Healthy Koi Pond | How To Keep Koi Healthy And Save Money
Today I would like to talk about how to maintain a healthy koi pond and how to keep koi healthy (including other pond fish species). I will also explain how you can create a healthy koi pond whilst saving money at the same time.
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Exactly how do pond keepers waste money on their fish ponds?
One of the major culprits is adding pond additives including pond algaecides, bacteria boosters and barley straw products without ensuring and keeping the pond pH levels within an acceptable range. An acceptable range for fish ponds and a healthy koi pond is a reading between 6.8 - 7.8 in the majority of cases.
A pH of 7 is classed as neutral. Anything below is considered to be acidic and anything higher is considered to be alkaline.
Keeping the pond pH within an acceptable range is one of the key factors determining success or failure with your garden pond.
Many pond keepers simply become frustrated and give up on the idea of keeping and maintaining a pond. Problems such as blanketweed and green water, caused by microscopic algae cause Joe or Jane Bloggs to say "That's it I've had enough. I'm going to fill my pond in and have an easy life..."
This need not be the case at all... Keeping a healthy koi pond or fish pond doesn't have to be all that much trouble at all, providing you use the necessary pond keeping equipment and carry out the necessary pond water tests.
Keeping koi healthy and other pond fish for that matter in 99% of all garden ponds requires a biological pond filter, pond pump and UV clarifier. These 3 pieces of pond keeping equipment are the mainstay for any successful koi pond or garden fish pond.
Once you have these pieces of equipment installed everything else pretty much takes care of itself. All you need to do is ensure that you don't feed too much fish food and test the pond water using a suitable pond test kit on a weekly basis.
Pond Salt helps stabilize the pH (don't add until you have the pH in range, or it will never happen). 1 lb per 200 gallons is very beneficial to your koi and other pond fish and will not harm your aquatic plants.
How to Keep Koi Healthy & prevent common pond problems....
Prevention is better than cure in the vast majority of cases when it comes to garden ponds and here are some useful tips...
- Prevent the build up of string algae (blanketweed) that attaches itself to waterfalls, rocks, filters, pumps and basically any available surface using either a barley straw product or a revolutionary new product called Viresco.
- Help to aid in the removal of pond sludge from the bottom of your Pond (basically a food source for algae and pond toxin) by adding a product such as Pond Care Pond Zyme. Incidentally Viresco, mentioned above is also great at removing pond sludge. Check out the interview with John McLauchlan, Viresco Developer...
- A quick and simple way to prevent your pond pump from becoming clogged or the impellor movement impeded is by placing it in a Pump Bag.
- If you suffer from pond water that resembles pea soup then your single most effective way to control the microscopic algae is to use a UV clarifier. The ultra violet light destroys the algae cells permanently.