Ultra violet light to keep all water features sparkling and receiving the pond calculator

Water Gardens Gazette

January 7th, 2003 - Number301

You are receiving this newsletter because you requested it, bought my book or downloaded the free water garden booklet.

It is also possible you subscribed to my previous newsletter called Ponds and Pumps. You can unsubscribe at the bottom of this newsletter - but we would really like you to stay with us as our friend. It will be worth it.

About Water Gardens Gazette

Water Gardens Gazette is a free periodical featuring important aspects of water gardening in all its forms. It covers tips, How To ... articles, answers to frequently encountered pond and water feature problems of all kinds.

It is published around every two weeks with special editions being produced when deemed worthwhile.

We would ask you to pass this Gazette as a complete document to friends you may have who you think would like to improve their pond keeping hobby.

You can contact us any time at:

Comments are always very welcome. They encourage us to do better.

This edition includes ....................

1. Free pond calculator as promised (all calculators are in Microsoft Excel .xls format)

2. Ultra violet light to keep all water features sparkling

3. Importance of pipe diameter and length

4. This edition's quick tips

5. New articles:

6. Address where all editions can be found and where you

can ask questions we will try to answer

Subscribe and unsubscribe information

1. FREE POND CALCULATOR ...............

As promised when you subscribed you will be able to get a free calculator by going to the following web address. Free pond calculator one of a series of 12 pond calculators to collect This is the first of a series of 12 that will be provided at the rate of 1 every normal edition (not special editions).

This edition's free calculator is one of the most popular. It is "The Complete Pump" selector.

INSTRUCTIONS TO DOWNLOAD:

All you need to do is go to the web page above and click the link. The calculator will open up in Excel automatically. Save the file to your selected folder. You can learn about what each calculator does by visiting: Learn about all the water garden ponds calculators here Of course you can get all 12 calculators free in one go by buying my book "Your Pond: Crystal Clear Water Guaranteed."

Read more about it here:

Receive all 12 FREE water garden ponds calculators when you buy my book.

Today's calculator allows you to calculate easily, quickly & very accurately the correct pump specification details for your own particular situation. It will handle USA, Imperial and Metric measurement systems.

Understanding the pumping requirements of any pond is very essential to getting good performance and at the same time saving money. How to save money calculators will be available in future issues.

2. ULTRA VIOLET LIGHT Clarifiers (UV's for short) ........

The one single piece of pond equipment that will improve the year round appearance of any water outdoor feature more than anything else is the UV light.

Sometimes called an Ultra Violet sterilzer (even UV filter - it is not a filter of any kind). It does only one job:

• It kills suspended algae in any pond system.

• It works every time without fail so long as specified properly.

All that has to be done to make sure it continues to work year in and year out is to change the UV lamp every 8,000 hours or so (about every year).

Here is basic information about UV light and what it does:

Algae are plants and therefore need food and oxygen and sunlight to grow and survive. Like most of us the more food, the more oxygen and the more sunlight the better and bigger the algae grow. In the right conditions the algae grow at an explosive rate - 30 times per hour!!

The usual problem encountered is that of green water sometimes brown which does not go clear and even after changing the water the algae re-appears very quickly and this happens even if you have a filter installed perhaps.

Green/brown cloudy water is normally caused by these millions of algae remaining suspended in the water. Each algae is about 4 microns in diameter (1 micron is 1 millionth of a metre or very very very small). A filter cannot remove such small items.

Algae growth is most common in ponds where conditions are most suited to their requirements - lots of fish being fed lots of food, warm water as it is in summer, and strong sunlight.

When a pond is badly infected by green water then your fish can all suddenly die and this happens overnight normally. The reason is again simple and is because algae are plants ...

they produce oxygen during the day but they produce carbon dioxide at night by taking oxygen out of the water. Algae in large mass can totally deplete the oxygen from a pond.

The fish therefore suffocate. This is also very much more common in heat wave situations because at higher temperatures water can hold less oxygen anyway. To discover more and also learn how to specify the correct UV go to this site to learn a lot about garden ponds and algae and how to resolve the problems created permanently.

3. Importance of PIPE DIAMETER and PIPE LENGTH for a pond ...

Hopefully you have decided to download the free calculator from Free pond calculator page. By inserting different values for length and diameter you will see amazing impacts upon pump specification.

You might find it difficult to believe but using small diameter pipes (especially long lengths) can reduce your pump flow to a trickle.

Pipe diameter has a bigger impact than pipe length im most cases. Always use the biggest diameter pipe you can and always have the shortest length, In future Gazettes we will talk a lot about pumps and pumping systems because this is the source of live-giving oxygen to your fish and plants as well as your biofilter's bacteria.

In meantime consider going to our compehensive pond pumps site covering all you need to know about pond pumps and their uses. where there is a large amount of information on pump selection.