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Frequently Asked Questions
Question 1: Is it true that you can't have rocks and gravel in a Water Garden?
Answer: False. This is a tricky question however; you can have rocks and gravel in your pond -- by doing this, it naturalizes the pond and gives a place for natural bacteria to colonize keeping your pond healthy. Here is the tricky part: putting to much gravel on the bottom of the pond can trap too much debris and start producing anaerobic bacteria (without oxygen) which can lead to algae problems and fish health issues. Further, if you plan on investing a lot of money into imported Koi, you don’t want to rock all of the sides of the pond or put gravel on the bottom. A true Koi Pond requires a different approach than building a standard water garden. Call us for more details.
Question 2: In my water garden, do I plant my aquatic plants right into the gravel?
Answer: Yes! By planting right into the gravel, it allows the roots of the aquatic plants to absorb the nutrients directly out of the pond water. It also helps naturalize the pond so you're not looking at a bunch of plastic pots. The catch is that when you plant your plants in the gravel it will require some maintenance and seasonal thinning out, and you have to be careful of invasive plants as well.
Question 3: What happens to my pond or water garden in the winter?
Answer: In the fall when the water temperature starts to fall, it's important to start adding a winter bacteria and start feeding your fish a fall and winter food. All of this will be determined by water temperature. You usually want to stop feeding your fish about a constant 55 degrees. Next, you want to start cutting back all of your aquatic plants a marginal 2-3" above the water line, and cut water lilies just above the gravel. All of your tropical plants can come in for the winter, or just treat them like any annual plant, and just throw it out and replace the following season. Make sure you can take out as much debris out of the pond as you can such as leaves, dead plants and algae. This will help insure a healthy pond in the spring. The last steps are to net your pond and be sure to keep the net from falling into the water. You can do this buy purchasing a floating net riser from Pondering Waters. The last step is to install both a heater and a bubbler to help keep a hole open in the ice for gasses to escape and provide oxygen for the fish. Determining what size bubbler and heater you will need is determined by the size of your pond. Please check with us to get you the size you need. Remember the cleaner you keep your pond in the winter will factor in if you will need a full spring clean-out in the spring. You don't always need to have your pond fully cleaned out in the spring.
Question 4: What kind of pond do I want? A koi pond or water garden?
Answer: This is simply up to you to decide. If you just want to have simple goldfish and a lot of aquatic plants, then a water garden is probably what you want. If you are looking to buy expensive imported koi or want to have just koi in your pond, then a koi pond is what you need.
Question 5: How often should I fertilize the aquatic plants in my water garden?
Answer: There is a time and a place to fertilize your aquatic plants. You will primarily want to fertilize your aquatic plants starting in the spring. Your fish will help fertilize your plants during the summer but if your pond is located in a shady area you may need to fertilize once a month. We recommend using fertilizing tablets because it keeps the fertilizer at the plant itself. Using a liquid fertilizer will fertilize all your aquatic plants and your algae as well so be careful.
Question 6: I'm worried about predators eating my fish. What can I do?
Answer: This is a concern for all of us pond and water garden owners, and the best thing we can recommend is making sure your pond has plenty of hiding spaces; the pond is big enough and keep the least amount of shallow shelf as possible. We're always asked the question what is the best deterrent for predators and what we have found that works the best is the ScareCrow™. This is basically a sprinkler with a motion sensor -- when an object is sensed in front of it, will spray water across the pond. Just remember when it's on, you may get wet!
Question 7: What can I do to help the water clarity in my water garden?
Answer: There are a lot of things we can look at when you have bad water quality -- just don't go right to the store and start buying all kinds of treatments, you just might be wasting a lot of money. We first have to determine why you have bad water quality. Here are just a few determining factors:
- Is your pond leaking? Adding new water all the time can cause bad water quality.
- Is there dirt or water run-off going into the pond? If you have dirt running into your pond or have a down spout close to it, it will add access nutrients to your pond which will affect your water quality.
- Do you have too many fish in your pond? Having too many fish in your pond will add ammonia and fish waste to the water. This can cause poor water quality, and can also eventually kill your fish.
- Are you fertilizing your lawn to close to your pond? This will cause fish death and bad water quality.
- Do you have enough pond plants? Remember, aquatic plants take unwanted nutrients out of the pond so the more plants, the better.
- Adding in a natural bacteria on a regular schedule, and also a rain or lightning storm will help keep your pond in check.
- Do you have a large enough filtration system? Inadequate filtration will also cause poor water quality.
Question 8: Where should I put my pond or water garden?
Answer: You'll probably spend a lot of time out by your pond or water garden, and will invest good money on having it properly installed. So we always recommend keeping it as close to your house as possible. You'll get more enjoyment from it that way than having to walk out to the back of your back yard to see your pond.
Question 9: How big should we have installed?
Answer: This will all be determined by your budget and size of your yard. We always recommend going bigger than you think. When we ask our customers what they would change about their pond a year or so after, is they wish they would have made it larger. By doing this from the start, you'll save money right away. When we have to do a pond expansion, it's like paying for two ponds, so just keep that in mind when you have a quote done.
Question 10: What if I love to have a pond with plants and fish, but I don’t want to do the maintenance?
Answer: Pondering Waters provides maintenance packages throughout the summer to help you take care of your pond. Please see the services and downloads pages for more details.
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