"How To" Programs

I feel like I need to give fair warning to all of you who watch the 48 hour miracle makeover shows on TV. I don't know enough about home renovation, or certain types of 'hardscaping' to make a blanket statement on all makeover shows... but I can say there are very few I have seen that put a water feature in the landscape that I would recommend.

I realize that a lot of these shows focus on the drama of the makeover and that makes them more interesting to the casual viewer. But if you are looking for quality info on how to install a water feature on your own, BEWARE! Most of these projects would be leaking in a matter of days or weeks, and I wouldn't give a 6 month guarantee on almost any of them.

Editing and time restraints take out a lot of specific steps that are necessary to know about. I strongly recommend talking to someone that is a specialist before tackling your own water feature project. There are a handful of books I think could take you step by step through the construction, but I am yet to see a tv program come even remotely close to a quality description.

Watch for ideas and questions, but please do not base your entire project on a 10 minute clip.

Pre-Season Schedule

Spring is coming... no really. I'm already getting into the swing of seminars and home shows now that the new year is here. Already been to Atlanta for the Market, and found quite a bit of new items for the store.

For any of you who are interested we will be doing the Home & Garden Expo at the QWest Center February, 18 - 21.

Seminars and Workshops:
Lauritzen Garden Class - Small Water Features - February 27th
Pott County Master Gardeners Workshops - March 27th
Atlantic Garden Seminar - March 27th

We will also be heading to a few other places such as Lennox, possibly Bedford and Corning, as well as quite a few garden clubs and other organizations.

Winter and Oxygenization

With the season quickly drawing to a close, many of us will be considering what to do with our pond for the winter. There are plenty of options in winterizing your water garden.

One is to run it all year long. Depending on your climate this is the most desirable, but not always the most practical. If it is too cold in your region to avoid ice issues, and IF you have the correct style of fall or stream, you can often get away with running it as long as you keep the skimmer opening open at all times. This is a bit of a risk for most and you can't leave town without a pond-sitter, but the ice sculptures that form are quite amazing in their own right.

Second is pulling the pump and winterizing your pond. Unless you have a very large feature you will need to keep oxygen available to the fish. This is done most commonly through a tank heater or bubbler. Each has their pros and cons, and many variations of each. The standard tank heater is easiest, but most are relatively costly to run due to their high Wattage needs. Their are lower wattage heaters, look around and see what options there are, we have had issues with longevity with some of the smaller wattage ones so be careful.

Bubblers are the other half of the second option. They are good to keep water moving and the ice open a large amount of the winter. It is not necessary in most cases to keep the ice open at all times, but as often as possible. In zone 4-5 we can use a small danner mag drive pump for 85 - 90% of the winter. Breathers are excellent, but hard to come by, if available they are good options.

The third option is to forget about keeping the ice open and just getting an air pump/stone that will get oxygen to your fish no matter what the surface is like. We've recently gotten one brand in stock to try. I haven't had a chance to test it so I'm not willing to give them any props yet, but hopefully this will be the best option yet. Often kept in an overturned bucket propped slightly off the ground, these air pumps can deliver a consistent air supply for your fish no matter how cold or icy they get.

Good luck with your winterization and feel free to stop by our site for more tips and products. I am currently working on rebuilding our site so not everything is up yet, but it will be shortly.

Thoughts of UVs

UV lights are often a frustrating topic. If the wattage and flow rate is set up correctly they can be the ponder's best friend, if not, they are right up there with the worst of them.

They are often times a much larger up front cost compared to standard treatments, but when you look at the long term repeated treatment versus a one time cost, plus replacement bulbs, they are often times as inexpensive or less than treatment. Basically, if you have the wattage and flow adjusted correctly, you will never have green water again. If you do, the bulb has burnt out or the calibration is off.

With how they function, killing all that circulates through them, they do not work on string algae. You still need a barley or other treatment to combat that. Also, is you use natural treatment for the string algae remember to unplug your uv for 24 hours or you are killing your treatment as well as the algae.

They often have roughly 14 month life spans (the bulbs), but if you only use them before your plants have gotten established, they can often work for 3 to 4 years. But remember, as with any other treatment, they are the band-aid, plants are the cure. If you have proper balance of plants and fish you should need minimal treatment of any kind once the plants are established.

I need the whole story!

I had a lady come in today and she was a little upset about how the bottle of treatment she bought last month had not worked. I was surprised by this because in multiple years of selling Aqua-One we have had no complaints. Zero.

After a few minutes of discussing other options she casually asks if she has to leave her pond running all the time. YES! In the matter of a few minutes the good bacteria and organisms start to struggle and die. If you turn off your pond, you are losing all of the benefit of your treatment, biological filtration, and natural petina/carpet algae. Couple that with the fact that Aqua-One is a natual treatment that isn't being cirrculated and dying off almost immediately, yeah, that would make a big difference.

If you are having problems with your pond, you have to tell your pond people the whole story! If you leave out 'little' things like that, you are probably being led down the wrong path. Turning off the pond at any time, okay for pondless, not for ponds. How many koi do you have? How often do you feed them? Are there leaves in the bottom of the pond? Are you or any neighbors treating the yard? Are there any recently added plants, fish, or features?

If you think there is any chance a new or minor element could have contributed to your maintenance issues, there is a good chance they have. It may seem trivial, but the little things do matter.

You may get a bored expression from your pond pro, but if they haven't seen the pond with their own eyes, there could be something that is obvious to them, that is not to you. Take the time to go over the exact set up of your pond, it can save you a lot of time and money.

Lightning & Skimmers

As you could probably guess these two do not mix well. I quite honestly did not believe the owner when he called and said his skimmer was liquid. There is a two story house and large trees surrounding this pond, how could lightning hit something that is pretty much underground?

Apparently, after talking to multiple firemen, it was concluded that it was lightning and it was probably headed for the house, but 'found' the current from the pump and followed it to the skimmer. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. And now you can too.















We attempted to find the remnants of the irrigation box that housed the check valve, shown below, but no evidence was found. It was completely incinerated. I don't know if anyone else has ever had this experience, but it was definitely a first for me.















I guess I get to find out how creative I am with rebuilding a pond that has been struck by lightning. Now I've heard of a pump getting burnt out by a power surge from a lightning strike, but never liquified by a direct strike!

The DIY good and bad.

I just got done having my butt handed to me on the IVillage forum over my rant on using quilt batting. I need to watch where I rant. Complaining about crazy DIYers on a forum that is almost exclusively DIY is never a good idea. Don't get me wrong, there are many great things that can be done with DIY ingenuity, but in the line of business I am in I only see the negative side of it.

Also I looked closer at the posts and it wasn't the same individual that had the leaves and other issues I'd already responded to. Oops.

I understand the use of an 'ultra fine' media when there is an algae bloom or sediment issues. My feeling is that whenever you have those issues it can be handled in a preventive way, not a fix my current issue way. You can strain your pond as many times as you desire, or you can figure out why you are having the issue and prevent it from happening. That is my humble opinion.

I realize I am basically writing to myself on this blog, but hey, in case I have millions of readers that just choose to not post any responses, I thought I'd explain myself a little.