Make Your Pond Problem-Free

Thorough and regular maintenance of your garden pond is essential to help maintain the beauty and the health of your pond for many years to come. Here are our top tips for taking care of yours.

By Sacha Markin

A garden pond can totally transform the landscape of any garden, adding tranquillity and an eye-catching focal point, although after setting up a pond, adding plants and stocking it with fish, the job is far from complete.

Where To Site Your Pond
Try not to have your pond at the lowest point of the garden, as rain from the garden will not only overflow the pond, it will also pollute the water with garden rubble and dirt. And don't install a new garden pond directly under a large tree as falling debris will make it tricky to keep the pond clean. It's useful to line the ponds edge with rocks to stop dirt and plants accidentally falling into the water, and if your garden pond is built in direct sunlight, have some taller plants are around the edge of the pond to help keep the water cooler and a bit shaded during warm and sunny weather.

Pond Pumps & Filters

A good water pump and filtration system is important for any pond, particularly if you're going to keep fish and for the wellbeing of pond plants. But how do they work? The pond pump basically keeps the water moving, circulating oxygen, while the filter's job is to act as a mini-sewage system for the pond. The components in the filter offer a vast surface area which becomes home to lots of helpful bacteria produced. When waste (such as fish excretion and left-over food) starts breaking down and releasing toxins into the water, the same water will eventually pass through the filter, with the helpful bacteria breaking down the invisible toxins trapped in the filter.

Remember, keeping the pump and filter in tip-top condition is crucial to the health of your pond and its inhabitants, so check and clean it on a regular basis. And why not consider streams or cascades around your pond - waterfalls allow you to have ponds at different levels and the water falling into the pond below helps to provide a source of oxygen for the fish. These additions will require their own separate pump.

Ask for professional advice on the right-size pump and filter for your pond, and try to spend as much as you can afford on the best quality equipment. And be careful when installing electrical pumps and filters around the water. You may want to look at solar equipment such as lights and pumps, which will not only keep running costs low, but they're also safer than using electrics and easier to put in. But bear in mind solar pumps can run quite erratically depending upon the light available, so may not be a great idea if you're keeping fish.

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