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Water Garden Maintenance: Summer Tips
 While
the majority of the hard work is behind you, there are some summer maintenance
items that still need to be addressed if you are to have a season of clean,
clear water to enjoy. By keeping up on these tasks, you should have a
healthy pond all season long.
Keep your pond "topped off":
Making sure the water level stays where it should be will ensure that
your pump and/or skimmer is able to operate properly. This will help keep
your pond free of debris while providing plenty of oxygenated water for
your fish. The summer heat can be tough on oxygen levels.
Add more plants:
The more the merrier! If at all possible, try to cover at least a third
of the pond’s surface area with water lilies. Also, make sure you
have plenty of marginal and floating plants around the pond to blend the
pond’s edge with your landscape.
Trim those plants:
You’ve added the plants, now keep them lookin’ good. Routine
maintenance, including removal of spent blooms, yellowing leaves, and
excess growth will get rid of nutrients in the pond, reducing the possibility
of algae blooms. If you devote just a few enjoyable minutes each day to
this task, it never becomes “the big chore” that encourages
procrastination.
Feed your fish:
But be careful not to overfeed them. In the extreme heat of the summer,
this can lead to oxygen depletion and possible algae blooms. A good rule
of thumb is not to feed your fish more than they can eat in a period of
two to three minutes.
Do not clean your filter pads:
If you have a biological filtration system, cleaning off the filter pads
will destroy the algaefighting bacteria that live there, resulting in
excess algae growth.
Fertilize lotus and lily plants:
To encourage more prolific blooming during the summer months, use lily
fertilizer tabs near the base of the plants throughout the growing season.
It’s not really necessary to fertilize marginal plants if they’re
planted right in the pond gravel–they will easily pull the nutrients
they need right from the pond.
If you have followed the tips above, and have installed a pond filtration
system that encourages a natural and healthy ecosystem, algae blooms should
not be a concern. Along with having a proper filtration system and creating
balanced ecoystem there are a few additional tips to ensuring an algae-free
summer:
Add bacteria.
It will compete with the algae for excess nutrients in the water,
and effectively help to starve the algae into submission.
Make sure you have plants in your pond.
They will absorb and use excess nutrients from the water, and starve even
more algae out of your pond.
Control runoff.
Avoid using fertilizer in areas that may drain towards your pond. Fertilizer
will cause a surge of excess nutrientsin your pond and actually encourage
algae blooms.
Avoid dependence on a UVA sterilizer to keep your water clear.
Not only does it destroy the algae, but it also destroysevery
other living microorganism in your pond. In other words, the very thing
that helps keep your water clear (the bacteria) is killed off by using
these unnecessary, and unnatural gadgets!
And remember, your water garden is there for you to ENJOY!
Take time to appreciate all that it has to offer you. Nothing is a better
reward after mowing the (remaining) lawn than to have a seat in the cooling
waters of the pond. Also, plant some tropical water lilies - either day
or night blooming. Their beautiful fragrance will cover the whole pond
area and they are visually stunning. Lastly, relax. Don’t worry
about your pond.
For the most part, all you have to do is sit back and allow Mother Nature
to do what she does naturally.
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