Outdoor and garden ponds are a great way to add interest to your yard and add variety to the plants that you have in your garden. They also add another water source for your livestock, if you have chickens or fish. When you start thinking about how to care for your pond, it is easy to get caught up in the technical details and end up not understanding the “why” of maintaining your pond. When I started out caring for my backyard pond, I didn’t really understand the “why’s” of it all. It just seemed like a bunch of natural, dead trees and grasses on top of a wet spot where water collects. So I kept it this way and didn’t pay much attention to the “why’s”
After a while I did start learning more about how to care for and build my garden pond. One thing I noticed right away was that the pond needed a filter. At first I didn’t really want to purchase any pond filters since my goal was to keep the pond clean and basic. I did, however, notice that I needed to keep the pond at a certain temperature. This was very important to me since I wanted the pond to be a natural extension of my landscape.
My first decision was to buy a pre-made pond filter. I knew that I would have the option of purchasing one of the many pond filters that were available at the time. I did this and was very pleased with my purchase. I just decided to give the pre-made pond filters a try for a month or two and see if I liked them. Well, let me tell you, they were great!
The one complaint that I had about the pre-made pond filter is that the water tasted horrible. The filter did a decent job of getting the pond water moving, but it just wasn’t very pleasant. I didn’t think that much of it at first, but after using the pond filters for three weeks, I started to notice that it was getting real bad. I didn’t use the pond water for nothing and it was becoming downright nasty. It turned out that I needed to make some changes to my landscape pond filter.
The problem with the pre-made pond filters is that they only work in one way. They stop the run-off from the garden pond. When my fish started to die, they would exit the pond and enter the soil. Since this was taking place in my yard, I didn’t want to have to wait for the water to clear before being able to go near the pond. So, I bought a few more of the pre-made pond filters and put them on the hook of my hose. Now, I could go near the pond and clean out all the dead and dying fish as necessary.
After doing this for a couple of months, I still didn’t see much progress. So, I went looking for a better way to deal with the garden debris. I knew that I needed a filter system, but there were only two or three options. I could get a filter that was a simple design and attach it to the pump or I could buy a more advanced filtration system.
I decided that the garden debris wasn’t going to harm my fish and plants. Plus, it was costing me too much money to replace the pre-made pond filters. So, I got myself a water pump. The pump works much like the pond filters, except it is much more powerful and will eliminate a lot of debris from your pond.
The pump has a lot of power and is pretty quiet. It runs all day long and I can even hear it when it is running. I love the water pump because now all of the dirt that used to be there is all over my patio table. But, the biggest change is that now I don’t have to filter as often. This has saved me quite a bit of money!