Concrete Pond Leaks

I get questions all the time about leaky ponds. Since there are so many kinds of ponds, so many kinds of leaks and so many ways to repair them, I want to spend  a few days talking about leaks.

Let's start with concrete ponds. I do not recommend building ponds with concrete because it is not watertight and is brittle, but many people use concrete, so I get to fix their leaks.

Concrete ponds crack.  It's inevitable. If you have a concrete pond, it will crack.  Plan on it.  I don't care if you use concrete 6 inches thick and 6000 psi. It's gonna crack.  So, now what?

If the crack is hairline, you perhaps can fix it. Maybe. For a short while anyway.  Get some plumbers' epoxy.  Not plumbers' putty. Epoxy.  Make the crack bigger. Dig it out so there is a bit of a V shape, like the dentist does when he fills a cavity in your tooth.  Now make sure the crack is dry and clean.  If you have to, use a hair dryer to dry it completely.

Now mix the epoxy. Put gloves on first because the epoxy sticks on your hands just like it sticks on the concrete. Epoxy comes in a tube and looks like a big stick of chalk.  So unwrap as much as you need and start pinching and rolling it - gloves on, remember.  In a couple of  minutes, the epoxy will get warm. A minute or so after that, it's ready to use.  Smush the epoxy in the crack. Notice the technical term, smush. It's important. Make sure the epoxy is pushed into the crack and smoothed out both in the crack and along the edges.  Wait for it to dry.  The directions on the side of the package will tell you how long that will take.

When the epoxy is dry, refill the pond with water.  The epoxy will not hurt your fish or plants.

I have had some repairs last for several years, some for only several months.  I never guarantee a concrete repair.  Often I will do it free if the pond belongs to a steady customer.  If the customer pays for the service, he expects some sort of warranty and this repair is not good enough for that.

If you can see through the crack in your concrete, you cannot repair it. I don't care who says you can, it is not possible. Find a waterproofing company and have them put a new coating on your pond.  Or just drop a butyl rubber liner inside the concrete pond and start over.

Ponds and the Frost Line

Because I live in the Deep South, I do not have to bother about a frost line because aside from some chilly weather occasionally, we don't have to deal with frozen ponds.  But those of you who do, need to know what the frost line is in your area. You can find out by calling your local extension office if you don't already know.  Oh, the frost line is the depth of soil where it no longer freezes.  For some of you, that is really deep.  When you are building your pond, know your frost line and dig the pond deeper than that.  That way, your pond will never freeze solid.  Your fish have a chance of survival even if the top of the pond freezes over.  I do advocate keeping a hole in the ice, but sometimes that is not possible.  Fish are in torpor, a form of fish hibernation all winter, so they just lie around at the bottom of the water in suspended animation, if you will.

Digging below the frost line will mean less chance of damage to your liner as well.  You have, of course, removed all your pond equipment already and stored them safely. Right?

Check http://www.pondlady.com/Articles/winter_pondcare_2.html  for more winter pond care tips.

Did I mention pond plants?

Cut back your tropical pond plants now.  If you plan to overwinter them, bring them in the garage or the greenhouse.  Most of them will do fine if not frozen solid. If you have anacharis and your pond will freeze solid, bring it in too and put it in a washtub in the garage. (Garage getting crowded?)  Put your goldfish in there too if your pond is not below your frost line

Cut back your hardy plants as well. I cut mine back to about 3". The pond will look dreadful all winter, but the plants will come back green and healthy next spring when the plants put out new growth.

To make the fall pond into something besides a gray hole full of water, add some mums around the edge for fall color.  Put a few painted cinder blocks in the pond to raise decorations out of the water and put some Halloween decorations on top.  Or a few more pots of mums.

Winter is coming

From questions I have been getting, it seems as if some spots in the country are headed into winter. We, of course, are still in the last throes of summer waiting for the 90 degree heat to finally give up and go away. So for those of you in cooler climes, here's a great article on how to deal with your pond equipment during the winter.  Remember if your pond depth is below the freeze line, you do not have to remove your fish. You just need to keep a hole open in the ice.

Winter Care for Pond Equipment

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Pond Fish in Winter

As the nights lengthen and cool, you may notice your fish becoming less active and lying around near the bottom of your pond.  If you do feed your fish, stop now.  


You can kill them if you feed when the temperatures are below 55º F.  


Even if you have a day or so above that temperature, do not feed. For tips on winter fish and plant care, read this article I wrote about fish and plant care during the winter: Winter Fish Care

Fish are cannibals

I get questions at my pondlady.com website and occasionally share them here.  Here's one that you may not know or have forgotten: Question: I have goldfish. So, do the alive fish eat their dead? I've actually never seen a fish eaten like this is my pond. Sure, I have found plenty over the years, in all seasons, die and float to the surface, but never eaten like this. I will take your advice and resist the temptation to feed them even in this warm spell. Answer: Yes, all fish will eat other fish. In fact, fish will kill a sick or weak fish. I think it is a way they have of keeping the school hardy. Your goldfish will be just fine if you never ever, feed them, even in the summer. Just balance the pond ecologically with submerged vegetation and make sure your bioload is not too high and you can just relax and never have to clean fish poop out of your pond except in your yearly cleaning.

More about irises

I forgot to mention yesterday that it's time to cut back irises.  Many people do it in the early summer right after the plants bloom, but I like to enjoy the foliage all summer, so I wait until fall to cut them back.  Remember the iris blooms on new growth, so divide and cut back. That way all growth next spring will be new and you will irises to share and irises to enjoy.

Irises and Cannas

Here in the South, it's time to start dividing pond plants.  For blooms next spring, divide Louisiana irises and cannas now.  They are all crowded, so for a good show of flowers next spring divide not.

Bet you didn't know that irises bloom on the new growth, so if you leave them growing on the outside of the pot, only the outer ones will bloom. One of your friends will ask for a cutting and you will break off an outer clump and happily give it to your friend.  Next spring you can listen to her brag about her beautiful iris bloom and you will be looking at green irises. Pretty, yes, but enjoy the blooms, not just the foliage. Divide now. Don't put it off.

Pond liner problems

I have a website at pondlady.com
People ask and answer pond questions there. Occasionally I get an common question and share it here. Here's one about liner suddenly rising from its floor:

Questions:

We have an in ground, 8' fish pond that was built 4 years ago. We buried an 8' stock tank and laid the pond liner over that and put about a billion rocks around it. This year, water has started getting between the stock tank and pond liner and rising the liner up out of the pond. A recent 5 " rain really has brought the issue to a crisis point. I see no obvious leak in the liner and we really don't want to move all those rocks to lay in a new liner...what should we do? We have pumped it out a couple times, but water keeps getting between the liner and stock tank.

Answer:
You have methane between the tank and the liner. No amount of rocks will keep it from rising. Try to make a place where you can pump out the water that has gotten between the two. That will help until it happens again. The only way to stop it from happening is to raise the entire pond, tank and all. (Shudder.) Or you could build up the sides, make the pond bigger and use the weight of the water to keep the liner in place, but if you do that, you might as well just start over with just a liner and no stock tank. You have a big job ahead of you.

To get more pond information, head over to pondlady.com

From my inbox

Dear Jan,
I don't know if you remember me but I wrote to you last fall and we talked about Gregg Wittstock and Aquascape and their CAC's. I have now been fighting them for 10 months to get the pea gravel out of this man-made waterfall and stream because I found pea gravel clear up in the biofalls and my pump failed because it was pumping gravel instead of the water. To make a long story a bit shorter, they have finally decided to finally get the gravel out of the basin and put in AquaBlox. They will do this for free. But do you know anything about these glorified milk cases? They are only warranted for 1 year. After that who knows, another fight. Do you feel this is needed? They are supposed to give the basin more water volume. ????

Also, I have two plants in the water of my pondless......my contractor put them in. The second season of running our pondless, we noticed tons and I mean TONS of string algae. I have used the NON-guaranteed algaecides, barley straw, bleach, chlorine tabs and nothing has worked. Should I take OUT the two Sweet Flags I have in the water? Are they causing the algae to form? Any information would be greatly appreciated. OR is there something the contractor did that would lend to this production of algae? Like, not making the biofalls level or something like that. I was told to put in bleach, but how much and how often? My pondless is 4' by 12'.

Without bad luck, I would have no luck at all..............after spending over 20 hours getting the pea gravel out of the basin and stream........I would say we were able to get at least 90 percent of this stuff out........now Dreamscapes call and say they will take out all the pea gravel.........I am sure my husband and I got more out than they would have, so although it was really hard work, I now know what is in and around the centipede......and it is not pea gravel!! My husband is 68 years old and he must really love me to do all that work because he knew how I was fretting over it. I just didn't want to put in a new pump and have it ruined by all the pea gravel. Also, could you tell me again what pumps you would choose to put in the skimmer that have good guarantees? You told me before but I must have misplaced your information. Thanks.

If I could just get rid of the string algae..........I did put barley straw in the biofalls in March a couple of years ago. We live in PA. It worked for a while but then seemed not to do anything except muck up the stream bed.

I wish there was a way to really blog about Aquascape Design, Inc.-- I really can't stand them or their products. They are crooks in my book.

Thanks for letting me vent again. Hope to hear from you soon.

Pondlady sez:

Try Microbe-Lift for your string algae.
I don't know a thing about Aquabox.
Ya know, you could remove the irises, plant them next to the pond and use swimming pool chlorine and your pond water would stay crystal clear. The irises are not causing the algae, nor did the contractor. Sun + water = algae. Use more chlorine than you have before and you should be fine.

As far as pumps go, I like Oase brand pumps.

Filter question

The first canna of 2009 starts to open in my bog garden.


I get email with pond questions. I got this one a few days ago and thought I would share it with you.

Question: I would like to put a 25" round by 15" deep tub. If I put in a bunch of grass, 1 drawf lily, 2 regular goldfish with a pump hooked up to a spitter will I have a successful little pond? Do I need a filter? What size pump would I need. The spitter will be place on some flat rocks at the edge of the pond. I don't plan on feeding the fish but will feed the lily.

Pondlady sez: Yes, you will be successful and need no filter. Don't feed the fish and put a couple of bunches of grass in the water. Feed the lily one tab a month. Use a pump that will pump about 140 gph depending how high the spitter will be. The spitter cannot exceed 12" in height or the water will splash out.

Koi and Goldfish eat their babies

Question I received lately: I have Koi and Goldfish. I feed them daily. Why don't I have babies?



Pondladay sez: Chances are the fish are eating their babies. They are not good parents.
You must feed koi. Goldfish can exist and live well eating off the plants in the pond....unless you have koi who will eat them all.

The more you feed them, the bigger they get and the hungrier they get. Sooner or later your bio-load will be too heavy and your biggest fish will die, but in the meantime, your fish will eat every baby they catch.

Tea Colored Water

Often we try dozens of filters to try to get tea colored water clear and nothing works. The water is turned that color by leaves usually from oak trees, but other leaves/pollen do the same thing. Here's how to fix it: Use activated charcoal. Do NOT use charcoal briquets like you use for barbecuing! Go to the aquarium store and get a box of activated charcoal. Often it comes in a box that looks like a half gallon milk carton. Put the charcoal a cut off panty hose leg and put the resulting tube in your filter. The charcoal 'washes' the water and you will have clear water soon. It is a bit expensive, but worth it.

Irises mean spring

Louisiana irises are starting to bloom. This one is in my front garden today and more bloom stalks are evident and about to burst. Callas in the pond are blooming. Spring, maybe not officially, has arrived. Get ready to see your fish become active and your pond plants begin to bloom. It was a long winter, wasn't it?

Fish Feeding in Winter

Question:
I was wondering what one should do with the fluctuating temperatures in coastal NC right now....last week or so the pond water was below 50 and I did not feed the fish. Now, the temp is back up to 56 and I found a partially eaten fish at the bottom of the pond when I cleaned out some debris. Are my fish starving to death and resorting to cannibalism? Should I feed them for a few days, and then stop when the temps. start to drop again??


Answer:
Your fish are not starving to death. Your half eaten one was probably eaten by one of your famous NC flying predators like an egret, heron, or maybe even a walking and furry one like a raccoon. Do not feed them. They are still hibernating and will not be able to eat until the temps are above 55 for a long time.

Question, continued
The pond is covered completely with chicken wire. No predators can get in now (although the reason it was covered like Fort Knox is because of a heron, who I caught in the act, and a raccoon, who polished off my biggest fish, and left some droppings. We had it covered with a net, but the heron broke through the net, punching in a big enough hole to gobble up some fish. The raccoon came a few days later and took advantage of the hole, which we did not realize was there.)

So, the fish left are VERY active right now, not listless at all, hanging around the top of the pond right now with our warm weather. They are quite still and deep when the water is really cold. I did feed them today.

So, what do you think about the dead fish now? My guess is a heron or raccoon would not leave anything behind. This fish (about 4 inches long) had its middle eaten away....

And what do you think about the hibernation theory, given the activity of the fish? It's a very confusing weather pattern we have right now, with the temps in the low 70s, and not getting too far below 55 at night. Next week, who knows?

Answer, continued
I understand your wish to feed your fish, but please don't. It could be that the dead fish was sick from getting something to eat and not being able to digest it, so he died. Feeding fish in the winter can kill them quickly. If you want to double check, go to koivet.com and have a look. You will find that fish cannot survive being fed in cool weather. Do you have goldfish or koi? Neither needs feeding in the winter, but koi need to be fed in the summer.

Question, continued
I have goldfish.

So, do the alive fish eat their dead? I've actually never seen a fish eaten like this is my pond. Sure, I have found plenty over the years, in all seasons, die and float to the surface, but never eaten like this.


Answer, continued
Yes, all fish will eat other fish. In fact, fish will kill a sick or weak fish. I think it is a way they have of keeping the school hardy.
Your goldfish will be just fine if you never ever, feed them, even in the summer. Just balance the pond ecologically with submerged vegetation and make sure your bioload is not too high and you can just relax and never have to clean fish poop out of your pond except in your yearly cleaning.

Ten Laws of Pondkeeping

This should give you a few ideas about keeping your pond balanced so your fishies stay healthy. Sounds like you are doing a good job.

Edible pond plants

In case you are ever stranded while camping or otherwise in need of survival food, the pods of yellow hardy pond lilies and pickerel rush are edible. You can bake or boil them like potatoes. They certainly are not gourmet food, but would probably taste pretty good if you were hungry enough.

Your UV Light in Winter

If you live where the temps drop below 40 degrees F in the winter and use a UV light, you can remove it until the weather warms again. Algae die off in the winter plus you can save electricity if your UV is not running. Be careful, those bulbs are fragile. And expensive.

Epoxy Pond Liners

Epoxy pond liners were around when I started building ponds back in 1987. There was not a market for the epoxy for the small residential contractor or do-it-yourselfer yet because there was not much of a pond market yet. The epoxies made then were for large commercial applications where waterproofing was necessary and huge machines were available for mixing and spreading. We tried to mix it using a paint stirrer on the end of a drill, but the results were disastrous and getting the epoxy off whatever it got on was almost impossible.

In recent years epoxy pond liner makers have made great strides in research, development and application. Building a pond using epoxy can be done by the small contractor or the homeowner. It is easily mixed and applied. But do be careful. Getting on your hands or clothes means living with it the rest of your natural life.

One of the most wonderful uses for the new epoxies is for patching concrete ponds. I have told my concrete pond owners when they called with a cracked leaking pond that there was nothing that could be done. I would put some plumbers' epoxy in the crack and tell them just to keep on doing that every time the pond cracked again. And concrete cracks in tropical climates where most of the land is below sea level. Now a crack can be patched just like patching dry wall. Use some cloth made just for epoxy use, insert it in and over the concrete crack and then float the epoxy over it. Most installers proceed to coat the entire concrete pond because it looks better and will stop further and inevitable cracks.

PVC liners came first in the pond building business. They were all we had, so we loved them. Their biggest drawback was not standing up to sunlight. PVC liners cracked like visqueen and needed replacement if the pond wasn't built so water covered every bit of the PVC liner.

Rubber liners were next and will undoubtedly rule the industry for years to come. If you want to know what a rubber liner is, just think about a huge piece of inner tube material. That's a rubber liner. Firestone makes them. I am sure many other companies do as well. A 45 mil thick liner comes with a 40 year warranty. They run about $1.00 a square foot, although you can get them online for cheaper. The biggest drawback of online buying is paying the shipping, but often you can still save money. The next biggest drawback with rubber liners is weight. If you buy a 45 mil rubber liner 20' x 20', you better have a couple of strong guys to put it in place for you. I still love rubber liners and after they were widely available, have used them exclusively. Rubber liners withstood anything Katrina threw at them. My customers and I were happy to see them whole after seeing everything else destroyed.

I think epoxy is coming into its own. It may well be that it will be the liner of choice one day. As far as I am concerned, the ability to patch a concrete pond is reason enough to love it.

Isn't it great that we have another liner choice now. We can apply epoxy to the sides of a hole and have a waterproof hole. Now that's nice.

How to Build a Koi Pond

Koi and goldfish? There's a difference?

Koi? What are koi and why must I build a koi pond differently than any other pond? Can't I just put koi in my pond? One would think so, but one would be wrong.

First of all, a koi is a carp, just like a goldfish, but it is from a different family. Goldfish are descendants of crucian carp and koi are from common carp. Koi usually have two whiskers like a catfish and goldfish don't, so they are easy to spot if someone wants to give you one.

And there are other differences as well. Goldfish dart around more in the water and will eat your submerged vegetation as they fertilize it. Your pond will be a relatively maintenance free ecosystem with plants and goldfish. Koi, on the other hand, swim lazily around eating everything they can get their mouths around. They love your most expensive water lilies and will dispatch with them first. They work their way through every piece of vegetation you have in your pond and look for more before you even realize you must feed them.

So a koi pond is a special outdoor aquarium made just for koi. Koi will pull plants down from outside the pond just for sport. They also have a awful habit of jumping out of the pond where you find them stiff and dry when you come home from work. The jumping out is often a sign of foul water. A goldfish pond is a water garden with goldfish swimming around behaving themselves.

Before you even think of building any pond, think long and hard: Do you want a koi pond or do you want a water feature with plants and goldfish? For goldfish pond building see How to Build a Pond

You have decided you want a koi pond because you want koi as pets.
A koi pond must be deeper than a goldfish pond. Koi need more room to move around. They like to swim up and down as well as back and forth. They also grow and grow fast, so make your pond at least 3' deep, deeper if you can and as big as you can afford. Try to get your koi pond dug below the frost line or you will be trying to figure out how to over winter them in the house when it freezes outside.

A koi pond should be built up above the ground. I like to do this with goldfish ponds as well to keep run off out and therefore avoid chemicals that may run into your pond. If you can get your koi pond edges up at least 6", you will be safer and possible keep your koi in the water instead of lying on the ground. I have known professional koi keepers who build their ponds at least 18" above ground, usually using concrete for the entire pond rather than a butyl rubber or EPDM liner.

Koi ponds must have filtration. As much filtration as you can afford. Do you get the idea that koi keeping can be expensive? In the past koi keepers used swimming pool filters. Now bead filters are popular. If the bead filters are just too expensive, a quality biofilter will do. It should be big enough for your pond. Most biofilter manufacturers will help you pick out the one that will work best for your pond size.

Using a UV light sterilizer, usually called a water clarifier is necessary for your koi pond. It will kill algae microorganisms and keep the water clear so you can see your fish.

Koi are hungry fishies. You must feed them. You will find scores of koi foods available. I make no recommendations about which one to buy. I suggest finding a koi club in your area and see which ones their fish like and following their examples and suggestions. One thing I know koi love to do is play with a half of a red cabbage. Don't shred it. Let them play with it like a basketball.

The water chemistry must be perfect. Any radical changes in pH, nitrate, nitrite, ammonia must be corrected immediately or your fish will get sick.
The biggest difference

Don't forget one basic difference. When you build a koi pond, you are building a special house for your pets. When you build a goldfish pond, you are putting a water garden in your landscape.

And you will name those koi, I know that. Because you named your children and your other pets. Koi can get sick and die of the strangest diseases before you are even aware they are sick. I suggest not naming them.

Decorate Your Pond for the Holidays

Our holiday season is upon us, ready or not. Some folks just barely get through the season and others think it the best time of all the year and start looking forward to next year when this one is over. If you decorate your house, you probably decorate your yard. If you decorate your yard, don't forget your pond. You can make it a showpiece in the winter as well as the summer with a few simple ideas. So let's make your pond a focal point during the holidays just as it is the rest of the year.

There it is, in the middle of your garden, just sitting there, silent, icy, gray and completely unattractive. It doesn't have to be that way. You can decorate it for the holidays. Any holiday. For the American Thanksgiving, you can put a painted black cinder block or two or more in the water and put most anything you wish on top of it. Don't forget to spray the cinderblock black with spray paint so lime cannot leach out and the block becomes invisible in the water. A pot of red or yellow mums would look wonderful sitting on top of the cinder blocks for Thanksgiving. You can put a rosemary Christmas tree on that same cinder block just a couple of weeks later, decorate it with a few red bows and it would look great throughout the season.

A rosemary Christmas tree is only a rosemary plant clipped into the shape of a Christmas tree. You can usually find them at your local nursery or big box store right now for not much money. Next spring you can plant it in the ground and if you wish, keep it trimmed up for use again next year. Or if you wish, put a poinsettia plant on top and some more around the pond edge. You can also put these in the ground in the spring and they will grow large and bloom again next year. They do need complete darkness at night, though, so keep them away from street lights.

How about an angel or cherub statue on the cinderblock? Use your imagination for other rosemary tree decorations. How about some small Christmas tree balls, or tiny angels. Maybe it could be a project for your children as long as they are old enough to be around the water unsupervised. We would not want anyone taking a cold bath in November or December.

Perhaps rope lights strike your fancy. You can use rope lights around your pond. Simply weave them in and out of the plantings or bushes. They are cheap and can be found even at drug stores these days.

If you have a formal pond or no planting around the pond, string a rope light around the base of the pond or in the statue that sits inside it. Put a garland around your statue or dress it as a Santa.

Light up your pond in the winter. You may have a light already in your pond. Light it now. It will give the pond a glow that can be seen from your house and the street giving you and your neighbors a smile when you see it.

Put lights around your pond. If you have solar powered lights, they might not work as well when the sun is low in the winter sky. It might be time for low voltage lights that you can use now and all year round.

There are floating lights, even solar powered ones to add to your pond for even more interest.

Float some faux plants in the water, like hyacinths or even water lilies. Real plants are long gone until spring, but you can still have some that are amazingly realistic.

Glass balls that float are available and look divine both in summer and for the holidays. If you can't find these, just ball up some cellophane and float that around. No one will know what it is from a distance. These have a tendency to come undone, so you might want to fasten them in the center with a string or small tie.

With a bit of imagination and some bits and pieces of ordinary things, you can have a great look and lots of fun making your pond a part of your holiday decorations.