Water Gardens International

Water Gardens International

This is a great online organization. I have found wonderful articles in here about water gardening around the world, informative articles about water lilies and such. Good place to cruise around on these cold winter days.

Northern Ponds

I was going to talk about airstones for you folks in the North. You had a bit of January thaw, so an airstone could have been a good idea to introduce some O2 into your water. When the next thaw hits, think about throwing an airstone in the water. Now you are back in the midst of cold and wind advisories, so be glad your fish know how to take care of themselves and you do the same.

Southern Ponds

Days are starting to get longer. In the South, ponds are beginning to know spring is coming. If your water is getting cloudy from sitting in the cold weather for so long, it's a good idea to give it a good start for spring and avoid an algae bloom if the weather unexpected warms up. Try Microbe-Lift Nite for use in colder water to give your pond advance protection against unexpected nitrification.

Feeding your fish

Here in the South, although we are having some cold weather right now, we often have 70º+ days. When this happens, you will probably go outside and check your pond.
Your well trained fish will see you and come to the top of the pond. When you see them, you think they are hungry. Please do not feed them. Their metabolisms are still slowed down almost to the point of dormancy and they cannot digest food. If you feed them, they could die trying to eat. Even if they don't eat, the food will fall to the bottom of your pond, rot and create big problems for you and your fish when the weather does warm.

Don't feed your fish until temps are consistently above 60 degrees outside. Day and night.

For pond supplies, check out The Pondlady's Shop

And to read my pond articles go to Pondlady's articles

Spring is right around the corner. Make sure you have the supplies and equipment you need to start another year of enjoying your pond.

Ice on the pond

In some parts of the country, ponds are frozen over. If yours is, you must open a hole so gasses can be exchanged. Do NOT hit the ice with a hammer. You can kill your fish if you do. Run water over the ice or put a pot of boiling water on top to open a hole. You can also buy a de-icer if you like at The Pondlady's shop


Don't forget to drop in and say "hi" at Gardeners Gumbo
We have a great time talking about gardens, garden crafts, junk, totems, or most anything.

What happens when it rains?

I was often asked if a pond would overflow if it rained. I suppose so, but the water would only go into the surrounding landscape. I ran into many ponds with an overflow pipe built into them. These were concrete ponds and to me, that was just an extra expense and unnecessary. If the pond is going to overflow, let it. Now a flood can be a different story. If your pond floods like ours did in New Orleans after Katrina, you fish will probably swim away and you may lose your plants. But your pond will be OK.
If your pond is build at grade, you could have problems because all those chemicals and fertilizers and run off will end up in your pond when the rain stops. If your pond is built the way I recommend, about 4" above grade, then you will be fine.

Large pond pumps

When a pump moves over 3000 gph, it is a large pump for waterfalls where you want lots and lots of drama. I love large pumps and used them for almost every pond I built. My customers loved huge waterfalls like this one.




A large Oase submersible pump can move 3000 gph and would be great for a huge waterfall. It has great warranty and costs very little to operate.


This Little Giant pump is an in-line or external pump. It moves even more water, takes less maintenance - you don't have to get in the pond to clean it, costs even less to run because it does not have all that pond sludge clogging up the impeller.

Medium sized pumps

Medium sized pumps are normally used for spitters or fountains

The head will usually be from 300 gph to 660 gph, with the larger one used to get the water higher or stronger. Be careful with spitters and fountains because if the water shoots too far in the air, it can splash out of the pond and soon you have pumped your pond dry.

For medium sized pumps, I like the Little Giant 350 gph

Just be sure to keep the impeller clean on smaller pumps for longer life. They usually need to be cleaned once a month if you feed your fish.

Let's talk Pumps

As we struggle through winter toward spring, I thought we could take this down time to talk about pond pumps, what kinds are available and what kind we need.
There are submersible pumps, the kind that most of us use and certainly the most common.
There are inline pumps. Those are the kind that sit outside the pond.
There are pumps that plug into our house electricity and pumps that run on solar power.
There are the tiniest pumps that we use in the house on table top or wall fountains and huge pumps that we use outside for giant waterfalls. In the next weeks, I want to talk about all the pumps, what brands are my favorites and how to figure out what kind of pump you need.

Let's start with tiny pumps.

Pondmaster mini

Specs for the Pondmaster mini:
80 GPH maximum flow with a 36"" shut-off
Built-in adjustable flow control
6' grounded power cord.
1 year warranty"

This pump is great for indoors, for your wall or tabletop fountain. Pondmaster makes a good pump with a good warranty for a small pump. If you are looking for a pump for your ready made or the indoor pond you made, you can't go wrong with this one.