I just bought your book on Amazon kindle! And also glad to know you have a youtube channel as well! I am just so amazed that you have suggested changing the paradigm of building ponds. We need mosquitos to have frogs, dragonflies, and fish. I will also apply this theory to my retaining wall permaculture & cottage garden. We need aphids to have ladybugs otherwise there will be nothing for them to eat. Slugs and snails are amazing decomposers but if there's nothing on the ground to feed themselves they tend to bite the living plants more. I guess lots of straws and chop and drop plants around the plants rather than dead wood mulching would help too. Thanks for sharing your idea. You have inspired me heaps! Cheers!
I think you should incorporate submerged plants not because of the other benefits but because they look good. If you have spots to sit beside your pond and look down into the water and observe fish. Having multiple levels of plants is the best. If you look at it from a distance it doesn't matter that much
I was having a debate with someone about floating plants and nighttime oxygen depletion. She kept lumping all aquatic plants together and said that floating plants would help with oxygen during the day but lower levels at night. I was pretty sure that because floating plants leaves are above water, most gas exchanges happen in the air and not in the water with floating plants. You seem like you confirmed this for me.
water lilies for example have their stomata (breathing holes) on the upper side of their leaves, which means almost none of the oxygen is released into the water. conversely they dont use up any of the oxygen, but especially fast growing plants like water hyacinths can produce alot of dead biomass quickly, which then turns the lower zones anaerobic
You seem very knowledgeable. Would you mind helping me with my situation? I recently bought a property with a 3.4 acre 30 foot deep with really dark/stained water. It was never properly taken care of, but has a good base ecosystem with lots of mudminnows, water bugs, and tadpoles of all sizes...but zero fish, and very little plant life actually in the lake, although it is surrounded by spruce woods. Is this something I can make into a good habitat for fish?
I have a lot of water hyacinths covering about half my pond , I’m curious if it’s bad I read it can actually decrease the oxygen should I throw some away or let them cover it
So, being an from a place with really hot summers. They are good for summer months and then get them out. Need as much oxygen during the day as we can get lol.
You say that during the day oxygenating plants are producing oxygen via photosynthesis but also using oxygen to grow and they "kind of balance each other out". This just isn't true. Oxygen generated from photosynthesis is in the region of 10x more than consumption of oxygen for growth. Plants huge are net contribitors of oxygen to the environment, hence their use as oxygenators in ponds. You are certainly right that at night, when photosynthesis stops, they consume more oxygen than they produce, but it isn't true to say that this results in a net zero contribution of oxygen - nowhere near.
@@BeeLZBeeb Hi there. It really does depend on what livestock you wish to keep in the pond. Whether a large, medium or small pond, the same rules of a balanced ecosystem apply. If you have a fish (or a few fish) in your small pond, then you would definitely want enough oxygenating plants to fill around a quarter of the volume with plants. You want enough space for the fish to swim so that you can see them, but enough plant life to create shelter and oxygen for them. This will also provide enough plant surface area to consume enough nitrates to stop algae taking over. Obviously, if you start with 5 or so small clumps of oxygenators, they will grow and fill the space, which you will need to keep an eye on and thin it out if it takes over. I hope this helps.
@A.P.Garland thanks for the reply and the info. I'm not sure about fish, it's our first pond project. It's all to add biodiversity to the garden. I like the idea of fish, though I'm hesitant to start with having any. Until I have a grasp on the running of the pond anyway.
You missed a big caveat. Most people introduce fish into there pond. During the summer ponds without oxygenating plants will lose fish to oxygen depletion. Ponds don't respire till after sun down. Making oxygenating plants essential.
Only if you over stock with fish. I think you missed the point in the video. At night oxygenator plants remove oxygen and make conditions worse for fish. Plants respire 24/7.
Have had my pond for years, with fish and without oxygenating plants. Never had an oxygen issue. As said before, it's key not to over-stock your pond with fish.
