Indoor Ponds Keep Plants and Fish Healthy During Winter Months

If you've never seen an indoor fish pond or are of the mind that the only place for a fishpond is outdoors, it's time to readjust your thinking. Many people love the idea of having a goldfish or Koi pond in their lawn and garden area but find the reality isn't always as wonderful as the fantasy.

Every winter runs the risk of losing the plant and fish life in your pond with the first freeze. As a result, more and more people are coming up with a method for bringing the outdoors, in and forming your very own pond indoors is a beautiful alternative to a tired old aquarium. While an indoor pond doesn't have to be beautiful in order to be functional, you can choose to make it a focal point and conversation piece quite easily.

A fairly simple and inexpensive way to craft an indoor pond this winter season is by using interlocking landscaping blocks to form a basic outline, and place a pre molded plastic pond liner (to avoid leaks), and other landscaping items such as rocks, plants, and soil in order to fill in the gaps. Others have even used a plastic kiddie pool for the fish and disguised the pool by hiding it with bricks or landscaping rocks.

The main purpose of indoor ponds is to protect your fish and plant life from the extreme winter weather conditions. It is quite easy to move the fish and plants from one pond to another. Be sure to keep the indoor pond regulated for temperature and water freshness by using proper equipment. Taking these precautions should keep your Koi fish and your plants healthy throughout the harsher winter months.

About The Author
Rob Bernabe invites you to http://www.artificialgardens.com, your water gardening center. Here we provide tips on water fountain and waterfall ideas. For additional information on related Koi ponds, check out http://www.artificialgardens.com/Building-Koi-Ponds-Can-Create-A-Beautiful-Relaxing-Atmosphere.html on benefits of building Koi ponds.

Overwintering the Garden Pond

It seems that there are always questions in the fall about winterizing plastic ponds. To begin with, clean out all the gunk (composed of fish and plant waste) at the bottom of the pond. Specialist garden catalogues have a little gizmo that attaches to a hose and when the hose is run, the gizmo acts like a vacuum cleaner, sucking debris from the bottom of the pond. Or you can put your pump on the pond bottom and point the discharge into the garden. If you don’t remove the plant debris, it will continue to decompose. Decomposition uses oxygen as one of its primary fuels and this means that oxygen will be taken from the water to fuel plant decomposition. If there is an ice-layer over the pond, and there will be shortly, the water will not be able to replace that oxygen and the pond will go into an anaerobic (without oxygen) state under the ice.

Now, you’ve never quite smelled something until you’ve taken a whiff of a pond that’s in that state. It is basically your very own backyard sewage system. Aside from getting rid of the smell, the reason you remove the bottom layers of material is so any fish you’re leaving in the pond will have enough oxygen to survive the winter. And survive they will as long as you stop feeding them when the water temperature is less than 50F. At that temperature, it is really too cold for them to feed and any food will simply rot. The fish will survive as long as the water doesn’t freeze solidly to the bottom of the pond. If the pond is three to four feet deep, it will not freeze and your fish will be fine. Shallower ponds will either have to have a bubbler, a pump left running to keep an open area open or the fish removed to an aquarium for the winter. But start with removing the gunk.

About The Author
Copyright Doug Green, an award winning garden author who answers pond questions in his free newsletter at http://www.water-gardens-information.com.