Mark

Aeration Tips For Winter Pond Care

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Pond aeration, as you know is often a necessity in the hot weather of summer, but did you know it can be helpful in the winter too? It’s true, but it’s useful to know how to set it up correctly to get the best results in your pond and protect your fish. The video below will help you do that.

Simple Steps To Improve Winter Pond Aeration

Added oxygen is vital to protect fish and get the best results with aerobic bacteria, and it’s well documented that as water temperature rises above 78 degrees it simply cannot hold as much oxygen. Also when you have various water quality problems, such as algae, sometimes this can be directly attributed to low oxygen levels. If oxygen is insufficient, aerobic bacteria simply can’t work as well, or as vibrantly, and this is what actually keeps organic nutrient levels in check. As these rise, so do water quality issues.

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Pond Netting Particulars

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With the coming of fall, pond netting becomes an ever increasingly valuable tool to help keep any small pond or water garden clean. Ideally you want to keep most leaf debris out as best you can, and netting is the best deterrent to do that. If you have a skimmer system, that will help a … Read more

Don’t Treat Weed Problems In Late Summer And Fall

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There’s a question I get at this time of year which comes up often enough for me to want to address it here. And that is, “What should I treat duckweed, or other pond weeds with as we come into late summer and fall?”

It’s a reasonable question and one that deserves an honest and reasonable answer, which is…

Nothing at all.

I suggest to all of our clients that late season duckweed or weed problems are unfortunate but mid to late summer, or fall, is not the time to treat them. Particularly as the seasons get cooler, many of these aquatic weeds will go away all on their own. So a bit of patience can save you a lot of money if you’re smart about it.

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Pond Muck Reduction And Cleaning

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Ponds, simply due to their structure of being a big depression in the ground, are catch-all’s for a lot of things. Unfortunately a lot of this accumulation is organic debris that will eventually break down into a messy muck or sludge.

It’s been said that one of the pond owner’s main goals, if not THE main goal is to slow this process of “filling in” down as much as possible. Once this muck starts to rot and stink, it’s built up to the point where the pond’s natural assimilation processes just aren’t able to keep up with it any longer.

What’s unfortunate is that this mucky compost doesn’t just affect the bottom of the pond. And while it’s true that it serves as a really easy place for weed seeds to get established and rooted, it also releases so many nutrients that algae will often form below and above the water’s surface.

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Stacking The Odds Against Pond Algae – The Introduction

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Over the years, the use of beneficial bacteria in ponds has helped to clear up, clean up, and restore a number of ponds, and in doing so, algae has been reduced too. This has been one of the positive “side effects” of treating a pond naturally or organically.

Compared to even 10 years ago, the use of the good bugs has grown to the point where most pond owners have at least heard of some of the benefits, whether they may believe in it or not is another thing. Suffice it to say though that the commonly used chemical algaecides, so widely used in the past, are not as favorable as they once were.

There is a growing awareness (which is a good thing) that oftentimes chemicals are not the best solution to the problem, and that addressing some underlying causes may just make more sense. It’s not just in ponds where this is happening of course. Home owners are looking for more natural alternatives for lawn care, pest control, and many other things. Go to any WalMart today and you’ll find some organic produce too, which you never would have imagined seeing “back in the old days”. Sam Walton would probably be proud.

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Working Against Algae In A Large Pond

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Large ponds have special challenges when you’re dealing with an algae problem. Compared to small ponds where you can remove some of the stuff pretty easily, a large body of water doesn’t always make this all that easy. Although there are similar reasons why algae might thrive in any pond, the fact is that large … Read more