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As you all know we had quite a December here in Ontario. Yesterday we had the first mid day thaw in more than a week, and finaly a picture of my palm hut.
I have one set of Christmas lights inside (25 bulbs). Originally it was on a T2 thermocube, but I was never getting -8C, so I put it on all the time. The coldest outside was -16C and inside -4C. Yesterday it was a balmy 15C inside even though outside was around freezing. I turned off the lights manually and put them back on in the evening.
I think I'll go and buy a T3.
This is the palm in the fall when I started to build the hut:
I also have a little waggie. It's very close to the house, so I tried to overwinter it without any heat (if you don't consider the cat):
The only time I tried one of those Styrofoam cubes I cooked my Trachy... However, in your case, I think it might work for overwintering the waggie... Hope we don't get much colder than -16C this season. I've seen temps down to -12C at my place (downtown Toronto) and the place near K-town has seen in the -15C or -16C range, but without a thaw in quite a while. Pics to come.
Do you keep fish in that pond? Ours is frozen over but I can still see them warm and cozy swimming around and making new fish...LOl Last winter they got pretty busy under the ice and we had about 30 new little baby fish! WooHoo! What else is there to do in cold and darkness....?
Mike what exactly fishes you have in your pool? I'm kind of a Master of biology in Ichthyology. So your fishes dark environment experience would be very interesting for... everybody
Yes, all the fishes (I have around 20) are in the pond; this is the third winter. Last winter I lost only one in the spring with a skin disease.
I have mostly kois but also a few gold fishes.
I have a little heater that keeps a hole in the ice (the black patch in front of the waterfall). I expected them to hibernate, but they are quite active when I looked.
I've seen quite a difference between Markham and Scarborough. Sometimes even 5C. As soon as you go north of hwy 7 the weather changes quite a bit (also when you go south of 401, but the other way).
On the other hand, in the summer there are hotter days.
This is how my musella looked before the frost:
and my basjoo after the frost (musella in the background)
Beautiful Gardens...Guys, We used to have really beautiful KOi in the pond. one year they all died. Nothing different than usual happened that winter, I think they were poisoned because after that we emptied the whole pond and it was a mucky mess and seemed like there was some kind of chemical or dead animal smell in it. Of course, that could have been the rotten fish smell...UGH! Or, Maybe one died and then they all died from the decaying fish??? They were really huge and beautiful fish too. Very sad.
Now we just keep goldfish (about 35 of them) and they thrive, cold, hot, dark, light etc...They're amazing! I'll post a pic later of the pond in summer and winter, it looks quite different. We keep a waterfall running until it stops and then it just ices over and we forget about them. Basically last year with the three monster snowstorms one in December (24 inches or so) and then the 27 and 18 inches over the five day period in February), we hadn't even seen the pond through the snow and the ice because of the deep snow. So basically, they were in darkness for two months and the were just fine.... They had a whole bunch of new babies in spring. The deepest part of the pond is up to my hip so it never freezes solid all the way down....That probably helps.
igor.glukhovtsev wrote:Mike what exactly fishes you have in your pool? I'm kind of a Master of biology in Ichthyology. So your fishes dark environment experience would be very interesting for... everybody
Wow, Ichthyology...Do you know the Coelacanthe Fish off the comoros Islands? ...I was in the Peace Corps there, It's their claim to fame!!!
actually the window is facing west. Two reasons: one, I was afraid that facing south can heat it up too much in sunny days, so too much of a temperature difference, and two, my house is facing south. I like to see the lights in the middle of the night. I don't have a picture, but I'll take one during the night. Especially when it's snowing it really looks nice.
Yucca had no problems; it stayed outside three years completely unprotected. Just that it was very close to the palm and I could not build the hut without enclosing it too.
That would be a lovely pic at night during snowfall, Tavi.
heat it up too much in sunny days
or want to contribute to Ontario Hydro's coffers
BC Hydro's rates are going up 10% in each of next 3 years (we just had a 7% increase last year)
My Trachy might get some tough love sooner than I had planned.
I will have to wait till I get home to comment on the pics.
