Ponds and cooler seasons in the southwest During the cooler seasons, the water temperature of your pond drops in relation to our nighttime lows. Once the water temperatures fall below 55 degrees, many positive and negative changes occur to your pond. On the positive side, those stubborn summertime algae blooms that show up particularly after our monsoons, subside and water clarity dramatically improves. Fish prepare for winter by going into semi-hibernation. The colder the water temperature, the less active your fish become, requiring less food or no feeding at all. And if you are using a pressurized bio-system, your backwash maintenance lessens. On the negative side, plant growth becomes slower and evens stops. Many plants, such as water lilies, sagittaria, cattails, and grasses become dormant and deciduous. It does not necessarily mean that the plants are dead. They may loose all of their foliage. Once the foliage drops, it sinks to the bottom of the pond and begins to decay. This results in a nasty sludge build-up. There are two ways to reduce this sludge build-up. One is to manually remove all of this unwanted organic matter. This method doesn’t sound very appealing considering the coolness of our temperatures and the frigidity of the water. Besides, not only is it time consuming, in most cases it is only about 30 to 60 percent effective. The other alternative is to treat the pond with additional beneficial bacteria. The bacteria works by dissolving sludge and other waste matter and then converting it into harmless nitrogen. In the past, I have had customers that spent hundreds of dollars cleaning their pond until I started them on a regular bacteria maintenance program. According to them, the results were amazing. There are a few tropical lilies and floating plants that require protection from frost and may not survive if your pond ices over. You can use small heaters to help warm the water, if you plan on growing these types of plants. However, heaters are expensive and require additional power to operate. In this area I would suggest growing types that can withstand cold-water temperature such as hardy water lilies, yellow flag iris, rush, umbrella palms, and hornwort. Any type that normally grows in colder regions will do well here. Marginals that do go dormant, such as sedges, cannas, cattails, and cyperus, will grow back with the warming temperatures of spring. When these marginals become dormant their dried, yellow foliage should be cut back to about 1/3 of their height leaving enough of the plant to protect their root system. Hardy water lilies and some tropicals prepare themselves for cold weather naturally by loosing their leaves. They may look dead, but they will reappear in spring. With our usually warm winters some deciduous lilies and irises never do defoliate. No matter what the season, there are three things to remember to keep your pond at its peak. Balance, balance, balance! Balancing your pond throughout the entire year will allow all bacteria and any other chemicals you apply to work at their fullest. The water in Arizona is generally alkaline with a starting ph of 8.3 to 9.1. In a perfectly balanced pond, the water will be 7.0. Fish and plants can survive with a ph between 6.8 and 8.3, but the closer to 7.0, the better everything works. So do yourself and your pond a favor by providing beneficial bacteria on a regular basis.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 03:50:37 +0000