Pond Basics
1. Know the correct gallons of your pond. This is especially important should you have to medicate. For square or rectangular ponds, multiply the length x width x depth x 7.5. For round ponds, multiply ½ the diameter x ½ the diameter x 3.14 x the depth x 7.5 (L x W x D x 7.5 = gallons). This will give you a close estimate of how many gallons are in the pond.
2. Learn all you can about water quality. Clear water does not necessarily mean that the water is healthy. Get a test kit that will at least test ammonia, nitrite, ph, and kh. Learn what the levels should be, and how to tweak the water to get those numbers. A new pond should be tested every day until the pond is cycled, which usually takes 4-6 weeks to complete the cycle. Then it should be tested on a weekly basis unless there is a problem. Keep a record of each time you test the water. That way you will know if the numbers have changed. Click here, Water Quality Levels, for my page on testing water quality, and what the levels should be. If you take care of the water, everything else will take care of itself.
3. Learn the importance of filtration. A filter is not the sponge media that comes with most pumps. That is just a pre-filter to keep large debris and/or fish from being sucked into the pump. A filter is a home for beneficial bacteria to live and grow to remove the toxins from the water, and a place to remove the solids (fish poop, excess food, dirt, etc.) from the pond. Without a filter to remove the baddies from the pond, everything accumulates in the pond. Think of it this way, without a filter to remove the toxins and gunk your fish are swimming around in a toilet bowl/septic tank. Remember, the key word here is septic!
4. What is filtration? A filter should consist of mechanical and biological media. Mechanical filtration is foam pads that catch the suspended solids from the water. You can clean these pads to remove the gunk. Biological filtration is actually more important than mechanical. A bio filter is a home where good bacteria (nitrosomas and nitrobacter) live. These good bacteria are what take the toxins (ammonia and nitrite which are produced by fish waste, decaying plants, etc.) from the water and convert them to non-toxic form (nitrate). This process is called the Nitrogen Cycle. Hardly ever do you clean the bio media. If you clean it, you remove the good bacteria. At most, an occasional rinsing of the bio media with pond water will do.
5. Oversize the filtration system. Most ponders severely overstock their ponds. We just can’t resist that cute little Oranda, or that huge Fantail Goldfish! One more fish isn’t going to hurt anything, right? Wrong! That one fish could be the one that throws the water quality into a tizzy. Mother Nature steps in and removes the excess load. In other words, fish will begin dying because of high ammonia and nitrite and the filtration cannot support the extra load. Remember also that your fish are going to get bigger and multiply. Most manufacturers overate the filtration ability of their filters. I usually recommend going with half of whatever the label says. If the label says that it will filter 1,000 gallons, use it on a 500 gallon or less pond.
6. A "natural" pond. There are some folks out there that will tell you that you do not need a pump or a filter. That you want to do the pond Nature’s way. An unfiltered, non-circulated pond is just about as far away from Nature as you can get. Nature filters its water! Nature has a constant influx of fresh water. That water runs through rocks and plants in streams that are constantly filtering and cleaning that water. Nature does not stock itself with the large numbers of fish that we do in a pond either. A pond is a man made enclosed body of water. Think of it this way, if there is no pump to circulate the water or a filter to clean and remove toxins from the water, where is all of the bad stuff gonna be? Right there in the pond! Phew!
7. So and So has never had a problem. I have heard this time and again. "I know so and so and they have a pond without a pump or filter and they have never had any problems." It is a possibility that someone has never had a problem, but not likely. It is possible to have a small number of fish in a large body of water without a pump or filter. But what eventually happens is the fish grow larger and they multiply increasing the load in the pond to more than the water can support. Then disaster happens. Mother Nature steps in and decreases the fish load until the water can support the number of fish again. Guess which fish die? Always your favorite!
8. Sizing the pump. We recommend starting with the number of gallons in the pond and going from there. The reason we start with the gallons in the pond is because the pond water should be turned over through the filtration system at the very least once every two hours, optimally once an hour. Take into consideration what you want that pump to do. Are you going to have a waterfall? How big? Do you want a lot of water flowing over the falls, or just a little? Are you going to have a fountain, maybe a statue spitting water? Or maybe add one of the above in the future. Always buy a larger pump than you think you need (or 2 pumps equaling the larger pump, that way you will always have pump if one of them should quit).
9. Never overload a new pond or an existing pond with fish. Adding too many fish all at once to a new pond will result in dead fish. Depending on the gallons of the pond, and the type of filtration, start the new pond with just 3-4 fish. Give the water time to acclimate to that load. A week or two later, add a few more. Adding the fish slowly will give the system time to adjust itself to the added load. The same applies to an existing pond. If your filtration system has adjusted itself to the existing amount of fish in the pond, and you add quite a few new fish, or even just one very large fish, the filtration will not be able to handle the extra load. The result will be toxic water until the filter can adjust to the new fish. Ammonia and Nitrite levels must be watched, and steps taken to protect the fish until the filter adjusts to the added load. Steps to take to protect the fish when a filter/pond is cycling, or when levels of ammonia or nitrite are showing, is discussed on the "Water Quality Levels" article that I have written.
10. Dechlorinate new water. Always, I repeat, always add a dechlorinator that also removes chloramines to any new water. It is true that chlorine will dissipate over time, but if chloramines are in the water source, they will not. The chlorine part of the chloramines will dissipate and leave ammonia. No amount of chlorine is safe for the fish. Any contact with chlorine can cause damage to the fish’s gills (clubbed gills). Say a fish is chronically exposed to chlorine because the pond owner tops off the pond without using a dechlorinator. The damage to the fish may not show up now, a week from now, or even a year from now. But at some point that fish will die for no apparent reason. It has suffocated because the clubbed gills, caused by the exposure to chlorine, cannot get oxygen from the water.
11. Always buy your fish from a reputable dealer. Ask questions. Find out if the dealer quarantines new shipments of fish before putting them out for sale. Does the dealer own a microscope, and know how to identify the different parasites that can attack fish? Does he/she know what treatments to use for the different parasites? Buying your new fish from a reputable dealer that knows all of the above, still does not mean that you shouldn't quarantine new fish before adding them to your pond.
12. Don’t use the "shotgun" approach to treating your pond. If you are having problems with your pond water or fish, don’t just dump chemicals into the water. First know what you are treating for and why.
13. Green Water. Never use algaecides (chemicals) to try and control green water. An Algae spore is a plant, and if you use a chemical to kill algae you will also harm/kill your good plants. Also, killing the algae all at once can deplete all of the oxygen from the pond causing the fish to suffocate. Never do a complete cleanout of the pond to try to get rid of the algae. You are actually doing more harm than good, and in less than 2-3 weeks, the water will just turn green again. When you do a complete cleanout, you are actually destroying the eco system (balancing) that has begun and now the pond has to begin to cycle all over again. Green water can be naturally controlled by a combination of balancing the water quality, filtration, and plants. Also keep in mind that a "blanket/carpet" of algae on the walls of the pond, plant pots, and waterfall is a good thing. If that isn’t there, the pond isn’t balanced.
14. Sick Fish. Again, do not dump chemicals/medications into the pond just because the fish are acting funny or a fish has died. Know what you are dealing with. Dumping chemicals into the pond will kill the beneficial bacteria that are removing the toxins from the water. This will lead to poor water quality, which is a whole ‘nother set of problems.
15. Fish do not usually get sick without a cause. There has to be a stressor that has caused the fish to become sick. Understand that there are pathogens/parasites that live in the pond water at all times, but do not usually attack healthy fish unless the fish have been stressed.
16. Stressors to fish. (1) Introduction of new fish/plants that are infested with parasites; (2) Poor/No filtration; (3) Changes in water quality; (4) Too many fish; (5) Changes in the weather in the Spring and Fall; (6) Accumulation of debris in the pond. And more that I will add as I think of them.
17. Never throw salt into the pond. There are some folks out there that recommend throwing a handful/cupful of salt into the pond on a weekly basis. This is a NO-NO! Don’t get me wrong, salt is an excellent medication when you know when and why to use it. Salt does not go away from the water except through water changes. Even topping off the water after evaporation does not remove the salt. Continuous addition of salt can lead to toxic levels to fish and plant life. It can also lead to salt resistant parasites.
18. Aquatic Plants. Plants should cover 60-70% of the pond surface, no more than 75%. A mixture of potted, and floating plants (roots in the water, not soil) should be a part of this mixture. Non-potted floating aquatic plants are excellent in absorbing the nitrates (fertilizer produces by the nitrogen cycle) from the water that would otherwise feed algae.
19. Too many plants. It is possible to have too many plants in the pond. Too many plants covering the surface of the water can interfere with oxygen and gas exchange. While it is true that all plants produce oxygen during the day, they also consume oxygen and produce carbon dioxide at night. Too many plants can suck the oxygen from the pond causing the fish to suffocate. Carbon dioxide lowers the ph of the water, which can lead to a ph crash causing immediate death to your fish.
20. Never throw fertilizer into the pond. This can lead to excessive levels of Nitrate, which can harm/kill your fish. It also will just cause your water to turn green because you have fertilized the algae. Potted plants should be fertilized with aquatic fertilizer tablets that are pushed down into the soil in the pot. Floating plants will pull their nutrients from the water, which would otherwise be feeding algae.
21. Do not put rocks/pea gravel in the bottom of the pond. Debris, fish poop, plant decay, will get trapped in the rocks. As the debris decays it turns into Hydrogen Sulfide. Hydrogen Sulfide is an extremely toxic gas, which will kill anything in its path. If you stir up the rocks, or an extreme amount of gunk on the bottom of the pond, and smell a "rotten egg" smell, that is Hydrogen Sulfide gas that has been released. Stop immediately! Remove the fish to a safe place, and clean the pond.
All photos and content on this page and this website are the property of C&C Waterscapes and may not be reproduced without the express permission of C&C Waterscapes.
©C&C Waterscapes 1993-2005