Pond Water Temperature Guide

A pond can be a great way to add value to your backyard. You can put in some fish and aquatic plants to create the ideal place to relax. However, a healthy pond will depend on you regulating the temperature appropriately. Here are some of the tips you can use to do this.

How Temperature Affects Your Pond

How hot or cold it will need to be is dependent on the season. It will vary based on the depth of the water. If you have a shallow pond, it will often react to the changes in the air temperature. Because of this, you will experience wilder water temperature swings.

If you have fish, it’s a good idea to check what temperature ranges they can survive. For some species, this will mean that you will need to work harder to keep the temperature within a narrow range.

Summer

The best place to start is by looking at what temperatures you can expect during the summer months. In this case, the cooler water will sit at the bottom of the pond, and the warmer water will be at the top. You should try to keep it below 29 degrees Celsius. Above this point, the pond will be unable to retain oxygen in the water. As a result, fish and aquatic animals will start to die. The ideal temperature will be between 18 to 24 degrees Celsius.

Autumn

This will often depend on how severe your winter will be. During this time, you want to try and avoid any radical changes in the temperature. To help you do this, turn off any water features in your pond. The churning of the water will contribute to a rapid in water temperature.

Winter

How you approach this will depend on how severe your winter months are. The colder the water gets, the less your fish will need to eat. Below 3 degrees Celsius they won’t need any food at all. Because of this, you might want to keep the temperature elevated slightly, to around 4 degrees Celsius.

Even if you don’t have fish, you want to make sure that your pond doesn’t freeze entirely. If it does, it will lock in noxious gases. As a result, you might need a heater. An aerator can also stop the water from freezing by constantly disrupting the surface water. Love My Pond has a huge selection of aerators to suit ponds of any size and shape.

Spring

One of the biggest problems that you will need to overcome in the spring is a lot of temperature fluctuations. Because of this, you might want to turn off any water features; these will amplify these swings. If possible, try to maintain a temperature of 18 degrees Celsius. This will often help create an environment that helps your fish become stronger.

Monitoring the Temperature

As we’ve seen, it’s important to monitor the temperature in your pond. The best way of doing this is using a pond thermometer. Often, this will have a digital display, telling you at a glance what temperature the water is. You’ll then know whether to heat it up or cool it down. When picking a pond thermometer, you want to think about the temperature range. It needs to be able to cope with the seasonal springs. This article 9 Aquarium Thermometers will tell you some of the other things you should consider.

Guest post by Nora Held from Backyard Style

Starting from 2016, Backyard Style’s experts share their knowledge on planting, composting, and poultry care, to name a few.

Apart from being Backyard Style’s main writer, Nora Held also works for a number of gardening-related sites and magazines, sharing her experience as an owner of a small farm in North Carolina.