Thursday 25 March 2010

Get going ....Spring is coming

At last I've been able to cut and pick out dead leaves and stems from the pool. An ideal time for working on this job is when Tim has cleaned the pool with his vacuum, the water level is lowered leaving a tide mark of debris for me to easily pick up from around the edges of the pool and plants. There are a few shoots appearing on the Iris, lily and Cyperus but as I am clearing out I prefer there to be no shoots in the way of this job. The skimmer is switched on at the same time to collect any floating bits and bobs. I always do a good spring clean.

More info on vacuuming coming soon.

On Sunday afternoon I was finishing off cleaning the regeneration area whilst listening to the chatter of Will our nephew and his friend James, they were collecting any wildlife they could find from the pool. Their treasure was a handful of male and female smooth Newts, a couple of Watersnails, a selection of Dragonfly nymphs and a Great Diving Beetle.... they were wary of this fellow! Once their hoard had been released they had the first paddle of the year across our underwater wall. The temperature was hovering around six degrees making their white legs bright pink.

The recirculation pump has now been running day and night for about a week since the onset of cloudiness in the water, which we always get as the spring temperatures trend upwards. If ignored we would possibly get a stronger algae bloom as the nitrobacta population on the gravel filter will have deminished due to low water temperatures.