Question:
You talk about Water lilies on your web site are these your favorites or are these the flowers that generate the most questions?
Answer:
Water lilies? Yes, they do generate questions. But more questions are asked about murky, green ponds which leads to talking about submerged vegetation, the most important plant in the pond. The water lilies are what sells the pond and are great for providing shade, keeping the pond clear and protecting the fish from predators by giving them a place to hide.
Question:
I know you feel strongly about not feeding the fish in your pond, can you tell me why this is?
Answer:
If you feed the fish, you introduce a foreign substance. A balanced pond has 1 bunch of submerged vegetation per square foot of pond surface. The fish eat the plants, provide fertilizer for them. And the plants provide 02 for the fish and grow faster than the fish can eat it. If the fish get fed, they grow too big, the bioload gets too much for the size of the pond. Soon you have huge fish, too much fish poop, not enough 02. The huge fish begin to die and all the fish poop pollutes the water. The pond becomes a great example of how we are polluting our planet.
Question:
How do you go about achieving a correctly balanced water garden?
Answer:
See the last answer: One bunch of submerged vegetation per sf of pond surface area, at least 1/2 of the pond shaded with floating plants, no fish feeding, no run off getting into the pond, no more than 1 linear foot of fish per 25 square feet of pond surface.
BTW, All the previous information is for goldfish ponds only. A koi pond is an outdoor aquarium and must be treated as such with filtration and food. If you have a koi pond, you cannot have water lilies nor do you ever need submerged vegetation because those little devils eat it like Hershey bars. Even building a koi pond is different from building a goldfish pond.
