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Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V6 #172 Re: ABOVE GROUND POND
- To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
- Subject: Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V6 #172 Re: ABOVE GROUND POND
- From: Moontanman at aol_com
- Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 17:14:49 EDT
In a message dated 5/26/03 3:39:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
Aquatic-Plants-Owner at actwin_com writes:
> Re: ABOVE GROUND POND
I have several above ground ponds, while direct sunlight will indeed raise
the temps in your pond to temps far higher than they need be if you use regular
pond plants you should have no problems. Here in the South natural ponds often
have water temps in the 90's during the summer months. Goldfish and koi which
are supposed to be cool water fish will survive such temps but even tropicals
will be stressed by such high temps. On thing that I have learned will help
keep the temps down is to allow a thick layer of Azzola to grow on the surface.
Of course this will keep you from being able to see your fish and plants
can't grow under azzola. I breed native fish in my ponds so seeing the fish isn't
as important as the fish not being stressed. I do have one 300 gallon above
ground pond that I keep tropical in during the summer, I have found for the most
part submerged plants don't do as well as floating or emergent plants do. On
thing I do to keep the water aerated is to run airstones in my ponds. since a
filter would sweep up too many fry I don't use filters. This means my fish
population has to be less than a filtered pond. I use snap set swimming pools as
my ponds. You will find that many of the submerged plants we use in aquariums
will grow into different forms if given direct sunlight and plenty of rich
substrate. I agree that a bigger pond will allow you stabilize the water temps to
a more reasonable level. I don't use gravel in any of my ponds or tanks, I
prefer to use builders sand. Many fish like to dig and sift sand through their
mouths. My main problem with outdoor ponds is traveling bullfrogs! I live in
the middle of the city but I seem to have a never ending supply of these
monsters (fishes point of view). I actually like bull frogs, I love to hear them call
at night but they eat fish like potato chips. we get enough rain that I don't
have do much in the way of water changes. I use a constant level siphon to
keep the pond from running over. String algae is also a big problem, long tough
string and mats of this algae will fill a pond up and literally kill the fish
by entangling them. I try to keep it pulled out of the pond, Colombian
ramshorn snails will help eat it as will apple snails but apple snails are pretty bad
about eating your plants. Mystery snails help but won't eat the really tough
algae. toad tadpoles are good for controlling the mushy scummy type of algae
but they quickly turn into small toads so they are only available the first
part of the year. The main plants I use are water irises, water lilies, dwarf
cattails, canna lilies, and water hyacents. I also keep water tupelo trees and
bald cypress trees in pots. I keep the trees trimmed back into small bushes.
Moon