The Way To Prepare Your Fish Pond For A Storm

It does not matter where you live, I am sure that you have storms at some time of the year. In the north of the northern hemisphere, we tend to get lots of rain in winter and spring. In the tropics, there may be monsoons. Whatever you call them, they give off lots of wind and lots of rain in a short space of time – it is basically a storm.

The fact is that, if you know that a storm is coming, you can take safety measures and save your precious fish, whether they are expensive or just dear to you. It might be useful to differentiate between minor and major storms, but that is only helpful if you can trust your meteorologist.

Minor Storms: the first thing to do is to stop feeding your fish, if you have enough notice of the storm. Fish can easily live for weeks on the insects and plant life in the water, so do not be concerned. The reason for stopping feeding is that if the storm damages your filtration system, the quality of the pond water will not deteriorate so much, if there is no uneaten food in it.

Remove some of the water to allow for the rainfall, but do a partial water change too, because otherwise the reduced water level will contain greater levels of impurities until the rain comes.

Remove things from the vicinity that can blow over and fall into your pond. It is a good idea to put a net over the pond to prevent things being blown into it too. Flying twigs or branches could alarm or even spear your fish.

Major Storms: we are not talking about hurricanes here. If a hurricane looks likely to hit, you should evacuate your fish to a temporary tank somewhere safe – maybe a 50 gallon barrel in the basement or somewhere like that.

If you want to be completely certain that your fish will be alright, you could ask your local pet shop to take them away to look after them otherwise proceed as for a minor storm but with the following extra safety measures.

Disconnect all the electrical apparatus in and around your fish pond. Make certain that there is no way that a live wire can fall into the pond and electrocute your fish. Remove all the plants from your pond as they could be damaged by the wind and waves, but leave any stone hiding places that your fish will surely look for while the storm is raging. If you reckon that perhaps you do not have enough ‘caves’, build some provisional ones from bricks or blocks.

Put a double layer of netting over your pond and tie it lower down than normal, say only a few inches above the water line, but not so low that if a fish gets out, it cannot get back in. Lastly, build a wall of sand bags at least two feet high all the way around your pond. This will allow the water to get in and drain away, without taking your fish with it, which is why the net must be high enough to permit the fish to get back into the pond.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is now involved 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.

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October 01 2010 | Gardening | No Comments »

How To Take Care Of Your Fish Pond

Do you like the sound of running water? Do you find the sound relaxing? Well, you can easily create the sound of moving water in your own garden. You can put in a fish pond or a water garden. So, if you think that your garden requires landscaping, it might be a good idea to consider a fish pond or water garden.

People think that a fish pond takes lot of looking after, but that is not inevitably the case. The truth is that the bigger the fish pond, the less work you have to put into it. This is because a large pond can create its own ecosystem, whereas a small fish pond requires help.

The ways that you can help a small fish pond be a decent environment for your fish are as follows:

Pond Filters – use a pond filter with a good pump. Do not forget that you could use a solar powered pump. It will save on the environment and on your wallet. You should use a pond filter on a small pond, because the ecosystem cannot cope with all the plant waste of a small ornamental pond on its own. A pond pump will feed the filtration system and a waterfall or fountain if you want.

Your pond filtration system should be left running twenty-four hours a day, but you can not just set it and forget it. Make sure that the pump is running daily and keep the filter as clean as necessary for it to do its job. You may find that you have to clean it two or three times a week in the summer and autumn but only once a week in the winter and spring.

Leaf Netting: stop leaves from clogging up your pond in the autumn. The net should be poised a foot or so above the pond to prevent autumn leaves falling into the water and rotting.

Feeding: all fish should be fed fish food, not bread or scraps. Some fish ought to have specific fish food in order to preserve their colour. When you buy your fish, the salesperson should inform you what they eat. In general, the larger the pond the less trouble feeding becomes as they will eat natural food like insects, grubs, larvae and flies.

Fish need less food in the winter when they become semi-dormant and live off the fat reserves that they built up in the warmer months, so give food often in the summer and autumn, but less often in the winter. You must look to see if surplus food is left floating on the surface.

Winter: make sure that there is a hole in the ice so that the water can take in oxygen and the fish can feed if they wish to. You can buy a floating de-icer or some people float a round football in a hoola-hoop, which seems to work unless the temperature gets very low.

In fact, the hoola-hoop is a good idea all year round really. If you place the food in the hoop, it stays in one place and you can see if you have given too much. It also makes a nice site to see all the fish feeding in a group.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently concerned with water garden pumps. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site right away for some extra special deals.

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September 25 2010 | Gardening | No Comments »

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