Hi reefgirl! That property looks awesome for a nice big pond
if you don't have a lot of shade available just make up for it with shade providing plants (lilies are great for this they get massive and also help protect your fish from birds flying over and sun damage) I have 5 lilies in mine and just one of them covers about about 15 square feet it's just huge the leaves/pads are larger than a frying pan. This one plant alone I'm positive has protected my fish from all the eagles hawks blue herons and kormorans that fly over. Before I acquired this plant I was losing about a fish a week and they would just disappear so I'm assuming it was birds... Since I got this one plant no one has gone missing.
Shade and coverage is not only to prevent algae growth it has many other crucial purposes.
It depends where you live, but I've always been lead to believe that the deeper the pond the better... For many reasons, if it's shallow it's free game for any big bird to jump right in and go fishing. You'll find the temperatures will rise much faster in a more shallow pond, but if it's deeper your fish have an escape from the sun and heat. If you have it only two or so feet deep and you live somewhere as cold as I do, it's going to take a lot more work and energy to keep it from freezing. My pond easily freezes two feet down in the winter, I would need a much more powerful heater or many more heaters to be able to keep my fish in it in the winter. And that would be expensive. It's just easier for me anyways to have it deeper and have no worries of freezing all the way through.
Where abouts do you live reefgirl? And don't worry about shade for now, as long as you plant some trees around it and provide ample plant coverage
07-22-2012, 10:16 PM
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