Help with pond questions, please!
 

Hi everyone..
We built a pond this spring...not huge, two ponds with a stream in between...marginal plants on a shallow shelf, with about 10-make that 9 koi (one died the other day)...
Anyway, I'm getting it ready for winter...darn leaves are driving me crazy, so we put a net on the pond, and clean it out every day or so...
a book I read suggested cutting the marginal potted plants down and submerging them in the bottom of the pond...so I did, but the water's a bit brown now, although I can see clearly to the bottom.
Is the water brown from the plants, or from the decaying leaves that get into the ponds?
I have a deicer for the pond with the fish in it...do i install that once ice starts to form?
I obsessed about this pond all summer, and I'm still obsessing over it...I love it, but it's really a lot more work than I thought it would be...
Any information would be helpful!

In our zone, zone 5, we don't recommend submerging marginal plants. The ones we use around the ponds are zone hardy and don't need to be submerged for winterization. I would assume that the brown water is from the soil from the marginal plants.

Since you didn't say what kind of de icer you have, my response is for both types of pond de icers. Both floating and submersible pond de icers are designed to turn on when the temperature of the water falls to 32 degrees (freezing level) and to shut off when the water temperature reaches 45 degrees.

How large is your pond? Use one de icer for a 600 gallon pond. If your pond is larger than 600 gallons you will want to use two de icers tied together. It should be placed as close to the liner as possible as the heat will reflect back and in the shallowest part of the pond.

I hope this helps! Take a look at my profile pictures for the Koi Pond that we built this past summer.

Wow Deb, Cheryl sure knows a lot about anything gardening doesn't she? :)

I'd love to have a pond, but wouldn't know where to start.

With a shovel!!! ;)

i MADE MINE WITH 150 & 300 GAL RUBBERMAID TANKS {arrggh sorry about those caps}
We dug them about half way into the ground and used sections of an old telephone pole to make a raised retaining wall around them. I laid flat rock around the perimeter on the larger one and back filled with sand.
I made a made a whiskey barrel bio filter that spills over the edge making a water fall into the pond.

I started my pond adventures with just a 30 gal planter on the patio with a fountain head and pretty rocks.
Then got a preformed 50 gal liner and then moved up to the the tanks and my self built bio filter/water fall.

when the weather gets into freezing here I just leave the pumps running 24/7 to keep a hole open so the gasses can escape. If it does get solid i just go out and open it up a couple time a day.
We usually only have a few days below freezing at a time, so extreme freezing temps or extended freezes aren't a problem here.

The fish go into a hibernation mode so they should be OK as long as there is an open hole.

I usually just do a major clean up 2x a year {spring & fall} to get the leaves and tree needles out of the water.

Don't let it stress you out -water features are supposed to be relaxing & enjoyable.
:grouphug:

Thanks for the advice!
Cheryl, your pond is beautiful...our ponds are 8' in diameter and 9', the top pond being the smaller one...the waterfall goes into that one, and then the stream is about 2 ft long into the lower pond, where the fish are.
I had such trouble with algae this summer, and it's impossible to get it off of the waterfall...I scrub it with a brush, but it's so stuck on...:(
we have Mexican rocks in the pond,and the rocks have gotten a brownish goo on them. Do I need to take everything out and wash it all off?
I know it's supposed to be relaxing, but I am so worried about doing something wrong and killing my sweet fish...wish I could do it all over again and know what the heck we were doing when we made the pond...
oh, by the way, I don't know what zone I'm in, but it can get down to -10 in the winter. I have a surface deicer for the lower pond...the one with the fish.

Thanks Debbie. This was one of the ponds I designed and our crew installed this summer. It was one of our larger ones, 11'x13' and approx 4' deep. We don't use preformed liners as they tend to crack and the rocks will perforate the liners and cause them to leak. We have a lot of fish predators so we install ledges in the pond for the fish to hide. It's quite a process but the clients get to keep their fish a lot longer!

Here's a link to an interactive Sunset Climate Zone Map. Find where you live and click on it and you can find what climate zone you are in.

http://www.sunset.com/sunset/garden/...845218,00.html

To control the algae, you need to control the water temperature. The warmer the water, the more the algae will grow.

The ideal conditions for algae to grow rapidly in number are: 1) warm and well-lighted water; and 2) an abundance of nutrients. The key to 'clearing up' green water, therefore, is to prevent the algae from multiplying by removing the ideal conditions for their growth.

You need to shade the pond. Here's a link that might help you.

http://www.koiandponds.com/algaecontrol.htm

"homemade pond bio-filter" info links
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...er&btnG=Search

I use a variety of the suggestions to make mine.
I clean ours out once a year because we live on a dusty rock road and a lot of the airborne dust lands in the pond and builds up in the filter making a sludge.

One of the projects that we undertook when I was in school was to take care of the City's Koi Ponds. It was a lot of fun! The Koi were quite spunky sometimes and we got to wade around in the huge ponds and clean them out. We wore chest waders and sometimes the fish would "bump" us. Some of them were quite large and if you weren't paying attention, you could find yourself getting knocked off balance and a lot wetter than you anticipated!!! :eek:

In the subdivision where I live, we have an irrigation pond system in which we had an algae problem until I convinced the association that one of the neighbors was dumping their heated water into the pond from their heat pump system. The association wondered why, during the off season months when we don't have irrigation water flowing into our pond, the water level wasn't dissipating and that the water had to be coming from some source. Keeping the water temperature higher than normal was creating the perfect breeding ground for string algae which is poisonous to some animals. Since the irrigation water flows through two pastures this could potentially cause a problem for the homeowner creating the hazard.

We had a two year process of killing the algae once we put a stop to the homeowner dumping their hot water into the irrigation pond. Fortunately, we have solved the problem and our irrigation water is once again safe.

Algae can pose a potential problem if left uncontrolled. It can damage your pump system as well as kill off your fish. It is also unsightly. It doesn't take much to keep it under control.

Good luck with your pond. They can be a source of relaxation! One of these days, I am going to have one instead of designing and installing them for others!!!

Thanks for all of the advice...It's true that we have afternoon sun beating down on the ponds..in the morning, they're shaded by our maple tree.
I have a pond vacuum on my Christmas list...it might help get some of the waste out of the ponds...
I hope to get an expert in here next spring so that we can clean it right. My spasms and knee and back problems make it impossible to clean it right this fall.
Sometimes I think I should take the koi out of the pond and get an aquarium for the winter, but I really want to see if our deicer works and we can get through the winter...
Thanks again!:)