Posts Tagged ‘Water’

Your Very Own Backyard Pond

Thursday, November 24th, 2011

If you have a backyard or back garden, you can have a fish pond. They are not expensive to build and if you do it yourself it is obviously even cheaper. You can make your own pond pretty easily, you just have to bear a few things in mind when you plan where you are going to put it and how large it will be.

A backyard fish pond is fantastic for all kinds of households. Tending a backyard fish pond is not difficult and the mild exercise can be good for you. it is also therapeutic to watch the fish and other pond life going about their routine business and children will learn a bit more about nature,

It is imperative to plan your pond before you take up your spade and the first thing to think about is where you are going to place it. Try not to locate it under a tree or you will be dredging leaves out of your pond every day in autumn. Do not place the pond at the lowest point in your garden or it could overflow when it rains and your fish may swim away which means that you will need to sandbag it before it rains every time..

The midday sun can be very hot, so it would help if the pond had at least partial shade between 11 AM and 2 PM. If your region is subject to freezing then the pond should be 30-45 inches deep for at least 4 m2 or 36 ft2, although if the winter can get really bad, it is best to get advice from a neighbourhood pet shop. Have a look at the pre-formed fish ponds in a garden or pond centre to see if you like those shapes and sizes. If you do not, then you can procure a butyl pond liner (a sheet of rubber) and design your own pond.

After you have dug out your backyard fish pond and put your pre-formed or butyl liner into the hole, you should finish off the pond’s edge with either brick, block or stone. Use similar materials to construct a few caves in the pond itself for the fish to take cover in. You could also anchor the fountain and any under-water lighting. Fill the pond with water, but do not put any living thing into it yet. Put the rest of your equipment in.

You will need a general purpose pump to send water to the pond filter, which should be two or three feet above the water level. The water will then have to pass through a filter to remove plant debris and faeces and under a UV light to kill bacteria. It can return to the pond via a waterfall, which will help aerate the water as will the fountain.

After a week, the water will have lost the chemicals like chlorine which the water company puts into it and you can buy plants and fish, but do not rush into it. You may want to build a few shelves to put flower pots on for the aquatic plants that need them.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is at present concerned with fish pond accessories. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for some special deals.

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How To Care For Your Fish Pond

Saturday, July 30th, 2011

Do you like the sound of running water? Do you find the sound relaxing? Well, you can easily produce the sound of moving water in your own garden. You can put in a fish pond or a water garden. So, if you think that your garden needs landscaping, it might be a good idea to think about a fish pond or water garden.

People think that a fish pond takes lot of looking after, but that is not inevitably the case. The fact is that the larger the fish pond, the less effort you have to put into it. This is because a large pond can create its own ecosystem, whereas a small fish pond requires help.

The ways that you can help a small fish pond be a good environment for your fish are as follows:

Pond Filters – use a pond filter with a good pump. Do not forget that you could use a solar powered pump. It will save on the environment and on your wallet. You should use a pond filter on a small pond, because the ecosystem cannot cope with all the plant waste of a small ornamental pond on its own. A pond pump will feed the filtration system and a waterfall or fountain if you want.

Your pond filtration system should be left running twenty-four hours a day, but you can not just set it and forget it. Check that the pump is running daily and keep the filter as clean as needed for it to do its job. You may find that you have to clean it two or three times a week in the summer and autumn but only once a week in the winter and spring.

Leaf Netting: stop leaves from clogging up your pond in the autumn. The net should be poised a foot or so above the pond to prevent autumn leaves falling into the water and rotting.

Feeding: all fish should be given fish food, not bread or scraps. Some fish need specific fish food in order to maintain their colour. When you buy your fish, the salesperson should inform you what they eat. In general, the larger the pond the less hassle feeding becomes as they will eat natural food like insects, grubs, larvae and flies.

Fish need less food in the winter when they become semi-dormant and live off the fat reserves that they built up in the warmer months, so give food often in the summer and autumn, but less often in the winter. You must look to see if surplus food is left floating on the surface.

Winter: make certain that there is a hole in the ice so that the water can take in oxygen and the fish can feed if they want to. You can buy a floating de-icer or some people float a round football in a hoola-hoop, which seems to do the trick unless the temperature gets very low.

In fact, the hoola-hoop is a good idea all year round really. If you place the food in the hoop, it remains in one place and you can see if you have given too much. It also makes a nice site to see all the fish feeding in a shoal.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is now involved with water garden pumps. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site right away for some extra special deals.

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Your Koi Pond After A Storm

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

A storm can be stressful for your outdoor fish, especially for large koi carp, which, being large, possibly do not have many places to hide. However, if you have designed your koi fish pond well, you will have taken this into account when your constructed the pond. Likewise, the pond must be deep enough for your fish to be able to get well below the choppy surface level.

If you prepared for the storm, you probably put a net over the fish pond, so the first thing you ought to do after the storm is clear up any fallen debris and take away the net, so that you can get a good look at your fish and what happened to them. They may be a bit stressed, so move unhurriedly and try hard not to frighten them. Stress is a killer in the animal world as well as in ours.

Did you take the additional precaution of sand-bagging the rim of your pond to stop it over-flowing and the fish swimming away? If so, take away the sand bags, so that you can get a better look.

Now you can get a good look at the upheaval, if there is any. Use a net to quietly skim off any leaves that have blown under the netting and onto the pond. If any plants have been uprooted, put them back where they should be. In general, put the pond back as it used to be, so that the fish feel at home. Again, move unhurriedly and try not to put your fish under any more stress.

If you have to carry out major structural repairs, you could place your koi in a child’s plastic paddling pool until you can sort the issue out. Put the pool in a shaded area and fold the netting over it several times so that the fish can not get out and cats and birds cannot get in. If you can aerate the pool with a pump so much the better.

Place a few plants in there with them for cover and feed sparingly. if the repairs will take a long time, you could ask your local pet store to take them away for a week or whatever. You will have to pay board and lodgings, but it is preferable to losing your prized koi carp.

Once any repairs have been carried out, you ought to check the water quality, which could have been affected by debris dropping into the pond or by your repairs. Rain, especially acid rain, can have quite an effect, particularly if it rained for a long time.

First test the water for nitrates. If the levels are unacceptable (see the testing kit for details), you should normalize them. If the levels are extremely high, first remove the plants from the water.

Then analyze the KH levels. If they are low, say, below 100, then you could add a cup of baking soda per 1,000 gallons of water and check again. Whatever you do, the fastest way to de-stress your fish is to reinstate their environment to what it used to be with sparkling water to swim in.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is now involved with water garden pumps. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for a special deal.

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The Fundamentals Of Keeping Koi Carp

Monday, June 27th, 2011

Are you thinking about putting a koi carp pond in your garden? A koi fish pond is a great improvement to any garden. A garden pond is totally relaxing: watching the fish going about their every day lives is relaxing and listening to the sound of the water moving is relaxing too. Koi carp are a decent choice over some other fish because they grow fairly large and breed freely even in captivity.

They are not that problematic to keep either. As with all fish ponds, you need to maintain the quality of the water, but that is not so much of a problem when you know what you are doing. Once you have got the water correct, the rest will follow more or less on its own, although you will have to check it frequently.

Having said that, you ought to not merely rush out in to the garden, dig a hole and fill it with fish. You have to buff up on the topic first, but there is so much information on koi on the market, that you will have no problem in that respect. There is also lots of information on the Net.

The first thing to do is dig a hole for your pond, but it better not to have it consistently deep. It should be three or four feet deep at one end and a foot or so deep at the other. The koi will overwinter and sleep in the deeper water, but only the fry will feel comfortable in the shallow end. They will take refuge there to avoid being eaten by the larger fish. Like most fish, koi are cannibals.

Once your pond has been excavated, fill it with water and leave it for a week. Use this week to test your water features such as the water pumps, the filter and the fountain. If you are losing water attempt to plug the leak. If you have to keep topping up the water level from the hosepipe, you will almost certainly run into difficulties with chlorine.

After a week, the chlorine in that tap water will have dissipated and any surplus oil in your pond apparatus will have been flushed out, so you can put aquatic plants in. Plant them in pots so that you can move them easily if necessary. You ought to also construct some underwater caves for the fish to conceal themselves in.

Once you are satisfied that everything is working well and that the environment is stable (this is easier to do in larger ponds), you can think about buying some koi.

You have to make a decision why you want to have koi. Do you want to show them and possibly make some money? In that case you will have to start with costly fish, but if you just want to sit and watch them, the cheapest ones are OK. You can probably ask a friend to give you a few anyway.

If you get your fish in the breeding season, you will almost certainly get a couple of gravid (pregnant) females anyway.

A word of warning: fish regulate their environment better than we do. A given amount of water will only hold a precise number of inches of fish. So, as an example, say that every ten gallons of water will be sufficient for ten inches of fish and you have 200 gallons that is 200 inches of fish, which is 20 x 10 inch fish or 40 x 5 inch fish. As the fish grow, they will die to maintain this ratio, so do not buy too many until you understand this ratio.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on numerous subjects, but is at present involved with finding a koi pond contractor. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for some fantastic deals.

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Building A Backyard Fish Pond

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

A backyard fish pond will augment the beauty of your garden, there is no question about that. A backyard fish pond will add a focal point to a scruffy garden and will make a lovely backyard or garden even more attractive. There is something happy about the gurgling and splashing of fresh water.

However, despite the massive upside of having a backyard fish pond, there is also the question of maintenance. This is not an onerous task, but it is on-going and does need to be carried out on a methodical basis.

Everybody enjoys a backyard fish pond. If you already have one, you can bear witness to the fact that guests, friends and family love to spend time sitting around the edge of your pond watching the fish go about their lazy lifestyles and listening to the rhythm or running and splashing water. It seems to enthrall humans and it is therapeutic.

If you do not already own a pond, but want one, the first step is to decide where to locate it. A few suggestions here:

1] do not site it at a low point in the garden or it might flood when it rains and your fish might swim away. 2] try not to place it under a tree or you will spend the rest of your life dredging foliage out of the water 3] do try to situate your backyard fish pond where it will be at least in partial shade at midday

Once you have the prime site, you have to think about size and format. The most popular formats are: round, square, oval and kidney shaped. The depth of the water is also important if you live in an area that is subject to freezing. Thirty to forty-five inches is enough in most instances, but it would be worth asking neighbours or the local pet shop for guidance.

Once your pond is in order, you can set up your equipment. You will need a pump to suck the debris out of the water and send it to the pond filter. However, this pump will let plant debris to pass through it, so if you would like a fountain, you will probably need another pump, otherwise the fountain’s jets will become blocked by dead plants.

If this all seems a bit much, you can buy a pond kit which contains all the bits and pieces you will need to set up a backyard fish pond. One tip here: if you get solar-powered equipment, it will save on electrician’s fees and you will never have an electricity bill for your backyard fish pond.

After fitting the pumps, filter and fountain, you can fill the pond up with water and turn the devices on. The water is unsuitable for fish at the moment, so just let the apparatus run in and the water mature. This will take a week for the water. Meanwhile, choose your fish and plants and make any hidey-holes you want to put in for your fish.

When the week is up, you can add your plants and populate your backyard fish pond with fish.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many topics, but is at present concerned with koi pond kits. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for a special deal.

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Automatic Identification Systems On Vessels

Friday, June 11th, 2010

An Automatic Identification System, or AIS, is a device that helps to identify boats and vessels by sending out a continuous VHF signal that transmits basic information about that vessel such as its name, locations, type, & call sign.

The transponded information can then be received by other vessels to help them to determine its course and speed. As the VHF signals come in, the receivers are able to display all AIS-equipped vessels that are transmitting within a certain range. The system therefore provides a highly valuable service to water vessels in helping to track the progress of other watercraft in the nearby area. This decreases the chances of collision on the waterways. . The data that is received by other AIS-enabled vessels is most of the time shown on a computer display or positioned as an overlay on a chart plotter. This will help to confirm radar readout.

Ship navigators utilize AISAIS as a navigational tool to reduce the risk of collision and to chart a safe course to travel. Maritime search and rescue operations can be made much easier by automated identification devices that will specify the exact location of the distressed vessel regardless time of day or the weather conditions.

Dangerous situations can be avoided by programming the system to track specific vessels. This information can be exchanged automatically by the ships captains allowing for safer navigation. Ships with over 300 tons of cargo & all passenger ships are required by the International Maritime Organization to be fitted with the marine guidance system. People who use recreational boats are not required to use it, however more people are using the technology. All over the world, it is thought to be used in over 40,000 vessels.

This maritime technology is used primarily to avoid collisions. The tracking does not work alone. VHF radio communications can be limited and considering the fact that every vessel isn’t required to have it, it is not the perfect solution. It is not an automated collision avoidance system as defined by the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS). In the hands of a skilled captain however, it is one of many tools utilized for safe travel.

During sea navigation, identifying other ships in the area is crucial for captains to make the best decisions on any voyage. That also does not mean that all other types of navigational observation is thrown away. There is certainly, of course, visual observation where the captain will often make use of binoculars to spot far away obstacles or boats. There can also be acoustic observational alerts that a captain must pay attention for such as horns, whistles, or VHF broadcast. Finally, there is radar or Automatic Radar Plotting Aid (ARPA) that can provide important navigational data to add to what the AIS is plotting. Despite having all this technology, accidents can still occur. It is often because of time delays and limitations of radar or even just plain human error whenever this occurs. The graphical charts and all the other observational tools must be utilized if water travel is to be safe and AIS is a small part of that.

Visit AIS and read more about AIS

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