Jun 11
6
Advice For Setting Up A Backyard Fish Pond
Do you have a garden pond? Or would you like one? A garden pond or a water garden does not have to be large to totally change how you use your garden. The sound of running water is so relaxing and a pond fountain or a waterfall can have a cooling effect on a hot summer’s day. Watching the fish carry out their daily lives is relaxing too and many gardeners like the chance to branch out into the new realm of aquatic plants.
If your pond is sunk into the earth, your could watch it from above or you could build it above ground and use perspex windows to watch your fish on their own level. Your fish will breed too, so you will have a new, perfect, ecosystem in your own garden.
Choose the site of your pond carefully. Try to put it on slightly higher ground, so that it is not flooded with all your garden’s rainwater in the course of heavy rains. Be wary of putting your pond under a tree or you will forever be raking leaves out of the water, which is a real nuisance. Putting your pond in a location where it is in at least partial shade when the sun is high will also help reduce on algae growth.
However, once the builder has created your pond and you have stocked it, is the time when your work commences. Maybe not work, possibly you will enjoy maintaining your fish and your fish pond. This is not difficult and a largish pond will need hardly any maintenance at all, most of it can be mechanized.
One of the first things that you will have to try to do is stop your garden falling into the pond. You do not want surrounding mud dropping into the pond and literally muddying the water. This can be accomplished by lining your pond with a butyl pond liner and lapping the liner up over the lip of the pond by a foot or two.
Then you need to hold that in place. This can be done to suit your taste, but many people put a stone or brick walkway around the pond. If you let this overhang the pond by an inch or two, you will very nearly totally hide the pond liner.
The majority of people overfeed their fish, because fish outdoor will find a lot of natural food such as flies, larvae and grubs. This surplus food turns into a surplus of nutrients. This super-charged water is a perfect environment for algae, and algae is going to be your permanent enemy. However, you can soak up some of these surplus nutrients with other plants that you like.
Aquatic plants such as lilies really make a pond and they will help aerate the water during the day when the water may be warmer (warm water holds less oxygen than cool water). Plants also offer your fish somewhere to take cover from predators and strong sunlight, which will reduce stress on your fish as well.
Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is now concerned with water garden pumps. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for a special deal.
Related Reading:
The Essential Garden Design Workbook: Second EditionThe Essential Garden Design Workbook guides the reader through every stage of planning a garden -- how to survey a site, how to choose landscaping materials, and how to develop planting schemes. This fully revised and updated second edition features new U.S. case studies and new photographs. Valuable tips on green gardening are new to this edition, and include how to harvest rainwater, how to design a green roof, tips on sustainable planting, and a guide to composting. Tailor-made for hands-on gardeners, the workbook approach is accessible, practical, and can be used to create a garden from scratch and to redesign an existing garden. Gardeners will find easy ways to measure large spaces, estimate the height of a tree, and find the right proportions for a deck. They'll also find tips on space, light, and color. Includes hundreds of easy-to-follow line drawings and diagrams.
