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?