Posts Tagged ‘fish’

How To Maintain Your Koi Pond

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

The first concern of every fish keeper, whether it be a pond or a tank is water quality. You have to spend some time and some money every month, looking after the quality of the water in your fish tank or pond. In fact, it is a lot cheaper in terms of time, money and stress to maintain a good quality of water than it is to correct water once you have let it go wrong.

Your filtration system is your number one tool in the fight to maintain good quality water. A good filtration system consists of two facets: mechanical and biological. The mechanical feature removes the physical waste and debris that builds up in any body of water, particularly one that has fish in it.

The mechanical filtration system has to be of a size that it can deal with the volume of water that you have. A pump will suck up the water and pass it through a filter and the clean water, ie minus leaves, algae and faeces, runs back to the pond via a waterfall, which also aids aeration.

The biological filtration system will deal with waste that has already dissolved into the water in the form of nitrogen. if you do not release this nitrogen, by initiating a nitrogen cycle, it will build up and change itself into ammonia, which will kill your fish in a matter of days. This nitrogen cycle is essential.

Just think about it, your fish are living, breathing, eating and sleeping in their toilet bowl, so unless you keep their environment sanitary, they will poison themselves. A river, their natural environment, is continuously being flushed into the sea and renewed with rain. You have to reproduce that environment if you want to keep healthy fish.

A good rule of thumb is, if you can see the bottom of your pond, then you are probably doing all right, but do not rest on your laurels. First time pond owners often make the mistake of over-feeding. That excess food becomes waste and has to be removed or it will feed the growth of algae.

Do not fail to remember that, if your fish live outside, they will be eating flies, grubs and larvae so they can quite happily go without a feed for a few weeks. That does not mean that you do not need to feed them, it just means take care. Feed more in the summer than in the winter, because your fish will become listless in the winter.

Quarantine your new fish to make sure that you do not pass on diseases. For instance, the koi herpes virus develops at precisely 74F, so if you heat a tank to that temperature with your new fish in it, you will know whether they are safe to put in the pond or not. During this quarantine stage, you must not share implements with your pond and your tank or you run the risk of cross-contaminating your pond.

Koi can be expensive, so when you are setting up your first fish pond, you may like to stock it with goldfish instead until you get the hang of things. Later on, you can add koi carp as they will happily live side-by-side.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is now concerned with water garden pumps. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for a great deal.

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Caring For Your Fish Pond

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Do you like the sound of running water? Do you find the sound relaxing? Well, you can easily produce 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 needs landscaping, it might be a good idea to think about a fish pond or water garden.

People believe that a fish pond takes lot of looking after, but that is not inevitably the case. The fact is that the larger the fish pond, the less effort you have to put into it. This is because a large pond can create its own ecosystem, whereas a small fish pond needs help.

The ways that you can help a small fish pond be a good 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. Check that the pump is running daily and keep the filter as clean as needed 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 suspended a foot or so above the pond to stop 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 stores that they built up in the warmer months, so feed 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 actually. If you place the food in the hoop, it remains 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 author of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved 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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Your Koi Pond After A Storm

Monday, May 17th, 2010

A storm can be distressing for your outdoor fish, especially for large koi carp, which, being large, possibly do not have many areas to hide. However, if you have designed your koi fish pond well, you will have taken this into account when your built the pond. Similarly, the pond must be deep enough for your fish to be able to get well beneath the choppy surface layer.

If you got ready for the storm, you possibly put a net over the fish pond, so the first thing you need to do after the storm is clear up any fallen debris and take away the net, so that you can get a good look at your fish and what occurred to them. They may be a bit stressed, so move slowly and try hard not to frighten them. Stress is a killer in the animal world as well as in ours.

Did you take the added safeguard of sand-bagging the rim of your pond to stop it over-flowing and the fish swimming away? If so, take away the sand bags, so that you can get a better look.

Now you can get a good look at the upheaval, if there is any. Use a net to quietly skim off any leaves that have blown under the netting and onto the pond. If any plants have been uprooted, put them back where they should be. In general, put the pond back as it used to be, so that the fish feel at home. Again, move unhurriedly and try not to put your fish under any more stress.

If you have to carry out major structural repairs, you could place your koi in a child’s plastic paddling pool until you can sort the issue out. Put the pool in a shaded area and fold the netting over it several times so that the fish can not get out and cats and birds cannot get in. If you can aerate the pool with a pump so much the better.

Put a few plants in there with them for cover and feed sparingly. if the repairs will take a long time, you could ask your local pet shop to take them away for a week or whatever. You will have to pay board and lodgings, but it is preferable to losing your prized koi carp.

Once any repairs have been carried out, you ought to check the water quality, which could have been changed by debris falling into the pond or by your repairs. Rain, especially acid rain, can have quite an effect, particularly if it rained for a long time.

First check the water for nitrates. If the levels are incorrect (see the testing kit for details), you ought to normalize them. If the levels are extremely high, first remove the plants from the water.

Then test the KH levels. If they are low, say, below 100, then you could add a cup of baking soda per 1,000 gallons of water and check again. Whatever you do, the quickest way to de-stress your fish is to restore their environment to what it used to be with clean water to swim in.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is now concerned 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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Your Very Own Backyard Pond

Saturday, May 15th, 2010

If you have a backyard or back garden, you can have a fish pond. They are not costly to build and if you make it yourself it is clearly even cheaper. You can build your own pond pretty easily, you just have to keep a few things in mind when you plan where you are going to put it and how big it will be.

A backyard fish pond is great for all kinds of households. Tending a backyard fish pond is not difficult and the gentle exercise will be good for you. it is also therapeutic to watch the fish and other pond life going about their daily business and children will learn a bit more about nature,

It is important to plan your pond before you pick up your spade and the first thing to think about is where you are going to put it. Try not to put it under a tree or you will be pulling leaves out of your pond every day in autumn. Do not put the pond at the lowest point in your backyard or it could overflow when it rains and your fish may swim away which means that you will have to sandbag it before it rains every time..

The midday sun can be very hot, so it would help if the pond had at least partial shade between 11 AM and 2 PM. If your area is subject to freezing then the pond should be 30-45 inches deep for at least 4 m2 or 36 ft2, although if the winter can get really severe, it is best to seek guidance from a local pet shop. Have a look at the pre-formed fish ponds in a garden or pond centre to see if you like those shapes and sizes. If you do not, then you can procure a butyl pond liner (a sheet of rubber) and design your own pond.

After you have dug out your backyard fish pond and put your pre-formed or butyl liner into the hole, you should finish off the pond’s edge with either brick, block or stone. Use similar materials to build a few caves in the pond itself for the fish to take cover in. You could also anchor the fountain and any under-water lighting. Fill the pond with water, but do not place any living thing into it yet. Put the rest of your equipment in.

You will need a general purpose pump to send water to the pond filter, which should be two or three feet above the water level. The water will then have to pass through a filter to take out plant debris and faeces and under a UV light to kill bacteria. It can return to the pond via a waterfall, which will help aerate the water as will the fountain.

After a week, the water will have lost the chemicals like chlorine which the water company puts into it and you can buy plants and fish, but do not rush into it. You may want to build a few shelves to put flower pots on for the aquatic plants that need them.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is at present concerned with fish pond accessories. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for some great deals.

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Tips For Setting Up A Backyard Fish Pond

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Do you have a garden pond? Or would you like one? A garden pond or a water garden does not have to be large to totally change how you use your garden. The sound of running water is so relaxing and a pond fountain or a waterfall can have a cooling effect on a hot summer’s day. Watching the fish carry out their daily lives is relaxing too and many gardeners like the chance to branch out into the new realm of aquatic plants.

If your pond is sunk into the earth, your could watch it from above or you could build it above ground and use perspex windows to watch your fish on their own level. Your fish will breed too, so you will have a new, perfect, ecosystem in your own garden.

Select the site of your pond with care. Try to position it on slightly higher ground, so that it is not flooded with all your garden’s rainwater in the course of heavy rains. Beware of putting your pond under a tree or you will always be raking leaves out of the water, which is a real pain. Siting your pond in a location where it is in at least partial shade when the sun is high will also help reduce on algae growth.

However, once the contractor has created your pond and you have stocked it, is the time when your work begins. Perhaps not work, possibly you will take pleasure in maintaining your fish and your fish pond. This is not hard and a largish pond will need hardly any maintenance at all, most of it can be mechanized.

One of the first things that you will have to try to do is stop your garden falling into the pond. You do not want surrounding mud dropping into the pond and literally muddying the water. This can be achieved by lining your pond with a butyl pond liner and bringing the liner up over the lip of the pond by a foot or two.

Then you have to hold that in place. This can be done to suit your taste, but many people put a stone or brick walkway around the pond. If you let this overhang the pond by an inch or two, you will very nearly totally hide the pond liner.

The majority of people overfeed their fish, because fish outdoor will find a lot of natural food such as flies, larvae and grubs. This surplus food turns into a surplus of nutrients. This super-charged water is a perfect environment for algae, and algae is going to be your undying adversary. However, you can soak up some of these surplus nutrients with other plants that you like.

Aquatic plants such as lilies really make a pond and they will help aerate the water during the day when the water may be warmer (warm water contains less oxygen than cool water). Plants also give your fish somewhere to hide from predators and strong sunlight, which will diminish stress on your fish as well.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, 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 great deal.

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