The care of your garden pond depends on the season. In spring you have other jobs than in autumn. But what needs doing in summer?
Let’s assume we’re talking about a problem-free garden pond. This means your garden pond isn’t full of algae. If this is you, please start to follow 1-2-3 algae-free concept .
Which pond problems arising in summer will result in care measures? Firstly we can assure you that there isn’t much to do. With just a few tricks you can keep your garden pond attractive all summer long.
The following causes will require your attention:
Heavy rainfall and thundersturms
Summer storms and heavy rainfall decrease the water hardness tremendously and your pond water will cease to be stable. But how can you check this stability? For this purpose you can use the JBL PROAQUATEST POND Check pH/KH which gives you the answer with a simple change of colour. If the carbonate hardness is greater than or equal to 4 °dKH, the test turns blue, otherwise it turns yellow. If there is no stability, you need to supply new minerals to the pond ( JBL StabiloPond KH ) and thus recover the required stability. Without sufficient stability the pH value is subject to huge fluctuations. Not only does this irritate the mucous membranes, it also disturbs the biological balance.
Because there are so many consumers (plants and fish) in the pond, you need to check the water stability every 6-8 weeks, even when there is no heavy rainfall.
High temperatures
You don’t only see it on the water temperature but also in extreme cases on the fish. The oxygen content in the water drops through the increasing temperatures. Should it drop rapidly, aeration is required. For this purpose a diaphragm pump, such as the JBL PondOxi-Set , is typically used. By the way this aeration is not only important for the fish but also for the pollutant-degrading bacteria. It is therefore not surprising that you can suddenly measure nitrite in the water, during exposure to severe heat. That’s why you need to check the level of oxygen in the garden pond in very hot weather ( JBL PROAQUATEST O2 Oxygen ), to be able to react in good time.
Pollen count and decaying leaves
Intensive feeding of high fish stock is not the only cause of an increase in phosphates. A heavy pollen count, blossoms and decaying leaves also lead to this important plant nutrition being dissolved in the water and made accessible to the algae. Within a short period the algae absorb the excess phosphates, so that when the pollen is flying and plants or leaves are wilting and landing in the water, floating or thread algae infestations can occur within a few days. It’s best to prevent this by regularly removing phosphates from the pond water. The easiest way to do this is to use a filter media ( JBL PhosEX Pond Filter ), which is integrated into the filter circuit. This ensures a fixation of the nutrients for about 2-3 months (depending on the phosphate input) and is a good prevention against algae growing in phases. If you don’t have a filter in your garden pond or don’t have the space for it, the fixation can be carried out weekly using a liquid phosphate binder ( JBL PhosEX Pond Direct ) Although you won’t achieve the permanent removal of the nutrients, it will help you avert peaks of nutrients.
Finally we would like to advise you to remove larger accumulations of food remains, leaves and algae with a fish net or a sludge suction cleaner by hand at first. This way you will not only improve the look of the pond, but you are also removing the nutrients from the system garden pond completely. Don’t forget to remove any sludge which may be clogging up the filter media and also to remove the nutrients. Large mud or sludge layers at the bottom of the pond are not a sign of good biology, they are a time bomb of nutrition and the harbinger of algae problems.
