Pond Fish & Plants

Time to talk a little bit about the about ponds! Does this rain do anything to you getting your pond ready?

It does dilute the chemicals that we use in the pond. That is why reapplication of the algaecides and the bacteria is important. We do it on a weekly or a bi-weekly basis. Everybody’s pond is a little different. You kind of get a feel for if weekly application is enough or bi-weekly application is enough. The algaecide gets diluted to the point where it is less effective. 

If we get three to four inches of rain across the entire top of the pond, it just adds hundreds of gallons of water to that pond. Most ponds have an overflow, so when it gets to a certain point, the water runs out of the pond. That does dilute that chemical. So reapplying the chemicals is important. We’ve also tested a lot of pond water for customers, we do free water testing here at the nursery. So when people bring their samples in, we can take a look at the test and the test results. That kind of gives us a picture of what the pond is doing chemically.

I did want to mention we got some new water lilies in a variegated variety called Wanvisa, a real pretty one called Rembrandt and a yellow one called Texas Dawn. There are some pretty cool new varieties of water lilies that came in.

It’s finally warm enough to bring in our floating plants like water hyacinth and things like that. And of course the hornwort that we put down in the bottom of the pond is the most important plant for keeping your pond water clear, because it uses up a ton of nutrients, and then there’s nothing left for the algae to grow on.

You’re looking to make sure there’s that food supply for whatever is in your pond. There’s natural nutrients from the bacteria we add to the pond. There’s only two main products we use to take care of the pond: one’s a liquid bacteria, the other one’s a liquid algaecide. Now, you’ll see other products on the shelf at Rohr’s nursery, but they’re specific for specific problems you might run into.

I have a customer this year that the net tore during the winter and dumped a bunch of debris in the pond, but he didn’t want to drain the pond. We have this bacteria called muck pellets, and we can throw those in the pond, and because it’s weighted it goes to the very bottom of pot and puts all of the bacteria where the problem is. Which will help break that debris down and turn it into nutrients that your plants are going to use.

One of the main questions we ask customers when they come in, especially if they’re a new pond owner, all of the chemicals or bacterias or anything that we add to the water goes off of how many gallons are in the pond. Well, most people don’t know, but there’s some math formulas that we can do. So, one of the things we ask customers is, how long is the pond? How wide is the pond? And that gives us our square feet. Then we ask, how deep is the pond on average? That gives us our cubic feet. And then we’ll multiply that times six, and that gives us roughly how many gallons are in the pond. And then we know exactly how to tell them to treat the bacterias and the algaecides and things like that. You don’t want to over-treat, but you don’t want to under-treat, or it won’t be effective. So that helps us help them figure out how many gallons they have.

What’s the most popular fish these days? The most popular fish is just our standard goldfish. We have what’s called a long fin goldfish, so their fins are really long and wavy compared to a normal common goldfish. The second most popular would definitely be our koi.

The koi come in so many unique colors and different patterns of their colors on the body. There’s neon yellows and neon silvers, and they can have a metallic fleck under their scales. They basically sparkle like a diamond when the sunlight hits them. Pretty cool looking koi fish. We have regular koi and butterfly koi, and the butterfly koi have a tail twice to three times as long as the standard koi.

When you’re when you’re so you get your pond set up you’re gonna pick your fish You know, how many fish are we talking about when you you know, that’s a great question A lot of that depends when people come in asking how many fish can I have in the pond? The length, width, and depth are really important measurements to know when you come in so that we can help you.

If you’re interested in getting a pond started this season, we can build one for you! Waterfalls, rock features, fish and plants, we can design and build the optimal pond for your property, as well as come out and maintain it. If you’re interested, give us a call (330-499-0101), fill out an estimate request, or stop in at either of our locations.