Thank you, Class of 2014!

Thanks to a generous gift from last year’s seniors, we have started purchasing plants for the pond!  We just received -

Water Lilies:
White Hardy
Pink Hardy
Yellow Hardy

Bog Plants:
Yellow Water Iris
Azure Pickerel
California Bull Rush
Japanese Var. Sweet Flag
Golden Var. Sweet Flag
Japanese Arrowhead
Equisetum

Small Aquatics:
Parrot’s Feather 

Pennywort

Oxygenating Grasses:
Assorted

Lillies

Bog Plants

St. Francis' planters go native

St. Francis’ statue by the Villa pond has native plants, thanks to the hard work of several students!  The planters were weeded and planted with native plants like buckwheat, fairy dusters, and sunflowers, and several native seeds as well.  These plants were chosen for their beauty and because they are attractive to pollinators like butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds.

 

         

 

2014-2015 AP Environmental Science Field Trip!

The 2014-15 Alverno AP Environmental Science class has taken on the villa pond project as a year-long learning experience.  We began by studying pond ecosystems and nutrient cycles to understand the science of the aquaponics system.

We also visited our wonderful consultant from PCC, Professor Cat, who is in the process of building a new aquaponics system, to get a real-world view of a the important elements.

Professor Cat's Backyard Aquaponics Systems

Our new addition of pond lettuce (thanks Prof Cat!) seems to be surviving the raccoon raids.  Unfortunately, the Azolla and Duckweed were too delicious and our fish finished them off during the summer.  We will need to replace those.

We would love any donations of pond plants (Azolla, Duckweed, Pond Lettuce and Water Lillies).

Filamentous Algae

Algae raking

Filamentous algae on the rake

Filamentous algae from the pond

Filamentous algae (the kind that clogs the filter) is pretty easy to remove with a rake! Once our new pond plants get established, they will help to combat the filamentous algae.

Pond after raking

Who else lives in the pond?

In addition to our new plants and the existing algae, we also have some creatures calling the pond home.  As the pond develops, we will be adding several other species.

Right now we have:

Five small Koi (?) or Goldfish (?)

5 Colorful Fish

Pink Fish

A school of Mosquitofish

A pair of red Dragonflies

Black Pond Snails

We have our first plants!

Thanks to Prof. Erika Catanese of PCC, we now have our first Water Lilly, Water Lettuce, Duckweed and Azolla, which will grow to cover the pond’s surface.  Azolla is an aquatic fern which can be grown as a food crop. These will help to control the filamentous algae which clogs the pump intake.

Water Lilly (Nymphaeaceae)

Water Lilly

Red Azolla up close

Azolla

New Azolla, Duckweed and Pond lettuce

Duckweed (Lemnoideae)

Duckweed and Azolla

Water lettuce (Pistia)

Water lettuce

Algae

Algae

We have started our pond ecosystem conversion!

Step 1:  Are there any leaks in the pond?

To check the amount of water loss due to evaporation and to compare that to the water loss in the pond, we did a 72-hour bucket test to measure how much the pond water level went down compared to the level of the water in the buckets.

Procedure

1) We placed buckets of pond water in the pond (to equalize the temperature) and marked the starting level in the buckets and also marked the starting level in the pond (on the white pvc pump intake pipe).  See pictures.

2) After 72 hours, we measured the level of the water in the pond and in the buckets.  The bucket level went down ~15mm and the pond went down ~15mm too (~5mm/day).  We concluded that, since the water levels went down proportionally, the water loss in the bucket and in the pond was due to evaporation only and there was no additional loss in the pond.  So… no leaks!

Pond Water Level

Bucket leak test