Have we been sold a bill of goods by the salesmen of pond products?

Meyer Jordan

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Natural ponds have no waterfalls or filters yet they thrive, why? Has anyone tried this in real life? Are we being sold a bill of goods by those who sell pond products?

http://www.gardenmyths.com/pond-pumps-filters/

Yes and no. Most pond products are sold with exaggerated claims and often cause more damage than they profess to correct. But as long as people expect more from their backyard pond than they would get from a natural, earthen-bottom pond, these products will sell. For example: The ability to see to a depth of 18" is considered pretty darn good for a natural pond. Very few pond hobbyist would accept that, preferring to see to the bottom even if their pond is 5 feet deep.
BTW-Welcome back!
 
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Good article! One thing the author didn't do is fill (or overfill) his ponds with big ole koi. I've seen lots of goldfish ponds with no water circulating, no filtration, no feeding, etc. but you won't get a pond of koi to survive in the same circumstances. At least not at the scale of most backyard ponds. So while lots of "pond products" are probably a waste of money. I wouldn't put pumps in that category.

Also I think many garden ponds are added for the owner to enjoy the sight AND sound of water, which is where the waterfall comes in. There is something very lovely about a still, quiet body of water but I do love my waterfalls!
 

j.w

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Hey @Bullfrog good to see ya and good article. I didn't feed my fish for the 1st several yrs and then I started feeding them to attract them to me. They did not starve to death in those yrs I didn't feed and it actually kept their population down. I tried sitting the lilies on my plant shelves bare naked and this is the first year after several that they have actually started blooming much better. None of my plants in my pond are in soil and they are doing just fine.
How's Mexico treating ya?
 

sissy

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I never did fall for that idea of a quick fix and even for us as people they sell quick fixes and they make money .It is a game and I will sell you anything if you believe what I say .Only bad thing is people want to believe what they say is true .A hole and water means mosquito's most times .It has to move some how .We have lots of streams around my house but they move water to aerate and refresh it .
 
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Mexico is a lot different from America in the electrical system. I had to buy my own transformer which was very expensive but gave me a better rate as usually everyone else "shares" the expense of the local transformer with an additional charge on their bill.

My average bill is 520 pesos which is about $30.00 so the cost is low, still, Mexico does not have the money or equipment to respond to a large scale power outage that America does. Still it took 5 weeks to restore our electricity after Hurricane Rita and this was with teams coming from several states to help. I can only imagine how long it would take here to restore the power after a major storm so koi are out. We do lose power often but usually not for long.
Goldfish will be our choice due to the electrical grid and yes Gloria wants a "cascada" or a waterfall, but with goldfish it does not need to run constantly , only when we want to enjoy it.
Thank you for the welcomes back, I love our home in the mountains of Mexico but I am currently running a job in the states for a while, the house took twice as much to finish as we were told so I am padding our income for the next few months.
 

sissy

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One of the ford guys I worked with retired to his home country of Puerto Rico and he has found it difficult to adjust to all the things there that were so easy here .
 
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One of the ford guys I worked with retired to his home country of Puerto Rico and he has found it difficult to adjust to all the things there that were so easy here .
There are a lot of differences in life here, some things so common back home simply cannot be found here like any pond supplies. We have a Home Depot but there are no pond supplies other than a swimming pool pump.
Still I would not trade the absolute quiet of these mountains for the sirens of the city
 

j.w

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Oh my @Bullfrog that means if you leave Mexico and travel back and forth you run into more possible threats from the ban-dido's. Did your home turn out the way you wanted it and we'd love to see photo's. One of these days we will see you sitting by a nice pond while you enjoy your happy hours w/your lovely wife Gloria. You might need to build a protective gazebo or something to keep out the critters from eating your fish. Something maybe like this:
pond cover idea.jpg
 
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One more trip across the frontier by truck with our things and then one more back to get the truck out of Mexico as you cannot keep an American registered vehicle there. The home turned out beautiful, I will post pictures when I get home.
 
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I have a nine foot wall around my house topped with 20,000 volts of electricity so critters don't get in my yard. I'll have to survey the birds though as we have a wide variety of bird species. Crested Flycatchers sit in our window sills and look into the house, we also have Yellow Head Amazon Parrots that fly around here so I'll have to check on Herons, I believe we have small ones.
 
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I agree that a lot of times everyone wants to make ponding unnecessarily difficult and products I've seen sold for ponds just don't seem practical because of it. A technique that works well in 50 gallon indoor aquarium, doesn't always scale up to a 5K gallon garden pond.
 

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