There are many methods to create your own unique back garden ponds or water gardens and we have some advice to help with making it a fun and easy experience. Before creating your water fountain determine what your goals are. Are you attempting to attract regional wildlife, like frogs, turtles and birds? Would you prefer to have a water garden with a lovely zen experience to it, featuring lilies, lotus and other aquatic plants? How about incorporating water into the design of your home? Remember you more than likely DO have room for a water fountain. They may be anything from a half-barrel to a huge and deep pond in your back yard. No matter what your intentions are we are able to assist you to achieve them. The first step in creating your project is to pick a spot. You will wish a location where you can create some shade for your pond in fact it is also great to look for a place where you can protect the water from having way too many leaves or other debris from entering. Shade can be created in many ways. Water vegetation on the advantage or in the pond will color the water, many ornamental trees are ideal as long as they don't drop too many leaves. Backyard ponds can easily end up being overrun by this type of debris. The next thing is to start the design process. This consists of choosing the actual form of the water fountain, any waterfalls or various other drinking water features, filtration, and where and if you will end up being planting about the water. It really is highly advisable to include into the design several different depths and slopes around the pond edges. This provides extra places for fish and animals to go around and for putting different types of water vegetation. You can create your water fountain out of concrete, prefabricated tubs, or even use pond liners. Choose the option that is best for assembling your project and budget. Concrete is commonly more expensive when compared to a tub or a pond liner, but it may last longer if professionally installed. In the event that you will be keeping Koi, Goldfish, Tadpoles or other styles of fish you might want to remember to think about protecting them from predators. Raccoons and Heron are voracious seafood eaters. One of the best methods to protect your fish and animals is to supply a way for them to move away from the predators. The simplest way to get this done is to supply at least 3 feet of depth in the pond. Heron and raccoons have trouble catching fish and animals as of this depth or deeper. Filtration can be very simple or very intricate. It once again depends on assembling your project. Drinking water Gardens with a couple small seafood or no fish at all don't need large filters. You can also make your personal filter out of a 5 gallon bucket, some hoses and a pump. It is very easy to do! If you are keeping koi, you then will need a system with more flow and more mechanical filtration to remove waste. Koi are filthy fish and produce a lot of waste. UV sterilizers certainly are a good plan on any water feature. They eliminate nuisance algae that turns the drinking water green and in addition kill parasites that can attack your fish. Ideally you will place a UV sterilizer on the return line after the filter. Adding vegetation to your backyard pond could be rewarding and gorgeous. Water gardens need a lot of the same caution as any home plant or other backyard would. You will need to research your plant life, determine how high and wide they grow, how exactly to prune them and what types of additional feedings they may require. You also have to know where around the water fountain your plants would grow the very best. Some merely float on the surface, so you only need to protect them from being sucked up into filters or destroyed by waterfalls. Other vegetation develop at different depths, which is why we recommend building your water feature with many depths. You can add to the look and experience of your pond by picking local stones, or going to a local landscaping shop and purchasing stone that fits the experience of assembling your project. Many landscaping shops are actually starting to specialize in items for backyard ponds. Backyard ponds make great set-ups for koi. There are a few things you really need to consider. Koi get large and produce a large amount of waste, so make sure you provide sufficient filtration. It is better to have a system that's too large than one that is too small. It is costly and can be very hard to upgrade a system later. It will always be best to still do it the first time. Plants can provide another unique problem when keeping koi. Simply speaking, koi love to eat plant life, swim through plant life and simply tough them up. Your koi may just destroy the plant life and cause a huge mess in the pond. If you do use vegetation, and now there are many that are acceptable, just be sure you pick hard and tough plants or place them in areas where in fact the koi cannot get to them. Feeding your koi is easy so long as you are familiar with their wants. The feeding habits of koi are directly related to the water temperatures and seasons. In the Spring period you should start feeding the koi with reduced color enhancing growth food. During the summer season you can continue with a color enhancer, and provide multiple types of food. There are several great spirulina pellets, krill and various other treats for your seafood. As the drinking water cools down once again in the winter you should remember a couple of things. One, cut way back on feeding. If your water gets right down to 50 degrees or lower you do not need to feed the fish at all. In the event that you will become feeding then head to an easy to digest Wheat Germ meals. Backyard ponds can be a large amount of fun! We hope you enjoy designing and building yours!