Test and Treat Your Pond Water Today

As I discussed in my last blog post, Getting Your Pond Ready for Spring, it is important to give your pond a fresh start this season by cleaning out the old, dirty water and filling it with fresh, treated water. However, once your pond water has been swapped out, there are several additional steps you need to take to ensure that it stays balanced and can effectively support life.

Plants and fish are what help to make your pond a beautiful ecosystem. However, those same forms of life also create imbalances in the pond water that can cause problems if they aren’t monitored and dealt with effectively. Therefore, once you’ve done your spring cleaning and put new water in your pond, take the following steps to ensure that your backyard pond will function properly.

4 Steps to Balanced Pond Water and Healthy Pond Life

Balanced water is essential to creating and maintaining a healthy ecosystem in your backyard pond. It is important to equip yourself with the proper pond supplies for testing and treating your pod water, because it is necessary to regularly:

1. Use a test kit to monitor the pH, chlorine, nitrate, and ammonia levels in your pond.


2. Maintain ideal pH levels in your pond to keep your water clear and your fish and plant life healthy and happy. Good pH levels are right around 7.0, because that means water is neutral. Higher levels indicate too much ammonia build-up in the pond, and lower levels indicate that the water is too acidic and your fish aren’t getting enough oxygen. You can do partial water changes to help balance the pH levels, and if they continually fluctuate into dangerous levels, you can use a buffer such as calcium carbonate in small amounts to help regulate.


3. Eliminate any chlorine detected in the water by using a dechlorinator or chlorine neutralizer. Chlorine prevents beneficial bacteria from growing.


4. Monitor the amount of nitrate and ammonia in your pond. Both of these chemicals are a result of the metabolic waste produced by your fish. If levels are too high, excessive algae will grow, oxygen will be depleted, and your fish and other plant life will suffer. A good pond filter should help to get rid of most of the nitrate and ammonia build-up in your pond, and water plants can also help to keep levels low.

It is essential to regularly monitor and adjust each of these pond water components, because one of the most important aspects of plant and fish health is consistency. Fish in particular react poorly to abrupt changes – they are sensitive and delicate creatures, and it is up to you to create and maintain an ecosystem in which they can comfortable survive.

*Photo provided by libookperson Flickr

Getting Your Pond Ready for Spring

It's that time of year again – the ice and snow are starting to melt, the sun is coming out every once in a while, and people are able to see that warmer days are on the way. It's great news for those of you who have been hibernating in your homes for the past few months, and it's even better news for your backyard ponds.

Although your garden and lawn may require fairly aggressive makeovers once spring arrives, your backyard pond requires a gentler and more subtle approach to get it in shape for warmer weather. Arm yourself with the proper pond supplies and head outside – your pond and its inhabitants are anxiously waiting!

Spring into Action: Get Your Pond Ready for Warm Weather

As you have probably realized by now, taking care of your fish pond requires a great deal of tender loving care. Fish are delicate creatures, and they are especially weak after a long winter, so you have to be careful not to make any sudden changes that will upset their immune systems. That being said, we encourage you to follow these steps to safely get your pond spring-savvy in a snap:

1. Examine your pond for damage. It’s possible that your pond may have suffered some damage during the long winter. Check especially for tears in the lining, get rid of any accumulated debris, and inspect all hoses for punctures or leaks.


2. Remove winter equipment. If you installed a pond de-icer, now is the time to remove, dry and properly store it.


3. Give your pond a fresh start – clean out the dirty water. During winter a good deal of sludge has probably build up in your pond from fallen leaves, a mixture of melting snow and mud, and your fish's biological processes. Remove the fish gently using a pond skimmer and place them in a bucket filled with the original pond water. Remove the dirty water with buckets; rinse any gravel or rocks you have on the bottom; and scrub major dirt and muck off of your pond liner. *Note: don't scrub all the algae off of your pond liner – it is beneficial to the seasoning of the pond.
   
   
   • Be sure to save a portion of the original pond water to add to the new water. Doing so keeps some of the beneficial bacteria that aids in the biological processes the pond needs to properly function.


4. Fill the pond with fresh, treated water. If you use hose / tap water to refill your pond, be sure to treat it with chlorine removal solution so you don’t inadvertently poison your fish.


5. Clean your pond filter to get rid of any build-up and get it running (if it wasn't already.) Be sure to clean your pond filter parts in pond water, not hose / tap water, because the latter contains chlorine that will kill beneficial bacteria. Run the filter in shallow water at first to make sure that it is still functioning properly.


6. Reintegrate your fish into the new, clean pond water. Simply dumping your fish into the new pond water will shock their systems and could result in death. Therefore, let the bucket with your fish in it float in the new water for about an hour so the temperatures can neutralize. Then slowly and gently empty the bucket into the pond.

As you can see, spring cleaning is just as important in your backyard pond as it is inside your own home. There are many steps necessary to ensure that your pond and its inhabitants make the transition between winter dormancy and spring activity successfully, and Pondliner is committed to helping you each step of the way.

*Photo provided by LollyKnit on Flickr.