved and made the pond cloudy. By the third day I was introducing the food gradually; I would sprinkle a few pellets on their heads, to get their attention. That seemed to freak them out a little the first time I did it, but they found their food. In another day or two they didn't seem to mind the head sprinkles at all, and would start diving right after I did it. It was hard to tell if they were diving for the food, though, because the pond was getting cloudy.

This has been such a weird season with whacky weather and the earlier loss of Pond Mojo, so I can't necessarily blame the Medi-Koi for the cloudiness, but I didn't like the way the uneaten Medi-koi crumbled on the bottom of the pond, where I couldn't easily skim it out. It seemed to counter the intent of treating the fish only. I don't know what the anti-bacterials are in that food, but my ammonia and nitrite levels became an issue and difficult control. After the 10 days, and another partial water change, those were back to zero and have stayed there.

In any case, back to Dreamcicle, even after 10 days of Medi-Koi I wasn't terribly confident she was going to make it. She hadn't previously ever seemed to "adopt" Blue in quite the way she had with Keybo, so I couldn't tell if she was keeping herself isolated in illness, or just ignoring Blue.

However, for at least two weeks now she has been swimming around and being her generally busy self again. Both fish are back on their usual floating diet and both have been eagerly eating again. And, this morning, at feeding time, Dreamcicle seemed to be herding Blue around a bit. I'm not sure if it was to get him to eat more or to keep him away from "her" food. In either case, Dreamcicle is back to being Dreamcicle.

What Glen Said

He took the words right out of my brain:

It is staggering, and truly disgusting, that even in August, 2007 -- almost six years removed from the 9/11 attacks and with the Bush presidency cemented as one of the weakest and most despised in American history -- that George W. Bush can "demand" that the Congress jump and re-write legislation at his will, vesting in him still greater surveillance power, by warning them, based solely on his say-so, that if they fail to comply with his demands, the next Terrorist attack will be their fault. And they jump and scamper and comply (Meteor Blades has the list of the 16 Senate Democrats voting in favor; the House will soon follow).

Read the rest.