Pet Topics

For city residents, yard space is at a premium. With apartment houses constructed right on the streets and a small amount of communal land in back of the buildings, there’s no way to plant a garden or cultivate a lot of flowers. You can, however, think on a much smaller scale. If you have a balcony or a deck, or even a fire escape, you can produce a water garden in containers that will give you the feeling of an in-ground water feature. You’ll be able to listen to the water running and relax while watching tiny fish swimming, grow water plants, and appreciate the peace nothing but a water garden can give you. Water garden containers give you the basis for building a watery microcosm in very little space.

Locating water garden containers isn’t as hard as choosing exactly what you think is best. A recommended capacity for a container is 15-25 gallons, and any sort of container in that size range will work. You will also need containers to plant your water plants in, because plants have to be grown in separate pots and then inserted into the water-filled container. It’s better to select a container with a dark-colored interior, because the dark color will provide your pond with the look of depth. Dark interiors are also more practical in that they won’t attract algae and yet they’ll hide the presence of any algae that begins growing.

Your water garden optimumly will be located in a place where it will get at minimum six hours of sun every day. Many water plants don’t thrive and flower well without at least that much sunshine, even though some bog plants will be okay with less sun. The plants you pick for your garden should be varied for the best effect. Choose some that float, a few submerged, and emergent species when selecting the plants you wish to incorporate into your garden. Plants offer the function of shading the water which, once again, decreases the growth of algae. When you create a new water garden, however, you can expect your water to get murky after a couple of weeks. Just hang in there, though, and the plants and fish will eventually begin controlling the algae growth, and the water will begin to get clearer.

In addition to fish, you need to include a few snails in your water garden containers. Snails are instrumental in eating algae, fish waste products, and decaying organic matter. Tiny fish, such as guppies, are recommended for containers that are 20 gallons or less; larger than that you can probably add a couple of goldfish. Guppies and similar fish are perfect choices, because they resist changes in temperature well, and they eat those pesky mosquitoes.