Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Tips And Advice On The Maintenance Of Ponds Charlotte NC

By Frances King


While not all pond keepers use a pond skimmer in their garden pond to remove leaves and other organic vegetation, those that do tend to have clearer water because a pond skimmer also removes surface dust and pollen which can cause the water to appear cloudy. You will notice that I said clearer and not cleaner. Your pond water may appear clear, but this does not necessarily mean that the water quality is healthy and clean. Water in Ponds charlotte NC needs to be purified or cleaned of ammonia, a potentially lethal chemical to aquatic pond life.

Summer can be the most problematic time for fish ponds, the heat from the sun on the water leads to your fish being a lot more active. Which means they will eat more food which in turn produces more waste; this is when you must make sure your aeration and filter in the pond are working efficiently?

Oxygen should be your main thought during the summer months, always make sure the pond fountain or other types of aeration device you have is working 24 hours during those really hot days. Because warm water does not store oxygen very well it is important you keep the levels topped up, by doing this you will also help the friendly bacteria to thrive which in turn will help to keep down the ammonia and nitrate levels.

Decaying aquatic leaves, plants and other organic matter that falls into the pond and isn't quickly removed, also falls to the fishpond floor and starts to decay. This further helps to increase the build-up of toxic ammonia. Ammonia is removed from fish ponds by the action of the beneficial Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter bacteria colonies that live on the pond filter media inside of a biofilter. As the concentration of ammonia rises it increases the workload placed on these nitrifying bacteria.

A fountain aerator is a floating fountain that consists of a water pump, nozzle and long electrical cord (typically around 50 - 100' but custom lengths may be available.) The water pump sucks up water from a few inches to a few feet within the pond and shoots the water up through a fountain nozzle. Air molecules then attach themselves to the water droplets and fall back into the fishpond. This is how the fishpond gets aerated.

You will also want to remove any types of water plant life that might not survive the cold temperatures of the winter months; you can re-pot them and move them into your garage or shed to preserve them until the spring then re-install them to the fishpond.

What type of pond skimmer should i use? The first option is a floating surface skimmer. This option is the best choice for small garden ponds, as it is the cheapest and easiest option to install; simply connect a length of pond tubing to the suction of the pond pump. Furthermore, the depth of the fishpond doesn't affect the operation of this system; simply connect a longer piece of pond tubing between the fishpond pump and skimmer unit.

One thing you must make sure of doing during the winter months is to make sure that the pond does not freeze over if the pond freezes over it can cause serious problems to the pond environment and more importantly to your treasured fish. The problems that arise with a frozen pond is that the waste and other debris cause toxic gases that can't escape, this, in turn, means oxygen can't get in to the water neither which makes for an extremely unhealthy environment for the fish.




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