A pond is a great way to offer your fish the space they need. However, if you don’t add enough water to the fish pond then there won’t be enough oxygen for them to survive. Without enough of it, they’ll feel restless and irritated. Knowing how you should add water into your fish pond is crucial because it’s totally different from a normal pond. It’s like day and night.
You need to clear up your pond and get rid of anything that can harm the fish, then import water from a good source. Next you have to find a good water source that’s free from impurities and harmful chemicals and transfer it to your pond in a slow and steady manner.
If you wanna learn more about it, I have the entire thing covered below…
Procedure of adding water to your fish pond
Adding water is not as simple as it sounds like. Especially if you want to add water to your fish pond. If you are not careful with processing and preparing water while adding to the pond, it can harm the fishes. At times, all the fishes have died in many cases due to unprocessed water.
You should follow the following steps strictly to avoid any kind of harm to your fish.
1. Clear the whole pond
Start with clearing your pond thoroughly to make sure there’s no dirt left. Because when you load water, you don’t want dirt floating here and there. It not only will decrease the overall looks but also harm the fishes in your fish pond.
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2. Selecting the water source
There’s a wide range of water sources available depending on your locality, state or even country. Look and ask around to figure out the nearest water source which will be able to load your fish pond with water. If the water source is close-by it’d be better for you, because then you can save some cost.
However, you should avoid tap water as they could have harmful components.
3. Transfer water to the pond
You can transfer water from a source to your fish pond through buckets, containers. This entire process is often time consuming. You can connect a hose pipe to the source and bring water to your pond as well. An external pond pump might come in handy in such situation.
But if the source is far away, you will have to spend a good amount of money on pipes and other stuff. So depending on distance from the water source to your pond and availability, select which will be easier and faster for you.
Now that you have everything set and ready to top up water, remember to be slow. Sudden change of water in the pond is not idle for the fishes. On the other hand, water from most of the sources contains various chemicals.
So what you should do is, divide the total volume that you want to fill in such a way that you only fill one inches of the pond each day. This will help the fishes cope up with the new water in a sustainable way as the overall water condition won’t change overnight.
Often while adding water, one mistake that people make is they put the water into the pond at very high speed. It causes various casualties like creating wrinkles and tearing the fish pond liner.
Overall, this is how you should add water to your pond. By adding parts of the total volume at a time and at a slow speed. Now that you know how you can add water, let’s look at a few things you should be careful about while adding water to your fish pond.
Things to be careful about before adding water to your fish pond
Though checking the water might sound like a simple job and you are certain you won’t mess it up, there are many like you who thought the same and ended up with dead fishes all over their pond. But you don’t want that to happen to your fish pond, so you want to know how to make the water safe before entering, and keep it the same during and after the process.
Let’s see how we can do that.
1. Evaluate your pond
Knowing what the volume of water that your pond holds is important. Because various ratios of chemicals, and the speed of releasing water, and how many inches everyday to increase etc. depends on the size of the pond.
The bigger your pond is the more city water you can add directly to your pond. There is a limit to the amount of city water or chlorinated water you can add to your pond depending on the size of it. It’s never the same for every pond, so discussing with pond experts before importing water inside would be wise.
2. Understand water condition of your city
Remember to gather information about city water and it’s condition. Check whether your city uses chlorine in their water or chloramine. As long as you add it slowly, city water is good to use. The limit that you should keep in mind while adding water to your pond is you should not load over 5% of the total volume of water in your pond each day. Add slowly throughout the day following intervals rather than entering all at once.
Without proper understanding of volume and chemicals used in water, you will endanger the health condition of the fishes in the pond. To be on the safer side, filter water before entering in your pond full with fishes. Unfiltered water will cause difficulties for the fishes as they can’t breath in water that is polluted and high in chemicals.
3. Dealing with highly chlorine concentrated water
If your city water is high with chlorine, using intensive spray you can turn the excess chlorine gas off rapidly into the air. Another option that you can go for is to apply conditioner made with sodium thiosulfate. It helps to reduce the chlorine present in the water.
You can purchase it as liquid or crystals and use it easily in your pond. Mix the conditioner with city water in a container, let it rest for a while. Then dump the water from the container to your fish pond.
In case of a small pond and a small change in water volume, you don’t need to follow this procedure. You can simply fill water in a large bucket and leave it overnight. The chlorine in water will reach the surface and you will get fresh water.
4. Dealing with highly chloramine concentrated water
Cities use various chemicals to keep water clean and safe but it’s very deadly if used in fish ponds. So, directly adding water through a hose pipe or from the sink is never a great idea. Chloramine is one of the most used chemicals in city water.
Apart from leaving the water in a container overnight and adding slowly, what you can do to filter out the chloramine is add biofilter in the system. This will ensure not just chloramine but other harmful chemicals like ammonia and nitrite are also eliminated.
This will leave you with fresh water in your pond, which is sustainable for your fishes. Where they can live and grow easily without fighting for life constantly.
5. Overall preparation for fish
You need to calculate the amount of excess water you need in order to plan everything else. Keep in mind that the necessary volume of water always fluctuates from time to time through the year. Especially during summer the volume increases due to evaporation.
When you are done with calculating the amount of excess water you need, measure the additional chlorine and other chemicals with respect to your calculation. When you are certain about the volume of water, chemicals and concentration level, you can start the process of entering water into the pond with additional filtering.
6. Add a filtered pump to the system
You can solve all problems regarding city water just by simply adding a filter and installing a filtration system. Make sure the filter is a carbon filter and able to remove chlorine, ammonia and other chemicals.
The Installation process is pretty simple. Follow the steps given below and in no time you will get your filtered pump ready to use.
Buy the right size:
Filter has it’s filtration power as well. Not every filter can filter the same amount of water in the same amount of time. What filter does is change the water from time to time.
Now, changing the water means cleaning the previous water making it safer. The filter should be able to clean the water at least five times in an hour. That should be the minimum to settle while choosing a filtered pump.
Build a box for the filter:
After setting up the filter, it might make the pond look a bit odd overall. To bring back the lucrative look, you should build a box which will cover the filter. It can be a camouflage cover, container. Or you can hide it under rocks and plants. .
Constructing the Filter Box:
The filter will make your pond look less aesthetic if it’s always visible while looking at your pond, so to keep things aesthetically pleasing you can either build various kinds of camouflaged container, or hide it using rocks and plants.
Complete the wiring:
First and foremost, cover all the electric wires in a good quality pvc conduit. Place the conduit under the ground and connect both ends of the line and supply source. Then use hose clamps to connect the inlet with the outlet hose and put them in a place away from people.
You can use hose clamps and connect both inlet and outlet hose. Remember to keep them in a secured place away from people’s sight. Then use hose clamps to connect the inlet with the outlet hose and put them in a place away from people.
Extract fish and water temporarily:
Since you will have to install the filter inside the pond, what you need to do first is release all the water. Even before that, remove all the fishes to a safe place for the moment being.
Then complete all the rest of the procedure as fast as you can.
Install the pump:
Pour water in the pond till it’s bottom is filled. Then you can check for any issue with the liner or anything else since you have less water and a clearer view.
If you find any issue, fix it and move forward to placing the pump right in the middle of your fish pond.
Give all connections and fill:
Now you can connect hoses and pumps to circulate water inside the pump’s filter, and the filter will take it from here. It will filter and pass the water inside the pond. Make sure to check for clogging by starting the pump after you are done filling the pond.
Bring plants and aquatic lives back to place:
Keep the aquatic lives and fishes in a safe place for a couple of days so that the pump gets to circulate water several times. It will help you do away with the dirt and debris if there’s any.When it’s done, you can then bring back everything back to their natural habitat with even cleaner water now.
It’s always better if the placement of the filter is in your fish pond pump, but if that’s not the case, at least make sure to install the filter where you contain most water. When you receive filtered water, make sure to check if the concentration levels are alright. The reading should be zero for chlorine and ammonia as well.
7. Alternative filter solution
An easy solution for filtration is inline filters. It’s even simpler than installing a filtered pump. You can hook this to the water hose and get ready made filtration everytime.
But do make sure to check on the concentration level after you get filtered water through inline filters.
8. Examine the water one last time
When you are done loading water in the pond to the perfect level, now it’s your time to make sure everything is perfect for the last time before you say the water is perfect for fishes.
Purchase pH strips from any store to determine if the acidity level of water is high or low. When you know which pH level is suitable for the fishes, you can see if the pH level matches that. A pH scale will help a lot in determining concentration of water every time.
Last Words
With a few simple steps, you can make your pond more inviting for wildlife and humans. By now you’ve not only understood how you should add water to your fish pond, but you’ve also realized the importance of having good quality water in it. So, I’m sure you’ll be more mindful of that.
I hope these instructions will be helpful as you care for your aquatic habitat!
