Creating a garden pond
A garden pond can be a wonderful focal point in your garden and will help bring life to any garden. There are many different types of garden ponds so be careful and make sure you create one that suits your particular needs and preferences.
A good way to start is to decide where in the garden you want the pond and what, if anything, you want living in it. Two common and good choices are Koi carps and goldfish. Another good choice is frogs, they will not only be a nice part of the garden but will also help fight flies and mosquitos. Frogs often appear in ponds without having been introduced to it by man.
There are also those who prefer to focus on plants rather than animals, e.g. by using plants like lotus flowers and water lillies in their ponds. Consider you local climate before you decide what you want to keep in your pond because if you don’t you will likely end up spending a lot of money constantly restocking your pond.
A water garden typically contains a lot of plants, and perhaps also fish such as goldfish. Koi is advised against for most types of water gardens since they are very fond of eating plants. If you despite this chose to keep Koi there are a low number of plants that Koi carps will not eat and that can be used in Koi ponds.
In moderately cold temperature climates a goldfish pond should ideally be at least two feet deep unless you want to bring your fish indoors during the cold season. In cold temperate climates where the water will freeze you have to make sure there is at least 15 inches of water for the fish below the freeze zone. Or you can choose to use a filter (or heather) to prevent the pond from freezing. Koi grow fairly big and keeping them in ponds smaller than 1000 gallons is not recommended. One part of a Koi pond should always be more than 4 ft deep.
A common beginner mistake when constructing a garden pond is to think smaller equals easier. You can never go too big as bigger is always better. Small ponds can easily be polluted by just a small amount of leaves or a few dead fish. A large pond on the other hand can handle more waste without it affecting the water quality to the same extent. Larger ponds also have a more stable temperature.
When setting up your garden pond, there is a wide range of informative pages to be found on the Internet, such as clubs and organisations for pond keepers, online forums where ponds are discussed, and consumer pages where pond equipment is reviewed. When you choose what to stock your pond with you can use resources such as fish forums and sites devoted to the art of keeping pond animals. A search engine or pet fish directory Will help you find what you are looking for.
Tagged with: fish • garden • garden pond • pond • ponds