Does it cost you more or less to do pond maintenance yourself?
The following information will help you make a wise decision.
What goes into a regular pond maintenance regime?
Ponds bring that extra spark of beauty to our homes and residential communities. But they also require a healthy amount of TLC to keep them clean and weed free. It is recommended to begin treatment around the time weeds and algae begin growing. This is when the water temperature reaches 65℉, or the mid-April time frame in northern Indiana.
Start Early, and Often
It takes twice as long to treat a pond once the summer months have arrived because there is less oxygen for fish. If you treated an entire pond at once you would suffocate the fish, so one half of the pond is treated first, then the other two weeks later. Conversely, if you treat the pond in the early spring season, you can treat the whole pond at once since there is three times the amount of oxygen available to fish at this water temperature, and they can then withstand the full treatment.
Once a pond is treated, the algae will return at a rate of 21 days on average, requiring multiple treatments every other week throughout the warm water season, lasting until the end of September. Because of this, it does not work to simply put a treatment in once, and then expect that to take care of it for the season. The return algae growth is not visible at first, and this can take many homeowners by surprise, since by the time you see the algae, the pond has already become out of control and will take multiple extra treatments in a short time frame to reach a pristine state again, rather than maintaining an easy equilibrium throughout the season.
Beat Weeds Before They Start
All of this is simply to treat the symptoms of algae and weed overgrowth. The actual cause of algae and weed growth in ponds is the accumulation of phosphorus that builds up in a pond year after year from materials such as leaves, grass clippings and lawn fertilizers. To fight this effect an additional option for pond maintenance is Phoslock, a unique chemical that is applied to expertly reduce the phosphorus levels and go after the cause of the pond’s algae and weeds from the get go.
Should I treat my own pond or hire a pond maintenance professional?
Many pond owners start with the idea to treat their own ponds. There are several reasons why this isn’t the best option, even when considering the cost involved.
How You Can Save with Professional Pond Maintenance
- Homeowners do not generally have access to the same herbicides pond maintenance professionals do.
- If they are able to purchase aquatic herbicides, it is at a higher cost.
- Aquatic chemicals undergo an extensive research and testing process in order to be approved by the EPA which accounts for their high cost and complexity in application, unlike other chemicals, such as used in lawn care.
- Most homeowners are not familiar with how to apply aquatic chemicals, and inadvertently apply the wrong rate of herbicide or the wrong herbicide completely for their pond’s algae and weeds. This can have disastrous effects on the pond’s ecosystem, as well as not achieving the desired outcomes.
Some homeowners end up actually spending more money trying to perform pond maintenance themselves than they would have spent hiring the professional from the beginning!
Aquatic Weed Control’s pond maintenance professionals are:
