Having a pond means you will have a lot of mosquitoes. Mosquitoes will generally only lay their eggs in still, stagnant water. If the mosquitoes happen to lay eggs in your pond and the mosquito larvae hatch, the fish in your pond will consider them a treat and will pick them off the water's surface with great enthusiasm. Your skimmer will sweep up whatever the fish miss. Another option is to use a natural mosquito larvae killer. Having a pond may decrease the value of your home! Everyone knows when it comes to the re-sale value of your home, a swimming pool can be deadly. However, in the opinion of some real estate agents, ponds can be a great addition to your home that might even pay dividends. With water features and pond designs becoming more and more popular, you can bet that the demand for them will get even bigger! It's natural to have these thoughts and concerns, but it is more important to remember that a professionally-installed water garden has steps leading into the pond. The first shelf is only ankle high once the gravel is laid down. The smallest area in the bottom is just above your knee, so it is not constructed like a swimming pool. We do recommend that you make your neighbors aware of the water garden or pond and educate your own children and friends about the safety of any body of water. You can use a timer on your pond! Not true! Your pond is a living, breathing ecosystem that needs constant oxygen, just like the human race. If you shut your system down at night, then you can never have sufficient growth of beneficial bacteria to fight algae blooms, and your finned friends will have a hard time breathing. The rocks and gravel make it difficult to clean your pond.  You are susceptible to buying into this myth if, and only if, you've never experienced pondering with rocks and gravel in your pond. If you have a smooth-bottom pond, and each season you're amazed at the amount of muck and grime that collects on the liner in the bottom, you automatically rule out rocks as a solution. You keep visualizing that same amount of muck on top of the rocks and gravel and say, "NO!" to even considering them. It's understandable. Its seems logical... until you learn the rest of the story. Rocks and gravel offer a natural place for aerobic bacteria to colonize and set up housekeeping. This bacteria breaks down the fish waste and debris that would otherwise accumulate in the pond and turn into sludge. Regardless of your pond's location (i.e., close to trees and loads of leaves), or how many fish you have in it, you'll find that having rocks and gravel in your pond not only makes it look better, but it makes it healthier as well. So contrary to the myth, having rocks and gravel on the bottom of your pond actually allows Mother Nature to clean up after herself, saving you headaches and hours of work cleaning your pond and trying to keep the bottom of the pond muck-free. Bottom drains work best if you have koi.The claim by many koi keepers is that the water will lack sufficient oxygen at the lower levels, and this insufficiency can be detrimental to your koi. The real fact is that if you avoid making your pond any deeper than two feet, there is very little difference in the oxygen levels at the surface and at the bottom of the pond. The problem with bottom drains is that they have a tendency to promote leaks, possibly leaving your fish land-locked. Now that's a problem to avoid at all costs. The more filtration the better the pond. Believe it or not, you can over-filter a pond. That's right. Tight filter pads in your skimmer pick up the smallest particles of debris, causing you to be cleaning the filtering mechanism out constantly. Now remember, we're not talking about drinking water here. What we are talking about is water clarity and water that's healthy for your fish. Fish in the wild certainly don't swim around in bottled water. If you can see a dime on the bottom of the pond, then the water clarity is just right for your fish and filtering past that is overkill and will create headaches, not eliminate them. Predators will eat all of your fish!Raccoons generally won't swim. That's not to say they never swim, or couldn't stand on the side of your pond and take a paw swipe or two at your fish. Fortunately, most fish will swim to a deeper, more protected part of the pond when a predator is threatening them. The one predator with legitimate credentials is the blue heron. Plenty of lily pads give them some protection and will work to minimize attracting a heron in the first place. Other protection measures include a cave-like structure that can be built in during the pond's excavation, or if you already have a pond, they can be added with a little pond remodeling. Crevices, or miniature caves, can also be created within the rock walls of your pond. You have to bring your fish inside for the winterFish do fine during the coldest of winters as long as you give them two feet of water to swim in, oxygenate the water, and keep a hole in the ice with a de-icer, allowing the naturally produced gasses to escape from under the ice. It's necessary to drain and clean your pond regularly.If you decide to work in harmony with Mother Nature, using the five-part recipe, instead of doing battle with her, then draining and cleaning your pond should take place only once a year (at most). Clean-outs should occur in the spring, before the weather gets warm and the bacteria has an opportunity to set up.
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AuthorLove to make custom water features. I am the owner of Gordon's Pond Utopia. Doing what I love building ponds and water features. Blog Topics
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