Winter Pond Maintenance

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Winter Pond Maintenance Items
Maintaining Proper Water level, De-icer’s and Pump’s, and Debris Net’s/Basket’s and/or Pre-Filter’s



Reminder – DO NOT bang on the ice to create an opening in it. This is harmful to your fish due to the sound waves created by the banging. If you find that your pond has frozen over for some reason (e.g. power outage, equipment failure), contact us for some ideas to safely open it up.


1)  Maintaining Proper Water level – Check the water level and add more as needed.


This is especially critical if you have a skimmer with a pump inside and it is operating as it normally does during the warmer months. Where does the water go? Water will continue to evaporate, albeit at a much slower rate than during the summer. Also, as ice forms across the pond and throughout the stream and waterfall, less water is available. Small water losses have a larger impact on the water level. As water splashes onto the adjacent rocks and the ice covering the pond, that water freezes, essentially leaving the system and becoming “unavailable” (until it melts again in the spring). It generally only takes a 5-gallon bucket or two to get the water level back to the normal operating level, unless an ice dam developed and diverted a large amount of water out of the system.


2)  Uncover your deicer and pump


These items work well for maintaining an opening in the ice during the winter months. However, heavy snow fall events, high winds and drifting, and blizzards (similar to what we recently encountered) can overpower the abilities of these items, and create a snow dome over them. Snow is a great insulator and can block the ever important gas exchange (oxygen dissolving into the water and toxic gases exiting the water) from taking place. So go ahead and carefully shovel/scrape the snow from covering these up. Your fish will love you for it. Be careful if you step onto the ice to do this. We do not want to hear about anyone stepping out onto thin ice. That water is cold. Brrrrrr!




3)  Check the debris basket/nets and pre-filters


These items are there to protect your pump, and as long as water flows through them, they will continue to filter out and collect items before they reach your pump. Similar to what happens during the summer, too much “stuff”, and your pump will become starved from having enough water to operate correctly, and potentially burn out early. So check these items and remove the debris.






Remember to visit our Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube sites as we have added pictures, video clips and additional reminders/suggestions to them.


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Winterization

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https://aquaticinnovators.com/

It’s that time of year again to prepare yourself and your pond, stream, waterfall, and other water features for the onset of winter.

As a refresher for those that have winterized their features before, the main things to do are to feed your fish a cold water fish food, switch to a cold water bacteria, cover your pond with netting to keep all the leaves in the neighborhood from getting into your pond, trim your hardy plants back, remove as much organic matter (leaves, sticks, etc. that do get into the pond) as reasonably possible, turn off remove and rinse off the main pump and check-valve assembly, and install a small bubbling pump and de-icer.  Store your (submersible) pump in water for the winter to prevent the seals from drying out and cracking.  We also recommend removing and thoroughly cleaning your filter media for the winter.  It’ll be ready to go in the spring.

If you have trouble spot or two of string algae that develops, Ecoblast is a perfect solution – it works as long as the water isn’t frozen (most other products are temperature sensitive and are ineffective in cooler/cold water).  First, physically remove what you are able to, then sprinkle the Ecoblast right onto the algae and watch it disappear.  Be sure there is no water circulation in the treatment area for at least 20 minutes to allow it enough time to work.

Remember, the above is just a brief overview of the basics of winterizing your water feature.  For a free downloadable maintenance sheet, visit the Pond Maintenance page on our website or click here.

For specific questions about winterization, or to schedule a time for us to winterize you water feature for you, please contact us at 608-373-7040, or Shawn@AquaticInnovators.com.

Be sure to visit our social media sites – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and more.  Links to each of these sites are also on the home page of our website

Have a great fall and winter season.

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Basic Pond Maintenance

Welcome to Summer!  OK, it isn’t officially summer yet, but I think we can safely say there won’t be any frost for a while, and the forecast for the next week is hot and sticky with a chance of rain every day for about a week.  Spring came a bit earlier this year than the past couple of years, so your ponds and water features should be fully cycled by now.  Your water should be pretty clear if not crystal clear by now, your aquatic plants will be blooming, and your fish begging for food every time they see you.

Like anything, there are always things that you can do to maintain, or tinker with your pond or water feature.  I am always tinkering with our pond.  Not necessarily because something needs to be done (other than finish it  🙂  ), but because I find it relaxing, and can feel the stress melting away while doing it.  A couple of weeks ago, I was actually in our pond planting some water lilies.  The water was 84 degrees F.  It felt great.  Our pond is still a work in progress.  It is functional, but the landscaping around it and plantings within still need some work.  Below is a picture of our pond from a couple of weeks ago.  When the picture was taken, only one of the two pumps was operating.  We don’t always have both pumps running to save on electricity costs.  The second pump more than doubles the flow of water.  Each of the waterfalls is about 2 1/2 feet wide.  The center of the pond is 5 1/2 feet deep.  If you want to know more about why we have multiple pumps (other than to save electricity) and their placement, contact us and we would be happy to explain.

If you are interested in a printable listing of the basics of what you could/should be doing for maintenance of your pond, please visit the pond maintenance page on our website.  There you will be able to download the pdf. document.  If you haven’t been to our website for a while, take a look around you will see that we have made some changes, with more to come.  Suggestions are always welcome.

Here is a link to the pond maintenance page:  Pond Maintenance Information

Also, be sure to check out our Facebook page.  We have been updating that a bit more frequently than the blog.  A link to our Facebook page is on our home page.

Have a great season!

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Join us on Facebook and Twitter

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We are ramping up for a busy year.  We would like to invite you to join us on our Facebook and Twitter pages.  Go to our website:  https://aquaticinnovators.com/, and part way down the home page you will see links our Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages.  You can view the basic pages even if you have not joined any of them.  To see more, you will need to sign in and/or create a profile.

Become a fan of our Facebook page and invite others to become fans as well.  There you can view our postings, as well as fans or ours.  You can add comments of your own.  You can also share pictures of your water features, fish, plants, landscaping, and just about anything else you want.  We do monitor the postings, so in the event something inappropriate is posted, we will delete it.  No need to spread that stuff around.  🙂

Just like this blog, you can subscribe to our Twitter posts (“Tweets”), and automatically get the “Tweets” as they are posted.

You can discontinue being a fan or unsubscribe to our “Tweets” at any time.

We look forward to having you join us!

Enjoy the rest of winter and hope for more sun and warmth.

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Winter Pond Care

Winter has set in and your fish are resting patiently under the snow and ice waiting for spring to come. Be sure to give your fish the best chances of making it through until that time comes.

You prepared your pond for winter by trimming the plants back and removing the bulk of the organic matter (leaves, sticks, etc.). You installed a small bubbling pump too agitate/recirculate the shallow water to promote gas exchange. You also installed a de-icer to keep a small opening in the ice. What else can do? Keep the snow from covering the openings created by the bubbler and de-icer. As the snow builds up in depth and drifts creep across the ice, the openings created by the bubbler and de-icer can easily get covered and rendered useless.

Snow is a great insulator and can prevent the much needed gas exchange from occurring. So go out and look over your pond. If the snow has covered up the openings in the ice, carefully clear the snow away. Your fish will be happy you did.

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