Frogs....More Ugly....

Well the ponds are now completely thawed. Water temps were at 46 last night. The weather man is promising 50's all week. I can smell the barbecue grills firing up at night again as I walk around surveying the yard and it's usual spring mess. The robins and red-wing black birds have been back for a couple weeks and every conversation between the guys in my family is all about the coming of the Spring turkey hunt. I'll be a pond widow for the month of April as Harry migrates to the southern cottage to partake in the Spring rituals of early bass fishing, turkey hunting and even later in the month there will be mushrooms and asparagus to collect.
Harry has already cleaned the upper, smaller pond which sits empty till it warms up enough to move the inside fish back out. He has all the waterfalls up and running. In cleaning out and flushing the filters in the bottom pond we discovered more "ugliness" in the pond. Our bottom pond has 4 bottom drains that feed the settling tanks previous to the filters. All winter long "crap" can settle in these lines and they must be flushed before turning on the pumps. I had previously netted out one large frog that was completely covered with fungus from the pond, but to my dismay while purging the bottom drain pipes, out came an additional 17 fungus covered frogs!!! 17!!!! I assume they may have entered the pipes looking for a place to hibernate for the winter. But that is 17 fungus carrying frogs that were polluting my pond. To visually look at the pond, you'd say it was clean, but little did we realize the danger that lurked below and out of sight.
The larger pond will still need drained down and cleaned. We're just waiting for it to warm up a little yet before we put the fish through the stress of being netted out while we clean it out. There is a ton of string algae already growing everywhere. I know this time of the year, it is probably my friend, helping to control the ammonia and nitrites that will now begin to develop and even giving the fish some natural food to get their systems up and going. I've been trying to add a little salt to the ponds, but Harry keeps doing water changes and by getting the smaller pond on line yesterday, he added another couple thousand gallons to the system lowering my salt percentage again. I'll have to check it tonight again and probably add another bag. I have a salinity meter so I can take a before and after reading and knowing the amount of salt I've added, I can tell exactly how many gallons are in my pond. This is an easy way to figure the volume of a pond. I've also been adding some Medzyme and continue to add my Artic bug juice. I still have a couple fish that are just a little sluggish acting compared to the others. So, I have a watchful eye on them. Hopefully I can begin feeding soon. I'm hopeful and anxious to get in the gardens. Tulips and daffodils are up, birds are singing, and best of all the sound of water running is back in the gardens....