Rose Cottage Ltd

It has been touch-and-go over the last few weeks as to whether the lake’s fountain would be sitting in enough water to still function.

I thought I would have to unplug it last week – then we got a blessed 1.5″ of rain. And the fountain kept working. We went another week without rain at the end of a horrible drought this year, and the fountain kept working. Finally, this morning, it’s raining – and based on radar, it looks like a day-long event.

If you don’t have a lake or pond you might wonder why I am going on about this fountain. A fair question.

The normally 4-acre lake is down to about 1/2 its size due to the drought. The lake is also fairly full of fish – that need oxygen to breathe. Right now they are living stacked in one or two of the deeper channels of the lake – since so much of their normal living zone has less than 1″ of water remaining.

The fountain is critical in providing aeration to the lake’s fish anytime – now it’s even more important. If I had to turn off the fountain, it might push the fish beyond their oxygen limits and I could be looking at a massive fishkill as I had here in 2007. I wrote a post about some of these lake and pond issues earlier.

This fountain normally sits and floats in about 3 feet of water. As you can see from the image, it is now resting on the basket that surrounds the motor just below the water – in about only 4″ of water. And it keeps running.

I have no problem telling you if something I buy or use doesn’t work as advertised – and I’m just as happy to tell you about a product that works, and in this case, surpasses expectations.

I bought this fountain from Fountain Mountain right after the drought experienced here in North Carolina in 2007. The model chosen was an F-Tech – in fact I think Fountain Mountain is still using one of my pictures as a display image – Cool!

For about $400 for the fountain and another $200 or so to set up the proper “electrics” – this pond is being saved from another loss of 7 or 8 dozen fish. The question or two we had to ask about installing the fountain were promptly answered by Fountain Mountain.

What about the fountain in Winter weather? Frozen ponds can be just as deadly for fish. The fountain kept an area open and aerated at a time when fish really needed it.

January 2011 – 22 degrees

There has been minimal maintenance since 2007. You can see algae build-up on the fountain and small particles do need to be cleaned from the motor area a few times each season. That’s it.

What more can you ask from a product?

Unfortunately, warm weather brings a few potential problems for pond and lake owners.

Plants, underwater and at lake and pond edges, are in full leaf, adding nutrients to the water, which may mean algae growth. My pond has problems with water meal, usually starting in June and lasting through September/October – depending on temperatures. It looks like this:

Watermeal

I put a penny in this shot to give you some idea of the size of the water meal. This is different than duckweed, also a problem this time of year. Duckweed has tiny leaves that are easy to see with the naked eye.

Both duckweed and watermeal stress the pond environment in warm weather at a time when oxygen depletion may already be a factor. See your fish swimming flat on the water’s surface? Chances are there is an oxygen depletion problem.

I wrote an article about oxygen depletion that may be of interest. My response on my 4-acre lake? Install a fountain ASAP.

Fountain – Adding Oxygen

After losing 7 dozen bluegill Summer of 2007, something had to be done and I am not one to run directly for a chemical “solution.” Since I added a fountain to the lake, I’ve lost one or two fish during summer – probably normal attrition – but no massive kills from lack of oxygen.

Symptoms – Oxygen Depletion

Signs of oxygen depletion are easy to see once you know what to look for.

Fish are struggling at the water surface, usually laying flat. They are now too weak to stay deeper in the water where they normally swim. On some fish, you may see a blue tinge around the eye area of dead fish – again, a sure sign of lack of oxygen as cause of death. Other than that, the fish appear healthy. A little “Fish CSI” if you will…

This may all seem like too much work and worry for those with very small ponds, or for those who have not spent time and money stocking their lake with fish. For those who have, seeing several dozen dead fish suddenly floating dead one morning will be a discouraging sight. Knowledge is power, which is why I am referencing again, the article I wrote after my first experience with watermeal and oxygen depletion.

Back to watermeal…

This problem is also not easy to fix. Expensive chemicals are available that supposedly reduce watermeal’s ability to reproduce. Maybe they work. I’m just not adding chemicals to my lake. So, we hold watermeal gathering days on the lake. The stuff floats on the surface so, using long, small-mesh scoops, we scoop it out of the lake and into buckets – many buckets-worth – to try to stay ahead of the problem. I won’t kid you, this is a messy job, especially since the work to clear watermeal is required during the hottest and most humid time of the summer. You will NEVER get all of it out of your pond. Don’t even try. But every tiny piece of the stuff you can remove is another piece that won’t multiply further.

But it works. Watermeal can double on your lake in about 24 hours. Common sense says the more you remove from the lake, the less there is to spread. Watermeal, since it covers the surface, adds to low oxygen problems that may already exist in your lake, compounding problems for your fish.

I wish I had a better solution for watermeal and if anyone does I will be glad to hear it. But you can quickly help your pond and lake fish breathe easier with the addition of a fountain. I got mine from Fountain Mountain and have been very pleased with it. More info on this in the article I referenced above.

The good news?

It seems that a lake with watermeal experiences much LESS string algae – something else many pond owners curse from the sidelines of their ponds each summer. Watermeal isn’t easy to remove, but it is much less messy and evasive than algae.