POND TO GARDEN: WATER SAVING WATER CHANGES
INTRODUCTION
We have endured many years of drought in Southern California and there will be more to come in the future. The cost of water has also been steadily rising making koi keeping even more expensive than it already is. As pond owners, we have to come up with ways to conserve this precious resource while keeping our wet pets happy and healthy.
Luckily, there are many ways to use pond water to irrigate your garden. There are also many ways to make this process time efficient. This presentation includes just a few of them. If you have your own suggestions or questions, please join us on the Koi Club of San Diego private Facebook group and post them there. We all love to learn from our fellow koi lovers!
PART 1. DIVERSION OF DIRTY, NUTRIENT AND PARTICLE RICH WATER
This water that has fairly large debris in it. This maybe water from your drum or sieve filters or backwash water.
You can do a couple of things:
a) Send the water through a mechanical filter, than follow steps in part 2.
b) Create a dry well (NOT for clay soils) and direct the water to the dry well through a filtered catch basin. This filter will need to be cleaned regularly.
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- d) Use Netafim Bioline dripline system.
PART 2. USE OF RELATIVELY CLEAN WATER
Now let’s tackle the water changes. Unless you have to get the muck from the bottom during a water change, you can pump out mostly clean water. In this case, the water can go straight to your irrigation system. All you will need are a timed/smart outlet, water pump, a hose and a few adaptors to get the water to where you’d like it to go. The use of a timer for the pump is a must if you don’t want to risk pumping your pond dry.
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PART 3. MOST EFFICIENT WAY TO USE POND WATER IN YOUR GARDEN
In Southern California, we don’t want to waste even a drop of water if we can avoid it. The most efficient way I know to water your landscape plants is by the use of subsurface dripline irrigation.
It is very easy to lay a new drip zone, or you can convert an existing sprinkler zone to drip.
Drip systems are easy to assemble and maintain. They are pretty much “plug and play”. For longevity, reliability, and extreme efficiency, I suggest using subsurface dripline by Rainbird (Rainbird INSTALLATION GUIDE) or Netafim Techline (Netafim INSTALLATION GUIDE). Just lay the system on top of the soil and completely cover with mulch (4” is ideal). Now you are getting the water into the soil and to the roots while avoiding over spray and evaporation. Unless you absolutely have to, I do not recommend the use of plug in emitters. They require frequent maintenance and replacement.
Here is an example of a drip zone:
PART 4. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Items you will need:
- a) Timed outlet/smart outlet – you do not want to forget that you are pumping the water out and either burn out the pump or empty the pond!
- b) Water pump
- c) Adaptors for connection to the hose
- d) Hose
- e) Filter with hose thread or pipe thread ends
- f) Pressure regulator (optional for this application)
- g) Drip tubing and fittings Rainbird XFCV or Netafim Techline HCVXR subsurface dripline
- h) Mulch
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Some suggestions for the supplies: Timed outlet/smart outlet:a) Easiest to use is the BN-Link Indoor Timer. It needs to be placed into an outdoor electrical box for outside use. This is a mechanical timer. All you have to do is to rotate the dial to the amount of time you would like the pump to work. |
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b) Most versatile - WIFI smart plug. There are many on the market. You will be able to control and program your pump from an app on your smartphone. I use Kasa Outdoor Smart Plug: |
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c) GE heavy duty programmable timer – for those that don’t want to use an app, but want to initiate the water change at a regularly scheduled day and time. |
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Water pump a) Sump Marine external pump with hose connectors – easiest to connect, but a bit loud and needs oil priming for longevity.Hose
Drip Supplies Grangetos Farm and Garden Supply SAVE YOUR FISH FROM ACCIDENTS! ALWAYS USE A HOSE TIMER WHEN ADDING WATER TO YOUR POND! |
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