How to maintain your pond when you're busy
Ponds require daily, weekly, monthly, and even seasonal maintenance to be clear and healthy to support plants and pond life all year round. While this can seem like a lot of work, especially in the spring and summer months, you can focus on preventative pond care to make it easier to maintain your pond, even when you're busy. Learn more about how to prevent common pond issues and the maintenance items that are most important to focus on when you're short on time.
Avoid overcrowding with fish and plants
Water quality becomes a frequent struggle when your pond has more fish and plants than it can handle. Fish produce waste, which in small amounts, your pond's ecosystem and filtration system can easily break down. Ideally, you need 10 gallons of water for every inch of adult fish in your pond. Many pond owners go to the pet store and forget to ask or research how large the fish will grow. Koi and goldfish, as adults, can grow two or even three feet long.
Use the smartpond Volume Calculator to find out the total volume of your pond in gallons. Then, you can figure out how many fish your pond can ideally support without becoming overcrowded. If you already have too many fish, consider building a second pond or rehoming some of your scaly friends.
Having some aquatic plants helps filter out waste and excess nutrients in the water, while adding oxygen. Plants also require some care to be healthy. Leaves and dying plants that make their way into the water should be scooped out, or they'll contribute to water quality issues. If you know you'll be busy, give your plants a good trim. Submerged and emergent varieties are the best options for water quality.
Floating aquatic plants are great for adding shade and giving your pond life shelter from aerial predators, but too many can lead to oxygenation problems. Floating plants don't add much, if any, oxygen to the water, and if they start to take over, they can prevent sunlight from penetrating the pond and further reduce oxygenation. Some floating plants, especially if they're invasive, quickly reproduce in ponds. You want to keep surface coverage in the 30-60% range.
Avoid overfeeding fish
Fish food is rich in nutrients, which keeps your fish healthy, but if this food goes uneaten and sinks to the bottom of your pond, it can quickly lead to algae blooms and other water quality issues. When feeding your fish, especially in the summertime, only give them enough food that they can eat in a few minutes. Fish food floats, and you want them to eat it all without sinking to the bottom of your pond.
You can get an automatic fish feeder once you know how much food your fish can eat in less than five minutes. When you're busy or going on vacation, you can use this fish feeder to cut down on how often you have to go to your pond.
Checking on your pond is helpful for making sure your fish are healthy and catching any signs of water quality issues before they start affecting the pond, but depending on your schedule, this might not always be realistic.
Check your pond equipment
If you know that you're about to be busier than usual, take some time to double-check that your pump and filtration systems are working correctly. You can replace any filter pads, o-rings, tubes, and other parts so that everything works at maximum capacity.
Pump and filtration problems can quickly lead to unhealthy conditions in your pond, potentially harming your fish and leading to emergency maintenance.
When your pond equipment works as it should, it lessens the daily maintenance you need. You want to make sure that you have the correct pump size for your pond so the water is regularly filtered and oxygenated.
Consider adding another type of filtration (biological, mechanical, or UV clarification) to help keep your pond running smoothly. Combining different types of filtration can help keep your pond clean and clear and reduce the amount of maintenance you need.
Preventative water treatments
Using smartpond water treatments preventatively can help mitigate water quality issues in your pond, reducing the maintenance you need. Preventative water treatments are a quick way to take care of your pond when you're busy.
When you know, you will be busy, use the smartpond water clarifier, wait 48 hours, and follow up with the sludge remover. This combination of water treatments will naturally help clean up your pond from any debris and waste build-up using beneficial bacteria.
The smartpond Pond Tint is helpful in the warmer spring and summer months to keep your pond cooler and to help prevent algae blooms. Pond Tint will turn your pond a brilliant blue without harming your fish and reduce the amount of sunlight that can penetrate the water. This can help stop algae from blooming and make it harder for predators to see your fish.
You can help keep your pond balanced by using the Barley Pond Clarifier every two weeks to help break down waste and reduce nutrient loads that can cause water quality issues and algae blooms. This is a natural water treatment that uses barley to keep your pond clear.
Prioritize maintenance tasks
While you may not have time to check on your pond every day, when you do, prioritize which tasks will help your pond the most. If you see large debris in the water, try to remove it before it can sink to the bottom of the pond. The beneficial pond bacteria can handle a few leaves, but large amounts of debris can quickly wreak havoc and are preventable with a pond net.
Keep an eye on the water. If you know a large storm is coming, you can start to prepare your pond as best as you can. You may also want to use a water treatment afterward to help combat the excess nutrients from storm runoff.
You may not always have time in your schedule to give your pond the attention it deserves, but that's okay. Preventative pond care can reduce the amount of maintenance you need to do when you're busy. Ponds are wonderful additions to your yard and may even be the place where you can relax after a stressful day. When balanced, ponds don't require as much care; their natural ecosystems can break down waste and debris.
