Why EVERY Garden Fish Pond Needs A Good Reliable Pond Pump
A lady rang this morning to discuss a problem with her goldfish ... about
10 fish out of 30 had died over a period of days and more were appearing sick. 3
of the fish were swimming with difficulty, were bloated and also had scales
apparently coming away from their body. The suggesting was the goldfish were infected
with a bacterial disease called dropsy. This article is not about Dropsy also
called pine come disease but about pumps and oxygen in water because it came out
in the conversation that she did not run her pond pump 24/7.
Dropsy is a serious, and usually lethal condition brought on by stress
inducing factors like sudden water temperature changes and poor water quality
caused by build up of ammonia and other toxic chemicals as well as a lack of
dissolved oxygen in the pond water. Expert advice should be sought but recovery
from true Dropsy is highly unlikely.
Why Your garden Fish Pond Is A Potential Death Trap ... because there are
always too many fish in the pond.
If you have a fish pond as distinct from a pond with just plants it is vital
that a suitable submersible pump is installed. The reason for the pump is mainly
to circulate water through the pond biofilter ... it is not to just simply
circulate water. Here's why ...
Fish confined to ponds live in an overstocked unnatural environment. Because
the fish density in almost all fish ponds is very high per cubic metre of water
things are too crowded and to ensure goldfish or koi survival it is important
that the pond water is continuously purified.
In nature this purification process is the result of naturally occurring
bacteria that reside on the bottom of the pond, on rocks, sunken trees and in
fact any underwater structure.
The water in a lake is continuously circulated by the action of wind and the
waves allow fairly high concentrations of oxygen to become dissolved in the
surface layer and this oxygen rich layer is then mixed and distributed through
the body of water by movement of the large water mass.
Bacteria in the lake utilise this dissolved oxygen in the process of
converting fish waste to non toxic chemicals much as the bacteria in a sewage plant
does a similar job.
These oxidising bacteria need large amounts of oxygen to do their job and
they get it from that oxygen dissolved in the lake water. It is this oxygen and
low fish concentrations (therefore low quantities of waste products ... mainly
ammonia) that allow lakes to establish themselves and remain viable over long
periods of time.
In a pond the action of wind is negligible and the fish if left without a
means of replenishing oxygen or a man-made pond purification system would
struggle to survive. The name we give to the artificial garden pond purification
operation is biofiltration and the process consists of converting fish waste
(ammonia) into nitrates that act as plant fertilizers. In this way in a well
balanced pond system nitrogen levels are kept reasonably constant and the danger
of fish dying from ammonia poisoning is reduced dramatically. However with no
pond biofilter or an inefficient one ammonia would build up, fish would become
stressed and therefore prone to disease especially in springtime. In the worst
case scenario levels of ammonia would reach poisonous levels and the fish would
die ... just as some goldfish in a bowl may die after about 7 days.
Your Garden Pond Filter Will NOT Work Without A Continuous Supply Of Oxygen
And This Is Why You Need A Pump
To ensure that the bacteria in the biofilter remain alive and do the job of
consuming ammonia they must be supplied with water containing dissolved oxygen
on a continuous basis ... this means 24 hours per day 365 days per year. In turn
this means you have to PUMP water through the biofilter 24/7. If you stop the
pump for even a few hours the water left behind in the filter will give up all
its oxygen to the "gasping" bacteria until there is no more left and all the
bacteria will suffocate. Once the bacterial colonies which exist in extremely
large number are dead it takes weeks to build a viable population again.
In summary overpopulated fish ponds will suffer from diseases and fish deaths
if the water is not continuously purified using a pond filter and if the pond biofilter is not kept alive with continuously flowing water.
Oxygen is replenished in a pond using waterfalls and fountain arrangements
(those that spray into the air and cascade back onto the pond surface with a
splash ... the splash from the fountain increases oxygen transfer from air to
water considerably).
Other articles on this web site will show you how to select the right pond
pump for your individual situation and also how to choose the right pond filter
for your pond. Choosing the right pump products requires a knowledge of
waterfall pumps and/or
fountain pumps and by making
the right choice you can save not only a lot of money but get peace of mind too
that your fish are well cared for in their aquatic or watery home.
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