Thinking of Winter In Your Water Garden Yet?  Wheatgerm Not Good Enough

Most of the readers of this article will live in USA and Europe. Of course Winter is still quite a time away but is a good time to become prepared by at least helping your fish to put on a bit of weight in preparation for the long Northern Hemisphere winters. Provide them with some extra high quality fish food although in conjunction with the high temperatures above there has possibly been a bonanza of insect life for your pond fish to eat this year.

This year by the way make a point of NOT buying wheatgerm for winter feeding. Save money and help your fish at the same time.

One reader has already posed an interesting Wintertime question. She informed me that she will place her fish in a small pond in the attic during the winter because of the fact that her pond freezes over. The attic is not heated and she wanted to know my views on pond filters in this situation. My answer was that even if the temperature is low and little food would be fed it is still a good idea to run the pond filter .... the fish after all still naturally excrete nitrogen compounds (ammonia) although in much lower amounts.

The fundamental reason behind running the pond filter even though it is operating "slowly" is that the fish must be kept as stress free as possible ready for that new spring when diseases start to take a hold and create serious problems for pond fish.

By running the pond filter it also never dies and as such does not need to be restarted next year. Your pond gets off to a great start this way.

Peter J May is an expert on aquatic plants and pond environments and his advice for aquatic plants at this time of the year is as follows.

"Now September is a time for clearing off decaying vegetation . Some of the marginals could have been cut back to one third and may have flowered again. You can collect offcuts from the plants if you want to propagate them. Just pull them off or cut them neatly as they emerge from a basket. If they have developed root hairs then they will be guaranteed to establish in any good heavy loam set in a well-drained pot sitting in about 2inches, 5cm of water.  It may be time to replace tired and overgrown plants in the marginal baskets next month, so these will be a useful replacement.

Lilies should be the main attraction now along with the Fringe lily, Nymphoides peltata. A few bog plants like the Ligularias, the Lobelias and Astilbes may be putting on a show. This is when the robust foliage plants like the Hostas, Rheums, Peltiphyllum and Petasites come into their own."

Breeding Koi For Money

I am always intrigued by the koi market participants and was prompted to write these few words following a request for information from a pond keeper who had a record "crop" of koi and was looking for possible buyers She could not seem to find anyone.

Koi are wonderful fish that genuinely make real pets. They quickly learn to feed from your hand and recognize you immediately you get close to the pond. For 99% of pond keepers that's all the koi will ever be ... wonderful pets. Pets also cost money and do not make money for their owners. Dealers are not shy to encourage the view that money can be made from koi keeping. These self same dealers are happy to sell you fish at high prices but never seem to want to buy fish back from you even at low prices. Have you even come across this phenomenon? Build your koi pond to enjoy the hobby ... forget about making money from your pets