There are many methods to create your own unique backyard ponds or water gardens and we've some advice to help with making it a great and easy experience. Before creating your water fountain determine what your goals are. Are you attempting to attract local wildlife, like frogs, turtles and birds? Would you prefer to have a drinking water garden with a beautiful zen experience to it, featuring lilies, lotus and various other aquatic plants? How about incorporating water in to the design of your house? Remember you probably DO have space for a water fountain. They can be anything from a half-barrel to a huge and deep pond in your yard. Regardless of what your intentions are we are able to assist you to achieve them. The first step in creating your project is to pick a location. You will wish a location where one can create some color for your pond and it is also wonderful to find a place where you can protect the drinking water from having too many leaves or other particles from entering. Shade could be created in lots of ways. Water plants on the edge or in the pond will shade the drinking 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 kind of debris. The next step is to start the design process. This includes choosing the actual shape of the water fountain, any waterfalls or additional drinking water features, filtration, and where and if you will be planting around the water. It is highly advisable to include into the design a number of different depths and slopes around the pond edges. This provides extra places for seafood and animals to go around and for putting various kinds of water vegetation. You can create your water feature 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, nonetheless it may last longer if professionally installed. If you will be keeping Koi, Goldfish, Tadpoles or other types of fish you might want to remember to think about protecting them from predators. Raccoons and Heron are voracious fish eaters. Among 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 do this is to supply at least 3 feet of depth in the pond. Heron and raccoons have a hard time catching fish and pets as of this depth or deeper. Filtration can be extremely basic or very intricate. It again depends on assembling your project. Drinking water Gardens with a couple small seafood or no seafood at all don't need large filters. You may also make your very own filter out of a 5 gallon bucket, some hoses and a pump. It is extremely easy to do! If you are keeping koi, you then will need a system with an increase of flow and more mechanical filtration to eliminate waste. Koi are dirty fish and produce a lot of waste. UV sterilizers certainly are a good plan on any water feature. They destroy nuisance algae that turns the drinking water green and in addition kill parasites that may attack your fish. Ideally you will place a UV sterilizer on the return line following the filter. Adding plants to your backyard pond can be rewarding and beautiful. Water gardens need a lot of the same care as any home plant or other backyard would. You will have to research your plant life, determine how high and wide they grow, how to prune them and what forms of additional feedings they may require. You also have to know where around the water feature your plant life would grow the best. Some basically float on the top, so you just need to protect them from becoming sucked up into filters or destroyed by waterfalls. Other plants develop at different depths, which explains why we suggest building your water feature with many depths. You can include to the look and feel of your pond by picking local stones, or likely to a local landscaping store and purchasing rock that fits the feel of assembling your project. Many landscaping shops are now starting to specialize in items for backyard ponds. Backyard ponds make great set-ups for koi. There are some things you really need to consider. Koi get huge and produce a lot of waste, so be sure you provide adequate filtration. It is best to possess a system that's too large than one that is too small. It is costly and may be very hard to upgrade something later. It is usually best to still do it the first time. Plants can offer another unique problem when keeping koi. In other words, koi like to eat vegetation, swim through plants and basically just tough them up. Your koi may just destroy the plants and cause a large mess in the pond. In the event that you do use plant life, and generally there are many that are acceptable, just make sure you choose hard and tough vegetation or place them in areas where the koi cannot reach them. Feeding your koi is easy so long as you are aware of their demands. The feeding behaviors of koi are straight linked to the water temperatures and seasons. In the Spring period you should begin feeding the koi with a premium color enhancing growth food. Through the summer time you can continue with a color enhancer, and offer multiple types of food. There are some great spirulina pellets, krill and additional treats for your seafood. As the drinking water cools down again in the wintertime 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. If you will be feeding then head to a simple to digest Wheat Germ food. Backyard ponds could be a lot of fun! We hope you enjoy designing and building yours!