Few things can compete with a serene and lovely water garden located in your back yard. Especially during these lazy crazy days of summer when you like nothing more than to plop down in your favorite Adirondack chair, take in the sights and sounds and unwind from a busy day crammed with too many activities.
And those are some soothing sounds. I mean, don’t you love how in the background your pond’s fountain is tricking water creating those lucious falling sounds? While the koi glide through the water in pursuit of all manner of things as the sun slowly sets in the West.
Still as great as that may sound there are some things that can be done wrong that can upset the delicate balance you are trying to achieve in your pond. Let’s look at a couple of them more closely.
For one, too many fail to realize the need for adequate shade for their water garden. Koi don’t need a lot of sun. Plus sun warms the water at times too extreme. So you want at least half the pond’s surface covered with some sort of shade. Either from external sources or from koi resistant pond plants. And you want this knowing that algae hates shade but pond plants love sun. So you have to strike a balance to minimize algae while encouraging the aquatic plant life in most backyard ponds.
You also need to keep water quality high. Yet too many koi ponds lack sufficient filtering capacity. And if you don’t do that right either you will be very busy changing water in the pond, you’ll be very unhappy with all the algae that has taken up residence, or you’ll be working very hard just to keep up with developing water quality issues. But you’ll need to do something to keep your fish healthy, happy and disease free.
Koi also need depth. Too many opt for one of those preformed pond liners and call it good. Most likely you’re looking at a very shallow pond when doing less than two feet perhaps. When koi want three, four, even five feet of depth to do well.
Just a few think-abouts to keep in mind, don’t you think? Or common missteps to avoid, at least if you want to enjoy more lounging around the pond rather than working on the pond.
