Published in Caledon Living, Summer 2007:
     One of the joys of owning a country property can be dipping into your own private swimming hole on a hot day. With grass to lie on in the shade of some tall trees, the occasional plop of a creature hitting the water, birds swooping low to skim insects, dragonflies resting on a stalk, it can feel like Huckleberry Finn heaven.
     Not all ponds offer this. They’re often in the process of silting in and turning into overgrown wetland, which can be great if you like a natural habitat for wildlife, but is far less pleasant if you want to use it for recreation.
     “Most people want a swimming pond that looks good, has good water quality and that lets you do some fishing,” says Lou Maieron, owner of Erin-based Silver Creek Aquaculture Inc.
     Lou and his wife Karen Jeffrey run a fish hatchery for the stocking of ponds, offer pond consultations and maintenance services, and sell aeration equipment. Both are University of Guelph graduates in biology and have about 25 years of experience. Their focus is pond management in an environmentally friendly, non-chemical way.
     “The whole approach is to balance your pond’s ecosystem,” adds Lou.
     He explains that plants need three things to grow: water, sunlight and food. The rate at which they grow depends on the temperature. The way to control plants, algae and weeds in your pond is by affecting the sunlight and nutrients, without increasing the temperature.
Controlling Food
     The first thing Lou recommends is a pond assessment to determine where the food or nutrients are coming from, and what can be done to slow them down. There could be run off from a barn or septic bed. A tended lawn at the pond’s edge could be leaking added fertilizer. There could simply be too much natural debris falling into the pond.
     “This year’s leaves are next year’s algae and weeds,” warns Lou.
     Karen emphasizes the need to rake materials out of the pond, pointing out that everything needs some maintenance in order to look good and perform well. Silver Creek Aquaculture sells an Aquatic Weed Eradicator which resembles a rake with serrated edges, and acts as a bottom cutter, removing weeds at the bottom of the pond.
     It may be a good idea to plant irises at the pond’s edge. In addition to looking beautiful when in bloom, Karen explains that unlike cattails and bullrushes, irises won’t grow too far into the pond. “They also act as filters to take up any nutrients coming into the pond,” she adds.
     To help break down pond sludge, Lou and Karen use Bacta-Pur, a product containing natural bacteria that “accelerate the transformation of organic wastes into bacterial biomass, carbon dioxide and water,” according to their Web site. This helps to reduce the compost at the bottom of the pond that feeds algae and weeds.
Controlling Sunlight
     “An electric surface aerator is your single best investment,” declares Lou, indicating the fountains in his demonstration ponds. In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, an aerator or fountain works in two ways, by adding oxygen that is essential for nutrient breakdown, and by rippling the water, which reflects and refracts the kind of sunlight that encourages plants to grow.
     There are various sizes of electric aerators, depending on the size of the pond. The smallest costs around $800 and the largest costs $5000. As for the cost of operating them, the smallest can use about 25 cents worth of hydro a day.
     Lou advises unplugging the aerator for total safety when swimming, although with a ground fault interrupt, there has never been an instance of electrocution from one. Still, no one should stick a finger or anything else into the motor when it’s running. Wildlife is not harmed by the aerators, even when they’re running, and fish are protected by a screen that encloses the motor.         
     For ponds that are remote from electricity, there are windmill aerators, but Lou points out that they only work when there’s wind, which is usually not at night when the temperatures are cooler. Winds blow when warm and cool air mixes, Lou explains. Electric aerators can, however, run through the night, and have the added benefit of introducing cooler air into the pond, which slows down plant growth.
     For ponds with no inflow and outflow, that are, as Lou says, “holes in the ground filled with rainwater or snow melt,” there is a pond dye that is useful. True Blue lake and pond dye is a harmless product that turns the water a bright blue and reflects the blue-green wavelength of light that plants need. This dye stops light from penetrating to the bottom of the pond where plants grow. Since plants need sunlight to grow, stopping the light at the surface of the pond reduces weeds and algae.
Benefits of Fish
     Even if you don’t enjoy fishing, there are good reasons to keep them in your pond. Trout in particular, are good predators against leeches, crayfish, blackflies and mosquito larvae. Lou warns against stocking with bass, which only eat things that move, so won’t eat insect larvae. They will also increase in number to the point where they wipe out the ecosystem, leaving only bass and weeds in the pond.
     Silver Creek Aquaculture raises rainbow, speckled and brown trout. Each species prefers a certain range of water temperature, so Lou or Karen can recommend the best one for your depth of pond. Prices are discounted for orders of 100 fish, with eight-inch rainbow trouts costing about $100, providing you pick them up. Deliveries are provided for larger orders.
     Fish need well-oxygenated water to survive in ponds. “If it’s not oxygenated,” explains Lou, “the only animals that will be alive in there will be things that can get out, like frogs and turtles.”
     With some care and maintenance, a pond can be brought back to its early days, when the water was clear and refreshing. Yet results may not be immediate, warns Karen. Just as it took some time to get boggy and murky, it can take time to clear up.
     Once it’s well-oxygenated, weed-free and clean-smelling, don’t be surprised if family and friends want to gather there on a stifling day for a sparkling splash.
     More information about pond maintenance techniques and products is available at the Silver Creek Aquaculture Web site, www.silvercreekponds.com or by calling 519 833 2559.
By Gloria Hildebrandt