What I know you could put in a thimble

Ok. So now I have the water trough up and going with all the bells and whistles..Thanks to all the help I have gotten from this thread. Today it is raining. The rain gauge is showing just under 1" and it is supposed to continue raining for the next 3 days. Is there anything I should do for the "pond". It is mostly under a canopy but it is definitely raining into one end of it. I had a spa for a long time and rain water could really mess up the ph. Didn't realize there would be so many details when I started this....but love it I do.

You should have not problems with rain water unless it is runoff from a tainted source. It will bring in some fresh water to help dilute fish waste and also can provide some increased oxygenation simply due to the fact of it falling in the water. It rained here too today and my fish seem to be more active and "happy" after a rain. I bet I will find more goldfish eggs tomorrow for my fry pond. :^)

Yes, you are right Lou, 3 days of rain will really mess up the Ph. I appologize, I didn't follow your original thread (I will say from the pic that it turned out great!), do you have fish in there? That is the only concern, a Ph crash can kill your fish.

All you would really want to do at this point to prevent it would be trying to cover the end that is exposed to the rain. In the future you can have things in there to help buffer your Ph, crushed coral for example.

Really like the way it turned out. Love all the plants around it. You've done a great job.

Since you stated that you don't know much about ponds I have to ask? Do you know that you need to do a 1/3 water exchange a week? This dilutes the fish waste also. I just bought a water declorinator from pondbiz. I just put it on the end of the water hose and it elimanates the clorine for 13 mos. I actually bought two. One for the ponds and one for my plants.

Happy ponding,

Jeri

Appreciate your help, all of you. It is raining very hard right now. I have a large rain gauge that I can read from my desk. It has rained just a tad under 1/2 inches in about 20 minutes. We have had 1 1/2 inches in the last 24 hours. Wish I had been keeping a journal. Probably more than 15 inches right here in my backyard in the last 6 weeks. This after a 5 year drought that emptied some of the lakes that the city draws for water. DH has gone out to see if the pond has overflowed. Being just a big "bucket" it can't run-off like a in-ground pond.
Jeri, have been following the other thread where you told about the hose-end product. Will be going back and re-reading and will go to the link. This forum is better than a reference book.

Hi Lou it was Snapple45 that told me. LOL I'm just passing on good info.

Jeri

LouC you can buy test strips to check the Nitrite, Nitrate, Hardness, Alkalinity and Ph of the water.

As long as eveything falls into the safe zone you should be OK.

There are things you can buy to alter the Ph up and down but I've found that doing a partial water change and adding hose water after a hard rain will bring the Ph back up.

My pond is small about 300 gallons so I dunno if this works with a really big pond.


This message was edited Jun 17, 2007 2:29 PM