How to Design a LOW-MAINTENANCE Pond
The Pond Doc's Tips for Incorporating Low-Maintenance to Your Pond's Design
While Maintaining Clear, Clean and Healthy Pond Water

It's easy enough to build a pond.  Throw a liner into a hole then fill with water.  Put in a pump and re-circulate the water over a small waterfall.  They show you how to do it all the time on those Home and Garden Television Shows. What the shows don't do is go back to that pond a month later and see what kind of trouble the pond-owner is having.  They don't show people pulling leaves and gunk out of the pump to get it to flow again.  They don't show the pond-owner cursing while struggling to clean nasty filter pads.  They don't show the fish dying or how the water turns green and cloudy.

There's a simple answer to low-maintenance -- if you don't want any kind of fish life in it or if you don't care that it's turning into a cess pool.  You can choose not to put a filter on it at all.  If you don't install a filter on the pond the filter will never need cleaning.  -- But the pond will never be clean.  The pump, as it takes in water, will clog up with debris.  You don't ever need to unclog a pump if you don't install one on your pond. -- But then you have a swamp instead of a pond that breeds mosquitoes and bad bacteria. 

The trick of low-maintenance pond construction is to think external. Use an external filter to keep your pond clean and healthy, an external pump to keep it flowing and an external UV Light to keep it clear.  Just the fact that you've located the equipment where you can easily get to it is half the battle.

Low-Maintenance Pond Components:

The Bead Filter

The External Pump

The Bottom Drain

The Skimmer

The Eduction Jet

The UV Light

• The #1 Most Effective Piece of Equipment to Make the Pond Low-Maintenance is a Bead Filter
  Cleaning filter pads is a time-consuming smelly part of pond husbandry.  It literally take hours out of your time each week.  If a filter is effective it WILL need cleaning.  Bead filters (like our ProBead™) are excellent for trapping dirt and keeping the pond clean - to boot the filter media is cleaned by backwashing.  It take only 5 minutes per week and all you need to do is turn a handle.  With a bead filter you say "goodbye" to those nasty, hard-to-clean filter pads.
• Never Use a Submersed Filter if You Want Low-Maintenance
  If a bead filter is not in the budget or too big for your small pond, you should still opt for an external filter.  There are two reasons for this.  One, is the fact that a submersed filter is most likely too small to be effective anyway - no matter what the label says.  Two, whenever you lift an underwater filter clouds of dirt puff out of the filter pads and puts the dirt right back into the pond.  Kind of defeats the purpose of a filter, doesn't it?.  For small ponds we recommend the BioForce and for ponds over 600 gallons we recommend the ProBead.
• The 2nd Most Low-Maintenance Pond Equipment Component is an External Pump
  Constantly having to lift a heavy pump that's clogged up with debris out of the pond is no one's idea of low-maintenance.  When an external pump clogs (which all pumps DO) you don't have the back-breaking chore of pulling out the pump.  You simply turn off the pump, unscrew the top of the leaf basket, shake out the debris, screw the top back and turn on the pump.  Wa-lah!  You have running water again and you didn't have to change into your work clothes to do it!
• Install the Right Bottom Drain - Correctly!
  When using an external pump you must have a way to pull the water out of the pond.  There are several drain methods available -- bottom drains that install through the liner, vacuum bottom drains that sit on top of the liner and strainer baskets that cover the end of a hose to prevent fish from being sucked into it.  The most low-maintenance method is installing a 3" bottom drain through the liner.  Both the vacuum bottom drain and the strainer caps are unable do as good of a job as one installed into the floor of the pond.  Even a 2" bottom drain with the anti-vortex cover isn't as good as the black-domed 3" bottom drain because it traps leaves and large debris at the cover and doesn't allow it to go out of the pond and into the leaf basket of the external pump.  That trapped debris has to be pulled off periodically with a net or pole of some kind so there's a little more work to it.  Although the 3" dome allows leaves and large debris to leave the pond it also sucks in small fish so one has to accept that he will need to rake off the top of the 2" periodically if his fish are less than 6" long. 
  Where the bottom drain is located can mean the difference between a "self-cleaning" pond and one that needs attention.  It should be placed at the deepest part of the pond and the floor of the pond should slant gradually down to the drain to encourage all the debris to fall toward the drain.  It should be installed half-an-inch lower than the pond's floor and be located as far away from the water return as possible to encourage healthy water circulation.
• Use Eduction Jets to "Sweep" the Floor of the Pond
  Eduction Jets have another purpose other than providing koi with a fun place to play.  They guide the water and you can use them to effectively sweep debris down to the bottom drain.  Just aim them in the right direction.
• Don't Trap Dirt in the Folds of the Liner
  Think about how your water will flow inside the pond when you are installing the liner.  Make sure that when you fold the liner that the fold is on the backside of the water current.  In other words, if the water flows toward the fold it will force dirt into the fold and traps it in the pond.  If the water flows over the smooth part of the fold the debris will not be trapped.   
• The Bigger the Pond - the Easier to Maintain
  I know it sounds weird - but it's true.  The smaller the pond the more the water parameters will change.  For example, aquariums are notorious for pH crashes.  pH is less stable in smaller bodies of water.  When there is more water it takes longer for ammonia and nitrites to build up so less maintenance is needed to keep the water from becoming toxic.  In larger bodies of water the water temperature changes slower so abrupt changes in the weather do not affect the pond as much., The pond will "look" good longer.   Just like a small room will get cluttered quickly, so will a small pond.  Build the pond as big as the space will allow and make it deep to hold more water in smaller spaces.
• DO NOT Line the Bottom of the Pond with Rocks!
  We can't say this enough!  Dirt and debris get trapped within the crevices of the rocks and will never be able to leave the pond.  It is a cleaning nightmare and, because you cannot clean it out, the junk will fester with bad bacteria.  Although you might not see this hidden dirt, I assure you, it is there and it is lurking.
• Keep it in the Clear - Install a UV
  Nothing - absolutely nothing - will keep the pond as clear as a UV.  Don't spend your precious time (nor waste your money) on chemicals and methods that do not work.  An ultraviolet water clarifier (or UV Light, for short) when sized correctly for your pond and installed with the proper flow rates will clear up the pond and you won't have to do anything but change the lamp once a year and bring it inside for the winter.
• Skim Off the Top
  Prevent the need for cleaning up sunken leaves from the floor of the pond by installing a skimmer.  A skimmer pulls leaves and other debris off the top of the water before they have time to fall to the bottom of the pond.  Occasionally, when the basket of the skimmer is full you need only to dump out the contents of the basket to once again free up the flow.  We prefer and suggest using only the fish-safe skimmer.  A side-skimmer can be retrofitted easily for use with an external pump so that your existing pond can be a little less trouble and more low-maintenance.  

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