A Simple Pond Tool To Monitor Seasonal Changes

Watch the short video below where I cover one of the simplest but most useful pond care tools to use during the fall, winter, and spring. It’s such a simple thing, but a pond thermometer will help you keep tabs on where your pond stands as the weather get’s colder. Actually it’s good any time … Read more

Treating A Pond With Green Or Murky Water With A Flocculent

One of the most common problems we hear about when pond owners call in during the summer months has to do with water clarity.

Green or murky and cloudy water tend to show up as the pond warms up and the degree of coloration can vary from a light tinting to a full blown green or brown where you can’t see your fish any longer.

Many times a good filtration system will help a lot in smaller ponds with this type of problem because depending on the color, the issue could be an actual algae issue, or it could come from a lot of suspended material in the water. As long as the filter is adequate and the particules or algae cells are big enough, they’ll get filtered out in good order. The problem is, not every filter is equal to the task, and to make matters worse, some of these cells and particles are pretty darned small. Sometimes they’re so little that they can pass right through the filter without being taken out. And when this happens you won’t see much of a change in your water quality.

If you’ve watched several of our videos on dealing with green water algae, you know that one of the useful tools for dealing with the problem is uv or ultra violet light. This device emits light which radiates the algae that passes in front of it and this damaged the algae cells to the point where they either die off and/or become damaged and clump together in larger masses which ultimately leads to better filtering.

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Shallow Pond Aeration Is Possible

It’s a fact that every single pond will benefit from increased aeration and oxygenation. Some ponds, however, have certain characteristics that can limit just how useful aeration can be, and the major consideration is the depth of the pond.

Simply put, the general rule of thumb is the deeper the better.

Depths of 10 feet or greater allow for greater coverage in a pond. What I mean by this is a single diffuser (or the part of the system that sits at the bottom of the pond and releases the air bubbles) can effectively treat up to about one acre of surface area if you have 10 to 12 feet of depth or more.

Conversely if the pond is more shallow than this, you would need multiple diffusers to treat the same surface area. Ultimately any aeration is probably better than none at all, but the goal is to increase or stabilize dissolved oxygen levels at 5 mg/L or greater. (Here’s a simple DO test kit if you’re wondering just where your pond stands). This DO level will ensure that fish are protected from oxygen deprivation, particularly in very hot and still days during the summer.

Over the years, I’ve always considered surface fountains to be somewhat helpful in shallow ponds. They don’t help as much in deeper water because they only affect the upper few feet of a pond, but again, they were usually better than no aeration at all.

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Oops, My Fish Are Dead…Chlorine Kills

If I had to summarize the topic this week it would simply be that “chlorine kills fish”. Not a happy topic to be sure but it’s a reality that sometimes mistakes happen. If you have a fish pond you’re likely well aware that municipal tap water is not ideally suited to fish health. Most tap … Read more

Pond Muck Is Not A Problem

[youtube width=”425″ height=”355″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ffOtKuBjRk&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/youtube] One of the greatest challenges for a large pond owner is choosing how you’re going to deal with the inevitable build up of organic material in the pond. Things like leaves, grass clippings, dead algae and more will eventually accumulate at the bottom of the pond. This pond muck is very rich … Read more

Muck Decaying Catalyst – What’s That?

There has always been a problem for large pond owners that either choose to, or have to use chemical herbicides or algaecides to keep their pond looking good. Without question there are better ways to clean a pond up from a variety of unwanted issues and beneficial pond bacteria is our top choice for this … Read more