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Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V6 #172 Re: ABOVE GROUND POND



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