When you consider installing a swimming pool, few people daydream about balancing chemicals, scrubbing the tiles and raking out debris and drowned bugs on a daily or weekly basis. If that were forefront in your mind, you’d likely have second thoughts about the whole project! Well, the same thing applies to ponds. Who wants to spend their leisure time mucking out muck, scrubbing algae off rocks, and stressing over emergency water changes? Far better to set your pond up strategically to begin with and allow it to develop into a naturally balanced ecosystem that needs only the occasional helping hand to thrive.
To set up a balanced ecosystem, start with a pond pump that is large enough to cycle the full volume of water in your pond once every hour. For a 1500 gallon pond, you’ll want a 1500 GPH (gallons per hour) pump. Attach a filter with a good matrix for growing a strong colony of beneficial bacteria, and add some activated carbon. Together, these will help your pond remove toxins and naturally process waste products. Be sure to add a good number of aquatic plants - both those whose leaves and flowers remain above the water and those who are completely submerged. They’ll help with oxygen exchange and balancing the nutrient/waste load. Next, don’t overload your pond with too many fish. High fish populations in ponds create pollution, much like high human populations in cities. In this case, try to allow 1 square feet of surface area per inch of fish and 10 square feet per koi. In the same vein, never overfeed your fish! Fish are hardier than you’d expect, and most adult fish can tolerate a fast of several days without harm, so don’t imagine that they’ll suffer if they’re not stuffed to the gills at breakfast. Finally, take care of detritus that falls in your pond, whether it’s leaves from overhanging trees to storm debris, before it has a chance to decompose. With these systems in place, your pond can be largely self-sustaining, requiring only general maintenance and monitoring to thrive.
