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Posts Tagged ‘pond’

Water Fountain an Gambuzia

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on June 5, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I blogged last year about how I created a couple water features. This one with the rusty yard sale fountain has had to undergo some changes. The rusty fountain rusted more in the water and filled the pump and hose with sediment. We decided that was not suitable for mosquito fish or cost effective for my time (cleaning the pump and draining the pond frequently).

The fountain came out and I was left with “how to deal with rust”. A friend in the UK sent me a short video on getting rid of rust using catsup. Well, catsup and a copper scrubber, to be exact. I wasn’t certain it would work, but we had an extra bottle of catsup (ketchup, I just like the spelling ‘catsup’ better). No copper scrubber, but there was a spare wire brush from a barbecue long ago that I borrowed from my husband’s work bench. (I told him later).

By golly! It worked!

I wasn’t going for full rust removal as we purchased a product that car mechanics know well: a kind of paint that covers rust and prevents more from forming, something called “POR”. This little can cost nearly $50 (!!) and the stuff is super runny. It is a mess to work with! I wore rubber gloves, used a drop cloth, and still dripped it everywhere!

The final touch was to add some color using some outdoor latex paint I already had in possession: claret wine and yellow. I sponged that on and let it dry.

Now I am waiting for Clackamas County Vector Control to deliver some gambusia (mosquito fish). I want to get a few native water plants as well. I already have a couple native water lilies in planters, but something floating on the top of the water would be nice.

I do have to change the filters once a week in the pump, and a lot of earthworms and slugs manage to drown in the pond along with sundry insects. Not sure how to avoid that.

Post Script: May 6, 2026 – My fish have arrived! About the size of guppies, five to a pool. And just in time: hundreds, if not thousands, of little blood suckers are swimming in those waters waiting to hatch into flying blood suckers.

Post Script Script: 6/5/2026 – I know I have two survivors. The mosquito larvae are gone. Whether or not I have more survivors (gambusia) is up for debate. But we don’t have mosquitoes breeding.

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April 2026

Posted in gardening, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 11, 2026| Leave a Comment »

It is raining today, a light rain that will knock the pollen out of the air, but which keeps me inside the house. This is all right with me. We just came out of a weeklong dry spell during which I was able to get a lot of yard work done but at the price of my health. My face feels like it is swollen out to the end of my nose, my eyes feel (and look) like they have been sandblasted, and my nose is dripping. Allergies have come on early and brutally this season.

I was able to fix a leak in (under) one of my water features. This involved a trip to Lowe’s for some lawn edging and a surprise purchase of a 3×4’ plastic for under a sink. We looked at pond lining (too expensive and way too much lining for my purpose) before we found the under-the-sink lining. Honestly, if you need this stuff under your kitchen sink, you need a plumber. For my little purpose, the size and thickness were perfect, as was the very low price. (We also found the lawn edging I wanted and a bonus shelving unit for the shed we had installed last year, the shelving being on sale and reasonable priced.)

Both water features need work, but the second one isn’t a leak: it is the rusty “fountain” I bought at a yard sale. We need to do something about the rust. But I didn’t tackle that this past week. That job will be a future blog post.

Using a crowbar and moving a number of rocks around, I was finally able to stop the leak in the pond. The large rock forms a natural water course, but the water tends to drip under the lip and into the earth below. I tipped that rock at a slightly steeper angle, then played with the rocks and dish it drips into. The plastic lining went up under all of that (some feat considering the rock probably weighs 70+ pounds). But the result was that I managed to get the right angle and the pond now stays full. I will need to get some mosquito fish next, but I’ll fix the other pond first.

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