Tilapia and frogs..

It seems like we have been talking about our pond forever and had never got round to actually getting on with it and and finishing the job. There always seemed to be something else more pressing on the go or maybe after the back breaking job of digging the hole and then the neighbour´s dog destroying it, maybe we just lost enthusiasm.

When Tony´s parents were here however, they got straight into the garden, planting and tidying and so riding that wave of enthusiasm, Tony and his dad finished the pond. They made the slopes more gradual, evened it all out, put a liner and waited for the rain to fill it up - which it did over the course of a month or so. We have a great little solar water pump with it´s own battery and mini solar panel which switches on and off throughout the day and night discouraging the mosquitos and the plan is to order a truck load of rocks to cover the liner round the edge and make it look nice.

With the pond made and filled, the next logical step seemed to be fish. Luckily we have a keen fish breeding friend, Diego, who quickly sourced us some baby tilapias and although most of them unfortunately didn´t survive the journey from the Patia Valley where they were born, we were happy to recieve the remaining 5 plus a handful of river snails and 3 cleaner fish, the name of which I cant remember - looks a bit like a cat fish.

About the same time as the fish arrived, so did two big and very noisy frogs who proceeded to lay about a billion tadpoles in the pond while singing very loudly everynight from dusk until dawn. From what I can find out, tadpoles wont harm the fish but they do seem to be eating most of their food and although the parents are not keeping us awake at night, we do have to turn up the tv sometimes to block them out!  We´ll have to wait and see what happens to them, hopefully they wont take over the garden and nature will somehow control the population and not let them starve out our fish!