A garden pond can be a wonderful focal point

Pond building

A garden pond can be a wonderful focal point in your garden and will help bring life to any garden. The first thing you should do is to decide what type of pond you want.

A good way to start is to decide where in the garden you want the pond and what, if anything, you want living in it. Goldfish and koi are two common choices, especially in temperate climates since they are cold resilient. Another good choice is frogs, they will not only be a nice part of the garden but will also help fight flies and mosquitos. Frogs often appear in ponds without having been introduced to it by man.

There are also those who prefer to focus on plants rather than animals, e.g. by using plants like lotus flowers and water lillies in their ponds. Consider you local climate before you decide what you want to keep in your pond because if you don't you will likely end up spending a lot of money constantly restocking your pond.

A water garden typically contains a lot of plants, and perhaps also fish such as goldfish. Koi carps eat most plants and can therefore not be recommended for water gardens. Some plant species are left alone by Koi carps but you will not have too many plants left to choose from for your garden.

If you live in a moderately cold area your pond will need to be atleast 2 ft deep if you want goldfish to be able to live there all year round. In cold temperate climates where the water will freeze you have to make sure there is at least 15 inches of water for the fish below the freeze zone. You can also use a pump and/or heater to prevent ice from covering the surface. Koi grow fairly big and keeping them in ponds smaller than 1000 gallons is not recommended. At least a part of the pond should be 4 feet deep or more.

If you are planning a garden pond you shouldn't be modest as larger ponds are easier to care for. You can never go too big as bigger is always better. Small ponds can easily be polluted by just a small amount of leaves or a few dead fish. In a large pond, the large amount of water will dilute everything and make the concentrations of harmful compounds lower. The water temperature will also be more stable in a large pond.

When setting up your garden pond, there is a wide range of informative pages to be found on the Internet, such as clubs and organisations for pond keepers, online forums where ponds are discussed, and consumer pages where pond equipment is reviewed. When you choose what to stock your pond with you can use resources such as fish forums and sites devoted to the art of keeping pond animals. A search engine or pet fish directory will point you in the right direction.