The Basics Of A Clear Pond
(Understanding the essential nature of a
fish pond)
First
you dig a hole and put in an approved fish safe liner of some
sort to keep your water in, and the ground water out, and rill
it with clean and fish safe water.
The
water contains organic nutrients that we shall call fertilizer
for simplicity. Plants will grow in it. It is your decision as-
to which ones - the ones that you select and add, or the ones
Mother Nature will try to add - algae.
So, you
add some plants to consume all of the nutrients in the water,
and you now have clear beautiful water in your pond. 'You now
add one small fish. It lives on the bugs and other edibles in
the pond. You add more fish. At some point, as you keep adding
more and more fish, they will run out of food, and you will have
to add more food to the pond. More food = more organic matter =
more fertilizer = you need to add a balancing amount of plants
to consume it.
'You
keep adding more fish, (and, obviously, the proper amount of
additional food for them, and the proper balancing amount of
nutrient consuming plants,) until you reach the point where
there are again too many and they have depleted the amount of
oxygen in the water to a dangerous level for the fish. You now
need to add oxygen. The usual way is with a water pump that
supplies a waterfall or fountain to agitate the pond surface and
mix more oxygen with the water.
You
continue to add more fish and more food and plants. At some
point you will have so much organic fish waste in the system
that the pond will not be able to properly process it fast
enough into fertilizer - and you'll have what is akin to an
unchanged kitty litter box with ten cats using it. Your pond may
not smell quite that bad to you, but the ammonia, etc., is still
overwhelming to the system, and, might smell that bad to the
fish - if they are still alive.
At this
point, the only thing that you can do is to make the pond
biologically bigger with a waste treatment plant - a "biological
filter." What these really do is to provide a home 'for the
bacteria that convert the fish wastes into fertilizer. You pump
water out of the pond, into and through the biological filter
system, and help make fertilizer faster. It does not in any way
reduce the amount of algae, and may in fact increase it - by
providing more fertilizer than the pond might without the
circulation and agitation.
So, if
you want clear water, balance the organic matter (food') in the
water with the proper type s and quantities of plants to consume
it. The only other way to try to have a healthy and clear pond
is to remove the fertilizer by doing water changes. This will
dilute the concentrations and help lower the levels, but this is
also an impractical waste of time, water, and doesn't really
work well.
(PS:-
Ultraviolet sterilizers may only make matters worse by killing
off algae and leaving the dead plants to decay in the pond -
they do not remove the fertilizer from the system.)
back to
Selecting A Pump
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