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If you are new to looking after koi carp in your garden fish pond, you may be asking yourself what supplies you have to keep in stock and what you can afford to buy as and when you need them. The answer to that question, is probably that it depends how far away your closest pet shop is. However, it is a good idea to pick up provisions to put in stock, when you see that something is on special offer.

There are items that you ought to have at hand at all times, but there are others that are not vital and can be waited for for a few days when you discover a need for them. Some of the things recommended below become more significant depending on the climate or the seasons prevailing where you live.

Filtration Pump; this is vital, but you can wait twenty-four hours. You need to keep in mind that the quality of your pond water will deteriorate rapidly, if your pond filtration pump is out of action. Toxicity levels will rise in the water and stress levels will build up in your fish. Your fish will become sick pretty rapidly and then they will die.

Pond Filters: this comes into the same category as the filtration pump for precisely the same reasons. However, you can make your own filter using sand, coconut fibres or something like that and then you should never run out.

Dechlorinator: water companies add chemicals like chlorine and fluoride to the water, but fish do not like them. Therefore, you have to eliminate them. This is easily accomplished by adding a few capfuls of liquid dechlorinator. Buy a large bottle and it will last all year.

Test Kits: maintaining water quality is the main aim for every fish pond owner, so you have to inspect the water for ammonia and nitrite poisoning every week. This is thought of as vital kit.

Pond Salt and Baking Soda; are the cheapest ways of combatting water toxicity, so it is vital to have plentiful supplies of these items at all times.

Bags: one day you may need to transport one of your fish to the vets or take it to a quarantine tank, so you will need to keep a few bags on hand at all times. Make certain that they are large enough to hold your growing koi. These are essential.

Rubber Bands: you will need strong rubber bands to seal off the bags above, so they are indispensable too.

Fish Net: necessary for guiding your fish into the bags and removing fallen leaves.

Bucket: this is better for catching your koi than a net, which has the ability to damage their gills. Vital.

Koi Fish Food: koi need to be fed every day except in winter, but they can in fact last a couple of weeks without food because they also feed on flies, grubs and larvae. It actually depends on how big your pond is and whether you have overstocked it.

Leaf Net: in the autumn, it is easier to cast a net over your pond, than drag leaves out of it every day. It saves a lot of time.

Sandbags: a storm or even intense rainfall can flood your pond, allowing your fish to swim away. Sandbagging the pond before a storm is important.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many topics, but is at present involved with fish pond accessories. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for some great deals.

The fish in your backyard fish pond will be semi-dormant for the duration of the winter, that is to say that they will almost hibernate, but not quite. You will see your fish lying on the bottom of your pond hardly moving a muscle. They will be living off stores of fat that they have built up during the summer, but they may choose to eat every now and again, so you have to keep giving food, but in very reduced quantities.

There are a few things that you ought to do to ready your backyard fish pond for the winter, because this will help them survive the winter.

The first thing to do is clean up your pond and the surrounding area. Any dead vegetation that finds its way into your pond will have months to rot down and ruin the quality of your pond water, just when your fish are at their most susceptible.

Dredge your pond, aiming to take out at least half of the slush at the bottom, but try to leave any grubs, larvae and insects behind, because they are a good source of protein for your fish.

Scrape the sides of the pond of algae and net it out. You should also take out any plants that are unlikely to make it through the winter. Fix a leaf net over the pond in order to prevent tree leaves from blowing into the pond at a later time when the weather gets rough. If you expect flooding or heavy rain, sandbag the perimeter of the pond to a height of two feet to stop fish being swept away.

When the water temperature drops to 55-60F, reduce feeding to once per day and when it drops to 50F, stop giving food altogether. Even if the temperature rises above 50F for a day or two, do not feed until winter is over. This is because the fish may eat intuitively, but at this temperature food can take four days to digest and could kill your fish.

Clean your filtration system and remove your pumps and fountain from the water. Once you have retrieved your equipment you can scrub and maintain it at your leisure. You do not want it to freeze solid during a frost.

Stock up on your chemicals, medicines, water testing kits and foods now while you have plenty of time, because in essence, you are closing your pond down for the winter.

Turn off all items that supply or recycle water to your pond. Make certain that they are unplugged and unable to be switched on accidentally. If water recyclers get switched on accidentally, it will disrupt the layers of cold and warmer water in the pond and may stress or even kill your fish.

Test and install your de-icer. It is very important to maintain a hole in any ice that forms, otherwise the gases and chemicals that emanate from rotting vegetation and fish excrement will build up and the water will not be able to take in oxygen. This is crucial or one day the ice will melt and your fish will all float to the top – dead.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is at present involved with koi pond kits. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for a special deal.

When people who keep fish talk of how to keep your pond in good condition, they take it for granted that everyone realizes that it is synonymous with how to keep the water in your fish pond in decent condition, because the water to fish is like air is to us and everything depends upon it. We cannot be healthy if we are breathing smut, smog and pollution and nor can fish.

So, if you keep the water decontaminated, the fish will be glad and probably breed and the plants will be happy and probably propagate and healthy plants will do their own bit to help keep the water decontaminated. However, you have to get the ball rolling, before others can help keep it rolling and your biggest job here is to get the pond’s water filtration system correct from the start.

You need to set up two types of filtration. The first is a simple mechanical filter that traps algae, dead plants, leaves and faeces as the water is pumped through it and the second filter is a biological filter that mutates unseen waste from your pond.

This produces a nitrogen cycle and the danger here is that the nitrogen will change into ammonia which will kill your fish very quickly. A easy test is the clarity of the water. It ought to be clear enough for you to see the bottom easily and there ought to be no floating debris in there. No lumps of sticky weed or clogs of bubbling vegetation.

Overfeeding is a trap that lots of novice pond-owners fall into. You have to feed your fish high quality food, depending on what they are, but do not forget that they will get some wild, fresh meat as well. Insects will fall in and mosquitoes will attempt to breed in there and all will get consumed by your fish, so do not be alarmed if they do not seem to be eating much.

An excess of store-bought fish food will cause the water to go cloudy and algae to grow. If you want to raise the proportion of wild game in their diet, put a small night light at the edge of the pool and see how many hundred insects fall into the water to become fish food.

Keep an eye on your plants as well as on your fish. If your plants are dying or rotting, take them out and enquire of an expert the likely cause. It might simply be that they are the wrong sort of plants for your pond or it maybe more significant like the pH value of the water. These are problems that are easily fixed, once you are aware of them.

The last thing to be sure of is aeration. Your pond water must contain oxygen the same as our air must contain oxygen too. This is also easily done. Buy a good pond pump with a filtered intake and two outlets: one for the mechanical filter and one for a fountain. The water falling back to the pond will be rich in oxygen and you should not have any worries about the quality of the water in your fish pond.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is now concerned with water garden pumps. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for a special deal.

If you live in a temperate zone, fish from temperate zones can easily overwinter outside. On the other hand, tropical fish would die without a water heater. We will be looking at how you can keep cold water, temperate climate fish happy during a typical winter.

If you live in an area where winter is cold enough to produce ice, you will have to bear this in mind when you make your fish pond. How thick is ice normally in your area? In most cases, a ‘deep end’ of thirty to forty five inches should be ample, but you will have to get advice locally if you do not know the answer. A pet store, a neighbour or the zoo can offer the required advice.

The other problem with winter and ice is that a layer of ice prevents noxious gases escaping and oxygen entering, as it would do in the normal cycle of events. Therefore, you will have to make certain that there is always a hole in the ice. However, smashing a hole will scare the fish.

There are several ways by which this air hole can be maintained under mild freezing conditions:

Aerator: a bubbler, can be positioned in the pond. It has to be submerged, obviously, and it has to be fairly vigorous, so that the bubbles keep breaking the ice above it. If it is put in water that is too shallow, it can freeze up too, so that is a consideration to be borne in mind.

De-icer: a mild, floating heater. This kind of device does not create enough heat to threaten pond liners, but it is sufficient to keep a small surface area ice free under most weather conditions.

Water pump: a pump pumping water at force through the surface can keep a breathing hole in your pond, but only under fairly mild icy conditions. The pump must be placed in deep water or it could freeze solid.

Hoola-Hoop: if the weather is only mildly icy, a hoola-hoop with a round football floating in its centre can be successful at preventing ice forming within the hoop. The wind keeps the ball moving within the hoop and ice does not get a chance to develop.

This hole in the ice is critical. Your fish will be semi-dormant in the winter and you may not see them for months, but they still need to breathe and excrete and the gases that that and the plants give off need to be allowed to escape or they will poison the water and kill your fish.

At this time of the year it is extremely important not to over-feed. Fish build up layers of fat in the summer and live off that fat during their semi-hibernation in the winter, but they do eat occasionally. The only problem for you is that you will not know which days they decide to come up for a bite.

This is where the hoola-hoop can come in handy again. If you only feed within the hoola hoop, you can see how much food has been taken and how much has been left. Aspire to give no more than they will eat.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is now involved with water garden pumps. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for a great deal.

Ok, I assume the answer is no. But under a boil water advisory, can you use it to water your vegetable garden? What about if it doesn’t contact the fruit or vegetables?

Ive just recently moved into a very old house, the thing is, I have this huge Rain Water Tank in my backyard which is great but unfortunately the roof and spouting is all aspestos so the water cannot be consumed. I want to know whether it is safe to use on my garden and pot plants.I have all this water just sitting there and would love to put it to use the way nature intended. PLEASE HELP.

What is the best kind of tobacco to buy for making tobacco water for pesticide for my home gardens. I bought a can of Grizzly natural Chewing tobacco becasue it was cheap, but is there a better brand to buy or are cigarette tobaccos better to use for pesticides? Also what is the best method of making it? I heard that just boiling in a pot of water and straining out the tobacco works well but is there a better way?

It does not matter where you live, I am sure that you experience storms at some time of the year. In the north of the northern hemisphere, we are inclined to get lots of rain in winter and spring. In the tropics, there may be monsoons. Whatever you call them, they give off lots of wind and lots of rain in a short space of time – it is basically a storm.

The fact is that, if you know that a storm is approaching, you can take precautions and save your precious fish, whether they are expensive or just dear to you. It might be useful to distinguish between minor and major storms, but that is only helpful if you can trust your meteorologist.

Minor Storms: the first thing to do is to stop feeding your fish, if you have enough notice of the storm. Fish can easily live for weeks on the insects and plant life in the water, so do not be concerned. The reason for stopping feeding is that if the storm damages your filtration system, the quality of the pond water will not deteriorate so much, if there is no uneaten food in it.

Take out some of the water to allow for the rainfall, but do a partial water change too, because otherwise the reduced water level will contain greater levels of toxins until the rain comes.

Remove items from the vicinity that can blow over and fall into your pond. It is a good idea to put a net over the pond to prevent debris being blown into it too. Flying twigs or branches could alarm or even spear your fish.

Major Storms: we are not talking about hurricanes here. If a hurricane threatens to hit, you ought to evacuate your fish to a temporary tank somewhere safe – maybe a 50 gallon barrel in the basement or something like that.

If you want to be completely certain that your fish will be alright, you could ask your local pet shop to take them away to look after them otherwise proceed as for a minor storm but with the following extra safety measures.

Disconnect all the electrical apparatus in and around your fish pond. Make certain that there is no way that a live wire can fall into the pond and electrocute your fish. Remove all the plants from your pond as they could be damaged by the wind and waves, but leave any stone hiding places that your fish will surely look for while the storm is raging. If you reckon that perhaps you do not have enough ‘caves’, build some provisional ones from bricks or blocks.

Put a double layer of netting over your pond and tie it lower down than normal, say only a few inches above the water line, but not so low that if a fish gets out, it cannot get back in. Finally, build a wall of sand bags at least two feet high all the way around your pond. This will permit the water to get in and drain away, without taking your fish with it, which is why the net must be high enough to allow the fish to get back into the pond.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is now concerned with water garden pumps. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for a special deal.

Check out this video about water garden:

The larger of my two water gardens. There might be more to come – maybe a longer video.

Check out this video about water garden:

Get your pond ready for spring with help from the professionals at www.pondliner.com. We know there’s nothing like enjoying your water garden when the weather is nice, but before you’re ready to do that you need to do some essential cleaning and maintenance work. Keep your pond life healthy and get your pond prepared for spring by following our tips and using our high-quality pond supplies. Trust Pondliner.com to provide the pond supplies you need to keep your pond flourishing.