UFO in my pond

[Dave in Innisfil]

Yesterday Tina noticed something floating in our pond, attached to some iris. It looks to me like frog spawn, but I thought that only happened in the spring.
It's a clear jelly mass, with black specs. Hard to get a good pic, but I tried. We recently added two bullfrogs to our inventory, so that was the first bet.

We've also noticed an abundance of snails, of a variety of sizes, so we know they're reproducing somehow. The goldies and shubs seem to be playing chase with a few individual fish, so we're wondering if it's some kinda fish spawn. The onslaught of water spiders and leeches gives us another possibility.

Anyone care to give an educated / experienced guess as to the Unidentified Floating Objects ?

[Rembrandt]

Hello Dave!
I would have to say you've got frog eggs. I couldn't make the picture out too well but your description tells me FROG EGGS.
We (Rembrandt & Cinnamon !bonk ) try to keep them out of ours but at best, we keep them to a minimum.
They grow very fast. At first, you will only see the clear gellatinous string and maybe white specs. They love to make their deposits in the plants. As they mature, the specks turn to black dots, black dots to tadpoles, then on to the frog stage.
Good luck with them!
They're cool to watch but Cinn doesn't like them.
Rembrandt

[Cinnamon]

Rem I don't like them because I have to clean up the mess! :eek: Dave I agree with Rem on looking like frog eggs. Our Fantail goldfish spawned in the spring a few times but between the Koi and Fantail they ate them all. I did manage to find a few but they were white. I read that these needs to be removed as they are not fertilized and will create a fungus. Our plants are thick enough now that they won't have a problem with them eating all the eggs. Heck I wish they would eat the frog eggs! Now I know Jackie is rolling her eyes at me! :roll: I can feel her :lol: If I hadn't dipped the frog eggs out when I did we would have THOUSANDS of tadpoles YUCK!

[Jackie Ramo]

:roll: :roll: :roll: :lol:

[Ian]

Would it not be toad eggs? Frogs more spring,toads more summer?
Good snack for koi :grin: Our koi pond stays frogless except for the skimmer with the odd one cooling off. Watch the koi chase one across the pond this weekend and could see why they don't hang out. Maybe they have taste for the legs too...

[Dave in Innisfil]

We already had our hatch of toadpoles. Zillion of them, that I thought were responsible for our lack of algae. I gave 40 of them to my kid sister for her birthday.....at her request (has a bad slug problem in her garden). Now, every time I move anything earthbound, a few of the dime size critters scamper for safety. I've not seen the fish eat whatever kind of spawn it is, but as the pic showed, the water spiders seem to enjoy it.

Since everyone thinks it's some kind of tadpole, I'm leaning more towards bull frogs. The lone leopard frog in our pond didn't last long, and I suspect he was just the right size for the garter snake. The two bull frogs are both a fair size and way too big for the snake. It's funny that each has claimed its own pond, and it's rare they even come close. Last year we had one called "Hopalong", since it dragged a broken leg the entire season. It's buddy, Kermit, perished trying to hybernate in a frozen pot-bound lily.

Anyone know offhand how leeches and snails reproduce ? Quite a proliferation of both in the ponds these days. I'm happy about the snails, but would prefer to be leechless.

[ozzyrockman]

Tastes great less filling! UM yummy treats for your pond pets.

Dave, do you have any koi in your pond :grin: ? Nothing is safe in water around koi including snails, slugs, tad-todepoles, worms toes, fingers and anything else that moves in the water as long as it will fit in their mouth :lol:.

[Dave in Innisfil]

Our two koi, Roy, sole survivor of this spring's pondmare, and Bubbles, who's endeavouring to catch up to Roy's size by this fall, are the only koi in our 10,000 gallon main pond. We have a smattering of about 10 assorted pond fish, mostly shubs, and a couple dozen feeder goldfish left from the hundred we put in to test if the pond and my ponding skills would support life. These fish are always hungry, and follow me around the pond looking for food, despite the fact I only feed in a floating ring. Only Roy sticks to a feeding schedule (early morning and at dusk). Garden worms tossed into the pond drown before they are eaten. The young roots of my water lettuce seem to be their favourite food, followed closely by any salvinia that floats down from the top pond. With only a semi-successful 2,000 gallon top bog pond, and a crude DIY skimmer filter/skimmer made from a laundry tub, I'm trying to design a one barrel filter before adding more real koi to the main pond and transplanting any surviving goldfish to the bog where predation is heaviest.

Whatever kind of spawn it is, the snails have now joined in feeding on it. The black specs are growing, and crawling up the iris leaves just above the waterline. I'm going to try and separate some for closer observation in a glass jar. One of our nightly visitors has knocked over two planters, and I'm waiting for a third before I risk limb-to-leech to take a spawn sample and fix the plants.