If you are planning to keep koi or other fishes in your garden pond, you need some kind of aerators.
During the warm spring and summer, the dissolved oxygen levels in the pond will drop their value drastically. The drop rate of oxygen will put the fishes in stress. Stress can lead to the death of the fishes. If you don’t want to buy the best pond aerators for your pond, you can easily find a DIY kit available on the internet. Or you can go big brain and make your own.
Step 1:
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Determine the size of your pond. If it’s a small pond, then an aquarium air pump will be more than enough. But if it’s a bigger pond, then you need to get a bigger pump too.
If the pump says it’s not suitable for outdoor use, then you need to insert the pump into a plastic box with lead to seal.
It will prevent water from getting inside the box and destroying the pump.
Or you could just look for a water pressure booster pump that is also waterproof.
Step 2:
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Without a pond aerator of any kind, the lower portion of the pond will slowly lose dissolved oxygen. When this happens, the fish will tend to come close to the surface of the water. But if the weather is warm and the water is hot, they will begin to stress and it’s bad for fish’s health.
An aerator is one of the ways to bring back the oxygen.
Step 3:
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Find a pump with more than 250gph and build a pond filter around it. Attach an outlet tubing on to the water outlet port of your pump. Take a bucket larger than the pump. Draw a couple of holes in the bucket with a drill on the cap of the bucket. It’s to prevent the pump from burning out.
Fill the bucket with lava rock larger than the holes you drew. Place the pump in the middle of the bucket. Use one hole to keep the outlet tubing on the surface. Fill the rest of the bucket with lava rocks.
With this, you have completed the pond filter.
Step 4:
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If you don’t want to go through that trouble, you can purchase a waterfall pond pump from an online store.
They have a different gph (gallon per hour) rating. It’s higher than your regular small water pumps.
As they generate higher air pressure, the water through the tubing can travel further. With one of these pumps, you can cover an entire mid-size pond.
Step 5:
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It’s a fancy and the most decorative way to add an artificial aerator to your pond.
A waterfall. That’s right, you didn’t read that wrong. There are plenty of ways you can make an artificial waterfall. It’s effective and keeps the dissolved oxygen on water balanced. You can add the waterfall in one corner of the pond, make sure the pump distributes the same amount of water every minute. You could take a pipe route that to the pump, with this you can create an endless loop of water for that pond. If your pump does not consume a high gph, then your pond won’t run out of water ever.
Even if it does, you could just remove the pond pipe and use the original water pipe as it was intended.
Add some rocks on the higher level and even on the bottom level, this will give the waterfall a more natural vibe. Fish will also love to hang around the waterfall.
It’s expensive but works without any issue.
