Summer Pond Maintenance Strategies

Summertime—the most beautiful time of year and the best chance to truly enjoy the pond.

By Summer, the majority of your pond maintenance should be behind you if you properly performed a Spring Clean-out on your water feature. There are some summer maintenance items that still need to be addressed in order to have a season of clean, clear water to enjoy. By keeping up on these tasks PROACTIVELY, you should have a healthy pond all season long.

Keep Your Pond “Topped off”:

You can lose up to an inch of evaporation a day if it’s really really hot outside so you need to make sure the water level stays where it should be. Maintaining the correct water level will ensure that the pump and/or skimmer are able to operate properly which will help keep your pond free of debris. Whether you're topping off your pond with a garden hose or you're filling with an auto-fill valve, the correct operation of your skimmer box provides oxygenated water for your fish, which is important when considering that the summer heat can be tough on oxygen levels.

---

Add More Plants:

The more the merrier (though there IS  a fine line)! If at all possible, try to cover at least a third of the pond’s surface area with water lilies. Ideally during the summer, 40-60 percent of your water surface should have coverage.

Trim Those Plants:

Keep your plants looking good by trimming them when necessary==same as you would with any regular landscape or house plant. Routine maintenance, including removal of spent blooms, yellowing leaves, and excess growth will get rid of nutrients in the pond (nutrients come from the decomposition of those spent/yellowing leaves), reducing the possibility of algae blooms.

Appropriate Fish Feeding

In the extreme heat of the summer, over feeding can lead to oxygen depletion and possible algae blooms (the more they eat, the more they poop!). It’s important to remember that fish can eat and eat until they over eat. Ours ALWAYS pretend like they’re starving. It’s possible that they’re just being friendly when they greet you and not begging for food. A good rule of thumb is not to feed your fish more than they can eat in a period of two to three minutes at a time.

---

Don't Clean Filter Pads

If you have a biological filtration system (also known as a biofalls or “top box” , cleaning off the filter pads will destroy the algae-fighting bacteria that live there, resulting in excess algae growth. It will also disturb the “biomedia” that live up in that box, causing them to either die, or wash down into the pond creating a murky look for a while.

Fertilize Lilies

If your lilies are potted, use fertilizer tabs near the base of the plant to encourage more blooms. Lilies planted into the pond, however, pull the nutrients they need right from the pond. There are a lot of benefits to having lilies in your pond: from shade and protection, to reducing the water temperature and of course the sheer beauty of them.

Add Beneficial Bacteria:

Bacteria sounds bad, but it’s not! Not the beneficial kind anyways. Follow the dosage instructions on the label and add bacteria weekly to compete with the algae for excess nutrients in the water, helping reduce the growth of algae

Control Runoff:

Avoid using fertilizer in areas that may drain into your pond. Fertilizer will cause a surge of excess nutrients in your pond and actually encourage algae blooms. Similarly, runoff from mulch can cause tanins (tea colored water) from making their way into the pond.

So Now What??

Remember, your water garden is there for you to ENJOY and it’s much easier to do so if you’re maintainancing it proactively instead of reactively.

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,