If you have fish in your pond, sooner or later they are going to have babies if all the right water quality balances are in place i.e. if you have poor water quality, your fish may not be the healthiest to have babies of their own. Late spring/early summer usually marks the time of year when koi and goldfish start to spawn.

Fish spawn tends to look like soap bubbles or foam on top of the pond. You may also notice your pond fish acting differently than usual-- rubbing against each other aggressively and chasing each other around the pond. When koi and goldfish spawn, they produce thousands of eggs but very few actually survive and grow up into baby fish. Often times, but by accident, other fish in the pond end up eating the fish eggs---especially curious koi, as they are always nosing around the pond looking for things to nibble on.

The eggs hatch a few days at a microscopic size, taking a few weeks to grow big enough for you to notice that they exist at all. At this stage in development, the baby fish survive by feeding off of different microorganisms in your pond and you don't need to worry about feeding them yourself--let nature take it's course. Baby fish can grow up to an inch long in a couple months if the water quality remains healthy and they are able to find enough food in your pond. At this size, they may start eating commercial food if it is crushed up for them. Fish food that is high in protein content can help bulk them up in size quicker than the microorganisms in the pond will. Growing them quickly is helpful when it comes to the overwintering practices in the Lebanon County, Lebanon Pennsylvania area.

The size of the fish by the end of summer is important to know as you begin to consider over-Wintering plans for your new babies. If you decide to let them over-winter outside, they may or may not survive, especially if they don’t have enough fat reserve to tide them over. If you don't want to chance their survival and they decide to bring them inside, make sure you have a large enough tank with adequate filtration because they will continue to grow inside over Winter.
Another thing to remember is that if your pond babies continue to survive year after year, sooner or later they are going to get big and could overcrowd your pond. It is important to know and stick to your magic "fish number" of how many fish your pond can comfortable house without compromising the health of the entire ecosystem.  If you plan on keeping some of the babies, understand that eventually you may have to get rid of some of them so to ensure you don't compromise the all of the fish.

Watching the baby fish grow up is fun and the whole process is a great learning experience for kids and adults, alike.

For more information on koi pond fish, please contact us directly!

Dreamscapes carries a full line of pond supplies from water treatments and fish medications to pond pumps, heaters, fountains, plants and fish! If you think you need it, we have it!

Retail Hours:  April 5th-May 27th:         Wednesday-Friday: 10am-5pm; Sat: 9am-1pm
                                                         Mon & Tues: Hours By Appointment
                     May 28th-Nov 25th:        Thursday-Friday: 10am-5pm; Sat 9am-12pm
                                                         Mon, Tues, Weds: Hours By Appointment
                     Nov 26th-April 2018:       All Hours By Appointment


Contact Us
2155 State Route 343, Lebanon Pa | 717-272-6555 | info@dreamscapeswatergardens.com

Dreamscapes Watergardens services the city of Lebanon, Lancaster, Harrisburg, Mechanicsburg, Camp Hill, Cleona, Cornwall, Fredericksburg, Indiantown Gap, Jonestown, Kleinfeltersville, Mount Gretna, Myerstown, Newmanstown Palmyra, Quentin, Reistville, Richland, Schaefferstown of Pennsylvania, PA

Spring—everyone’s much anticipated time of year after the Winter cold.  For many of us, Spring means that nature is slowly returning to our yards in the form of visiting squirrels and chipmunks who have come out of hibernation, the birds return, the spring plantings start to show some life and our ponds also start to wake up.

As the weather dances between warm and cold and your fish begin to stir, your first inclination may be to feed them.  After all, they look pretty active, pretty friendly and pretty hungry, right?  Hold on!  Before giving them ANY FOOD, give them a chance to really wake up. If the water temperature is below 50 still, don't feed them. Even if they appear to be begging and pleading for you to feed them, the reality is that their metabolism isn't working correctly yet and feeding them could give them digestion issues. There is plenty of natural food in a healthy pond to sustain them if they want a snack.

Once your water is consistently above 50 degrees (late April for Central PA), you can slowly start to feed them a fish food formula designed for colder weather called “Spring / Fall” food. This food has a higher concentration of “wheat germ” that helps with digestion during this time when the fish still have a slow metabolism.

Dreamscapes  ONLY recommends feeding summer foods once your water temperature has climbed up and past 65 degrees.  In our central Pennsylvania area, this roughly translates into sometime in mid-late June. The safest bet is to consider plopping in a pond thermometer and follow the water temperature on your own.

As your pond warms up, you may also notice that your perennial marginals should be showing some new growth.  This is a great time to trim and remove the dead leaves left from last year.  Don’t be afraid to cut off some new growth in the process, it will quickly heal and continue to put out new shoots.  You may also notice the growth of undesirable algae at this time, and there’s not too much that can be done about it.  This is because undesirable algae can grow at lower temperatures when your marginal pond plants have not grown enough to contribute to algae prevention.

As we get further into spring, air and water temperaturess continue to increase and your marginal plants will also increase their activity, competing with the algae for available nutrients. In a properly planted pond with a balance of plants and fish, the plants will eventually out-compete the algae for nutrients and you should see string algae start to fade back a little.  Depending on how many marginals you have in and around your pond, you may need to help in algae removal with some manual removal or even a spring opening / drain and clean.  Every pond is different.

By doing an annual drain and clean (also known as Spring Pond Maintenance or Spring Pond Cleaning), you make a great first step to setting your pond up for the season by minimizing the amount of excess nutrients that will be available to undesirable algae.  Leaves, debris and accumulated fish waste that have collected on the bottom of your pond will fuel algae growth. In order to properly clean out your pond , you will need to remove your fish into holding tanks for their safety. This is also a good time to inspect your fish for any injuries or anything out of the ordinary.

Dreamscapes performs 200 Spring Pond Openings every year from mid-March until June. It is quite literally a crappy job, as our guys generally leave covered in pond fish waste. Depending upon your size waterfeature, expect this process to take 4-8 hours. We've been at ponds for a full 12 hours before, depending upon the size pond and how much build up is on the bottom! Our process is as follows:
1) Remove fish into holding tanks                          
2) Remove debris from pond                                                    
3) Pressure wash pond rocks and waterfall, if existing   
4) Vacuum out skimmer box & biofalls                                  
5) Check & clean filter components                                   
6) Check Iongen Probe, if applicable
7) Test pump
8) Divide plants if needed
9) Add Dechlor
10) Introduce fish back into pond

The pressure washing should be your most time consuming part, as there are a lot of crevices in a pond for sludge to hide. At this time, we're continually pumping out the dirty water that accumulates at the center of the pond.

When adding fish BACK to the pond, add the fish and the holding-tank water first before fresh water. If your hose runs on city water, add a dechlorinator to remove the heavy metals that are toxic to fish. Finally, remember to leave the hose on a very slow trickle, as a 10 degree swing in temperature could throw your fish into shock and become fatal.

In the spring, you will also want to closely monitor your water chemistry.  The main reason for this is that your biological filters and/or your pressure filters have also been acting at a reduced capacity for the winter or even turned off entirely.  Without a fully functioning biological filter, ammonia and nitrite levels can rise, especially when you start to feed your fish.  If you slowly increase the amount you feed the fish, you can slowly build up the biological filter at the same time.
If you have a biofalls that was shut down for the winter, it will essentially be sterile and brand new in the spring, with no biological colony present.  The sooner you can get the filter pads and bioballs / lava rocks back in, the sooner you can begin regenerating your biological colony.  Note!  Be sure to check your filter pads at this time.  Give them the “tear test”.  If you hold the filter with both hands and try to tear it, there should be a lot of resistance.  If it tears easily, this is an indication that its time to replace the filter pad.

Don’t forget to keep an eye on water levels during this time as well.  This is primarily due to the fact that most of us turn off our waterfalls in the winter and we have had instances where mice, chipmunks or other rodents chew a hole in the liner behind or around the waterfall.  During the summer, the running waterfall prevents them from accessing these areas, but in the winter, they sometimes like to nest there and use our rubber liners as insulation.  So if you notice you have trouble maintaining your water level after turning on your waterfall, when you didn’t have trouble last year, this is the first thing I would look for.

For more specific information on algae and your pond, please contact us directly!

Located in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, Dreamscapes Watergardens installs koi fish ponds and pondless waterfalls (disappearing waterfalls) all over the Central Pennsylvania area. For more information on koi ponds and waterfeature installations, please contact us directly!

Dreamscapes also carries a full line of pond supplies from water treatments and fish medications to pond pumps, heaters, fountains, plants and fish! Tadpoles and snails are also available at our Aquatic Retail Center in Lebanon, Pennsylvania seasonally while supplies last from May-August.  If you think you need it, we have it!

Retail Hours:  April 5th-October 27th 2018:
                           Monday-Wednesday: By Appt
                           Thursday-Friday: 10am-5pm
                           Saturday: 9am-12pm
                     October 28th-April 2019: HOURS BY APPT


Contact Us
2155 State Route 343, Lebanon Pa | 717-272-6555 | info@dreamscapeswatergardens.com

Dreamscapes Watergardens services the city of Lebanon, Lancaster, Harrisburg, Mechanicsburg, Camp Hill, Cleona, Cornwall, Fredericksburg, Indiantown Gap, Jonestown, Kleinfeltersville, Mount Gretna, Myerstown, Newmanstown Palmyra, Quentin, Reistville, Richland, Schaefferstown of Pennsylvania, PA