Hi All,
I have a question from my dad today. My dad is a gardener at a park which has a large but shallow pond, where people are complaining that they are sometimes seeing dead frogs and missing frogspawn, and want my dad to magically fix this. My personal thoughts are that the frogs are being caught by birds, and frogsspawn taken by local children to raise at home as a project or eaten by newts, birds and other wildlife, but who knows!
Since I've been into aquariums and teaching him about them, he is wondering if there is a problem with the 'saltiness' of the water (as in, is there too much kH). The pond is not natural, and there is never enough rainwater in the summer, so it is often topped up with tap water (this is in London so water is hard). He's worried that each time he tops up the pond, the new water is just adding kH so it's built up to an extreme amount which could being harming the wildlife. We keep softwater fish in rainwater so I guess it's on the brain as something to avoid, but topping up with tap here is the only option. He always adds dechlorinator to the pond before/during filling it up.
I have no idea if this too-high kH pond is a thing, as it can be in aquariums? I assume lots of people topup their ponds this way, so it would be interesting to learn more.
There is also a problem with stagnation in the pond, I'm currently trying to convince my dad to start dosing EI ferts as I saw here how successful that can be! Any other suggestions are very welcome.
I have a question from my dad today. My dad is a gardener at a park which has a large but shallow pond, where people are complaining that they are sometimes seeing dead frogs and missing frogspawn, and want my dad to magically fix this. My personal thoughts are that the frogs are being caught by birds, and frogsspawn taken by local children to raise at home as a project or eaten by newts, birds and other wildlife, but who knows!
Since I've been into aquariums and teaching him about them, he is wondering if there is a problem with the 'saltiness' of the water (as in, is there too much kH). The pond is not natural, and there is never enough rainwater in the summer, so it is often topped up with tap water (this is in London so water is hard). He's worried that each time he tops up the pond, the new water is just adding kH so it's built up to an extreme amount which could being harming the wildlife. We keep softwater fish in rainwater so I guess it's on the brain as something to avoid, but topping up with tap here is the only option. He always adds dechlorinator to the pond before/during filling it up.
I have no idea if this too-high kH pond is a thing, as it can be in aquariums? I assume lots of people topup their ponds this way, so it would be interesting to learn more.
There is also a problem with stagnation in the pond, I'm currently trying to convince my dad to start dosing EI ferts as I saw here how successful that can be! Any other suggestions are very welcome.