Most people’s garden pond has frozen over during the last week so now perhaps is a good time to discuss pond safety during the winter time. Whilst garden ponds can provide a beautiful addition to your garden design they can also be quite dangerous places. Young children are always at risk near a garden pond if left unsupervised. And, because your pond may have frozen over it might be more enticing than usual.

If you want to make your pond much safer during the winter there are some things that you can do to help.

• If your pond freezes never be tempted to walk on the frozen surface – no matter how thick you think the ice may be. Try to defrost one section of the pond so the noxious gases produced by your fish can escape and so people can see the pond (with heavy snow it can sometimes be impossible to know where your pond is).
• You could install heavy duty meshing over the pond surface, this will support a child’s weight if they should fall in by accident and people will visually be able to locate the pond.
• Use slip resistant surfaces around the pond edge and make sure any lighting you have above or in your pond is working.
• Consider installing a low level fence around the pond’s edge. This might not be to everyone’s taste but is perhaps the best safety method available to prevent pond accidents.

With the freezing weather conditions affecting most of the UK, spare a thought for the fish trying to keep warm at the bottom of your pond. It can be a difficult time of year for the fish in your pond when the weather conditions drop the temperature below freezing, and a difficult time for your pond in general.

If you have installed a new pond this year it’s always a good idea to check over pipe fittings to see if pipes are frozen or even split because of the icy weather. Frozen pipes can literally burst apart as the water expands when frozen. The same effect can also happen to your pond liner. When the surface ice on your pond expands the liner can be pushed beyond stretching capacity and tear. A quick check around the edges of your pond and stopping the pond from freezing over can really make a difference here.

If you install a pond heater, your pond surface will not freeze and you will have the added bonus that your fish will be more active during the winter months so you will be able to appreciate them more.

If you have a pond in your garden are you aware just how important it is to the continued support of Britain’s wildlife? Ponds in the UK have been disappearing rapidly over the last couple of hundred years. And, as mankind has been gradually removing or filling in ponds to create new housing or turning over land for industrial use, it is hard to see how we will ever return to the huge number of pond’s that were once found on Britain’s shores.

The humble garden pond now plays an important part of maintaining Britain’s bio-diversity and providing a suitable habitat to hundreds of different species whose lives would not be supported without the pond.

If you have a pond in your garden a good experiment is to take a record of the different species you see in or around your pond. Identifying these species and logging the species activity over the next few years will give you an idea of how these species are performing with respect to reproduction and it’s also a great way to keep a record of the different types of indigenous British species in your local area. You will be amazed at the number of species you record and thrilled when you find a new visitor to your garden pond.

It can be tough times in winter if you are a warm blooded mammal. However if you are a fish and the temperature drops in your pond, and you are used to these temperature drops, then all that will happen is your metabolism will slow to an almost stop. This slowing of activity does not have any detrimental effect on the fish’s health, it just means that the fish will be less active during cold weather and so will need feeding less.

While we may have to rely on heat sources to keep us warm we can be safe in the knowledge that the fish at the bottom of our pond will be safe and well until the weather warms a little over the next couple of months. As long as your filtration system is working and as long as you make sure that your pond does not completely freeze over, your fish will be back to their usual activity levels come spring. It always worth giving them a check over to make sure that they have come through the cold weather snap unscathed but they are less likely to show as many ill effects as humans would do if exposed to freezing conditions.

If you are a koi owner you will already be well aware of this fish’s tendency to rip up or eat any plants that you put in the pond. Having different types of plants in your pond can really make a positive aesthetic difference to how your pond looks, but how can you do this if you keep koi?

The plants that you put in your pond are not just there for aesthetic reasons, they are also there to add much needed oxygen to the pond and to remove excess nitrates. However your koi will take great delight in eating the plants you have in your pond or at the very least uprooting them from the bottom of the pond.

To add pond plants to a koi pond you need to use marginal planting and use plants that work well in this type of environment. Shallow shelves around the edge of your pond, that your fish cannot reach, work perfectly in this situation and can really add that much needed diversity to your koi pond. It’s also worth noting at this point that because your koi pond will not be able to feature much planting you should make sure you have an adequate pump and filtration system in place.

With winter now firmly set in and the first snow falling, many pond owners might be asking the question - What happens to my pond when it snows? We will try to answer this question and come up with some solutions to cold water problems below.

The temperature of your pond has been falling slowly over the last couple of months. And, any inhabitants of the pond will have course already noticed this drop in temperature. Warm blooded mammals may have already bedded down for the winter and fish will have started to slow in their activity. If the temperature in you pond drops below around 6°C your fish will usually sink to the bottom of your pond and may not feed again until the weather warms up a little.

If your pond freezes over, toxic gases can actually build up in the pond and accumulate under the ice surface. In this situation you need to make sure that the ice is melted in at least one location on the pond. Don’t just go ‘gung ho’ with a hammer and smash the ice, melt the ice using the underside of a heated pan. This will mean the water temperature will not change rapidly and your fish will not be affected adversely.

You can use a pond heater to keep the temperature in your pond at a warmer temperature than the ambient surroundings. This will mean your fish will remain active and your pond will be able to cope quite effectively with the snow and ice.

Garden pond design does not just have to be categorised into the standard shape garden pond that is home to a few cold water fish. There are many different types of design you can choose from, each having different positive attributes.

The standard garden pond

This can be a focal point in your garden and be home to many different types of wildlife. From amphibians to fish and even small mammals this will provide a brilliant habitat for lots of different organisms. This type of pond will usually have a filtration system and be home to a few varieties of cold water fish.

A koi pond

Koi ponds have to be a certain size and a certain depth so the fish have enough room to grow and be comfortable with their environment. Keeping koi is a brilliant hobby and many people spend numerous hours each week taking care of their koi and checking for problems. The water environment in this pond needs to be more closely controlled.

The formal pond

This type of pond can double up as a spectacular water feature. Sometimes the owners of these ponds just want to create a statement and the pond may only have crystal clear water and symmetrical planting.

In the last part of this article we are going to discuss pond heaters, aquatic plants and pond lighting.

Pond heaters

When the weather gets colder your fish are less active. Some people like to keep their fish a little more active and prevent ice from forming on the surface of the pond in the depths of winter. The best way you can do both these things is by using a pond heater.

Aquatic plants

There is a wide variety of aquatic plants available and different plants can add different elements to your pond design. Plants of course turn carbon dioxide into oxygen which is essential for any aquatic life-forms in the pond. They also use up the nitrates that are formed as part of the filtration process that removes ammonia from the water. Plants also provide shade for your fish and also the pond surface so the pond temperature will not fluctuate too markedly. This will reduce algae growth in your pond because the sunlight levels reaching your pond will be reduced.

Pond lighting

Your garden pond can look brilliant at night when it is illuminated from above or below. Using lighting at different locations around and in your pond can make the difference between your pond being a feature in your garden and not being seen during the winter months.