Quick Pond Keeping Answers To Common Water Gardening Questions

1. Excellent biofiltration and feeding high quality food will generally result in few problems with bacterial diseases. In many warmer countries especially, Aeromonas and Pseudomonas bacteria cause potentially fatal ulcer and dropsy diseases. Once the disease is established it is very difficult to eradicate and whole collections of expensive koi can be wiped out. Look for pond additives that work on the basis of competitive exclusion ... these are microbial products that literally starve Aeromonas and Pseudomonas type bacteria out of existence.

2. If you cannot run your pond waterfall pump at night because it is too noisy or if you want to save energy make sure you install a second smaller pump ensuring water is flowing through the biofilter. The bacteria in a pond biofilter die if they are starved of oxygen for more than 5 hours. This of course will happen if the pond pump is switched off overnight. Once dead the bacteria take about 5 weeks to become a large enough colony to be totally viable again. By installing a low cost efficient pump such as a Hozelock Cascade the filter is kept alive due to the flow of water. This arrangement can allow you to actually save a lot on pump running costs.

3. There are a number of possible reasons for this but the most important is that the pond probably does not have an ultra violet light installed since most murky ponds are caused by suspended algae seeking light and these rise to the surface during daylight to catch as much as possible for the sun's rays to allow photosynthesis to take place. ... the pond is not dirty it is just that the top few inches are opaque due to the massive quantity of algae. The solution here is to get an UVC. You will never regret it. If you believe the water is dirty because of suspended solids then consider ...

4. The mechanical section of the filter is not doing a good job and somehow solids that do not easily settle are getting into the pond. Alternatively you might have your fish rummaging in your pond plant containers and continuously disturbing the soil ... but this would rarely cause permanent cloudiness in a pond. You need to check if water is able to by-pass the mechanical section of your pond filter - for example are there gaps around the sponges or are there holes in the sponges. Even this situation is unusual but could be a real problem in ponds with very strong pumps and ponds that also have lots of dirt on the bottom. The combination of these 2 points could create permanently cloudy pond water. But our bet is on the UVC (ultra violet light clarifier) not working properly.

5. If you suspect your pond filter is getting to its biological filtration limit then add more biomedia. You don't have to go and buy a new filter. Replace your present filter media of plastic balls, tubes, and other devices by Alfagrog or something similar. Alfagrog is a lightweight porous inert ceramic filter medium specially made in the UK for biofiltration (used extensively in fish farming). One litre (having a surface area of between 40 and 100 sq metres per litre) of Alfagrog is sufficient for a biofilter handling 1,500 litres of pond water. Each piece of Alfagrog is full of tiny holes.

Another 5 water gardening quick tips here

This table will help you with converting units from one type to another (for example 1 Imperial Gallon/min = 0.16 Cu. Feet/min, 4.55 Litres/min or 0.005 Cu. Metres/min) ...

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