Building a large pond is very different from building a small, backyard pond, but the concepts are very much the same. When building a large pond, you have many more choices because you have much more space. And, with all of that extra space, you can do a lot of different things. While your backyard ponds are typically more decorative with a pretty waterfall and Koi, a larger pond can be used for swimming, boating or maybe even fishing.
Cutting Corners
The downside to many large ponds that are are installed is that most people don’t give a lot of thought to the long term health of their pond. Far too often, a homeowner finds an excavator operator to come over and dig their pond or maybe it’s the same person that dug the basement for their house. Maybe this person has dug ponds before and maybe they haven’t. Most people just want a nice, big pretty pond. They don’t realize that there is much more to pond building than just digging a big hole.
Digging a large pond and doing it correctly carries a heavy price tag, so I don’t blame people for trying to save a buck. What I don’t like about the quick and cheap pond approach is that it leaves many homeowners with a large body of water with no circulation and no plan for maintenance. The pond fills with water and they love it until it begins to fill with algae. They start asking around and they find out that there are plenty of companies that will come over and treat the pond with chemicals to kill the algae.
Education
People know what they want, they want a nice clear water pond without a bunch of algae. They just don’t have any idea how to get it and when they try to find out, they ask the wrong question. Instead of asking “how can I balance my pond and make it better?”, they ask “how can I kill the algae in my pond?” Rather than trying to kill the algae, which will throw the pond further out of balance, they need to balance the pond to better control the algae. Having some algae in your pond indicates that it is a healthy pond. Having too much algae is merely a symptom of too many nutrients in the water which is a result of excessive runoff, fertilizers, pond muck, a lack of circulation, a lack of plants or all of the above.
I am a firm believer that we can live our lives and maintain our landscapes and ponds without using hazardous chemicals, so I would much rather have homeowners build natural eco-system ponds. Large or small, a pond is a pond. No matter what size pond you want to build, we can build it with nature in mind. We can build it so that you do not need chemicals to maintain it. We can provide you with a naturally balance, eco-system pond that is easy to care for and virtually self maintaining. Even if you already have a pond that was not built with balance in mond, you can still get it to balance, it will just be a bit harder.
How Will You Use It?
How you will be using your pond will determine how we build it. A pond built strictly for raising and nurturing game fish is built differently than a pond for swimming. A pond built to look scenic and nurture tons of wildlife would be built even differently. At the core, all of these ponds are the same. They all have water, they all have plants, they all have animals in them and they all have some type of circulation. What they all need is balance.
Balance can only be achieved through nature. Anyone can dump chemicals into your water and keep it algae free, but not any one can build you a naturally balanced pond. It has taken us many years to discover how simple pond construction and balance can be. Humans tend to overcomplicate thing, and the pond industry is no different. every year there are more gadgets and gizmos and treatments that promise you the easy solution to your pond algae problems. Here is the secrets. You don’t need any of this. None of the quick fix products and gadgets are worth the box that they are shipped it.
The worst part about the quick fix chemical solution is that your pond may seem clean and appear healthy on the surface, but in reality, years of chemical use will leave you with a pond that is filling with many layers of dead plant material and chemically killed organisms. This leaves you with a bottom layer of thick stinky muck that will eventually fill the pond.
Follow Nature’s Lead
Nature has been maintaining bodies of water long before companies starting manufacturing chemicals and plastic gadgets. Nature will continue to try to balance your pond even if you abuse it with these large scale un-balncers. What we need to realize is that any time we are killing off one aspect of the natural ecosystem, we are also killing off other aspects of the ecosystem and throwing the whole thing out of balance. There is not a quick fix, there is only nature, patience and cooperation.
Nature always works in a circle. The circle of life. Your pond is no different. A pond needs water circulation, oxygenation, animal life, and plants. If we can provide all of these things in the correct levels, the pond will care for itself. Every pond is different, but they are all the same. We can guide you and help you to build the large pond of your dreams. We will certainly not be the cheapest alternative, but in the long run your money will be well invested to create an easy to maintain and one hundred percent naturally balanced pond that you can be proud of and that you and your family can safely swim in without fear of any chemicals in the water.
