How much rain is too much? At my house it's 6" in less than a week. My pool liner is floating up in several areas due to ground water. We don't have any ponds floating but that's mainly due to the sumps we have put in place over the years. Are you having liner problems with all this rain? Let me know and let's talk about how to overcome it. Here's a picture from a few years ago of a pond where the water got behind the waterfall liner and blew up the liner in the bottom. Look how strong that water under the liner was. It moved those rocks so the liner could well up to above the 3' level.

It's algae season isn't it? I'd bet you've got string algae growing on your rocks and some of you have pea soup green water. It's a natural part of having a pond. If you think about it, your fish are very active and releasing waste like crazy. your bacteria colony is doing all it can to change that waste into something usable by all the plants that are currently in full bloom and you STILL have algae! What's the deal? If I were a betting man, I'd bet you have too many fish and you feed all those fish too much food so you just perpetuate the cycle. Too much food creates even more waste from the too many fish. You are one electrical outage away from a fish kill in your pond. What do I mean? You know that hot water holds less oxygen than cool water does. Plants create oxygen during the day but use it up during the night. Too many fish require lots of oxygen. The electricity goes out due to a good old Oklahoma thunderstorm and the pond is no longer circulating, your aerator is no longer working. Algae, as one of the plants in your pond, is going to use as much oxygen as all your beautiful flowers and other plants during the night. Your biggest fish require the most oxygen so they are the first to suffer the lack of it and expire. You wake up, go out to feed, and discover dead fish floating. It all goes back to one of the components of your pond being out of balance. In this case, too many fish causes too much algae which uses too much oxygen during a night when the electricity goes off. I hate to break the news to you but 95% of our customers admit to having too many fish.

So what can you do? You do have some choices. First and most obvious, get rid of some fish. Call your local Water Garden Society and ask if they have anyone needing some fish. Secondly, you can add more filtration so the balance is maintained between fish, filter, bacteria, waste, plants. Third, my personal favorite, is build another pond or enlarge the one you have. This time make it bigger which of course means more pump, more filter, more aeration.

We still have some marginal and floating plants available. We'll make you a really good deal on marginals since we're getting to the time of year when the blazing Sun is not our friend in the plant beds. You can take these plants home and plant them and they'll come back as the heat goes away for the summer and they'll thrive next year with some TLC and a little fertilizer. Unfortunately, we are out of lilies, both hardy and tropical. They were in short supply this year and yet we sold more than we ever have so we feel lucky to have gotten them when we did. [ Late news--a local source has a few I have just purchased; first come, first served] We do still have hyacinths and lettuce which will help shade your pond during these hot days.

The other problem with this rain is that it was really dirty in our area, must have carried a lot of dust out of the areas it came from. All of our ponds are going to have to have water changes in an attempt to get control of them again. You might want to do a water test just to determine how far off your parameters are. [reprinted from last month because it's still applicable'] As I've said, partial water changes can be your best hope right now. You are not worrying about evaporation but rather having to remove some excess water from your pond to keep it from overflowing. Remember from your 7th grade science class that raindrops form around a particle of dirt or dust so those raindrops are depositing some dirt in your ponds that eventually will accumulate to the point that you'll want to remove it along with the fish waste, excess food and other organic materials. That can be a chore.

[Updated} We have Pondovacs from Oase in stock right now but they come and go so check that we have some before you drive out. They're constantly in the pipeline, always on order, but ship out almost as fast as they arrive. Although some consider it a major investment ($380-$465), a pondovac can be the pond-keepers best weapon against losing control of the pond environment and with regular use throughout the season means you're not having to have a major clean out as often, if ever. I'll be glad to show you how they work. We also have a supply of slightly used vacuums that have been returned for any number of reasons and we are selling them at discount prices.

On a final note, we will be closed Saturday, July 3rd in order to enjoy the weekend with our families. I hope you and yours will have a safe and enjoyable Independence Day.

Always be humble and kind,

~~~Mike