April is when your pond starts to offer a glimpse of what it can really do. Flowers are budding, the fish are waking up and you finally have some warm spring days to enjoy by your cascading waterfall.
You’ll probably want to start thinking about resuming fish feeding this month. Check out Tip No. 1 below for details on how to help your finned friends ease into the new season.
Seeing more string algae in your pond? Don’t worry; it’s a normal part of a healthy pond ecosystem. Read our April Deep-Dive to learn more.
3 Tips for April Pond Care
1. Resume feeding fish when water is consistently warmer than 55 degrees
Fish go into a semi-dormant state called torpor during the cold months. In torpor, their bodies’ systems slow to a crawl, letting them survive the winter with minimal food and activity.
Depending on your climate, your fish may or may not be ready to start eating again this month. How will you know? Just check the water temperature. Resume feeding when water is consistently above about 55 degrees.
>Find a Pond Thermometer at our Online Store
Your fish likely won’t need to eat every day early in the season. Only feed them as much as they finish within about three minutes.
To help your fish ease into the new season, we recommend starting the spring with a Cold Water or Probiotic Fish Food.
Cold Water formulas move through your fish’s systems more quickly than summer food, which could sit in the fish’s stomachs and cause problems if the fish aren’t ready to digest it.
Probiotic formulas are also great for spring because they help your fish fight the pathogens that are also waking up for the season.
> Find fish food at our Online Store
2. Add a weekly dose of Beneficial Bacteria
Beneficial Bacteria is our go-to water treatment for keeping water crystal-clear and fish happy and healthy.
Bacteria do lots of helpful things for your pond, including consuming harmful ammonia and algae-causing nitrites. For best results, apply bacteria at least once a week throughout the season, or install an Automatic Dosing System that will do the work for you.
Pond Bacteria comes in lots of forms – so how do you know which one you need?
Just follow this guide:
- For water below 50 degrees: Cold Water Bacteria (Available at Splash)
- For water above 50 degrees: Beneficial Bacteria (Available at Splash)
- For new ponds, recently cleaned ponds or springtime ponds above 40 degrees: Pond Starter Bacteria (Available at Splash)
- For Automatic Dosing Systems: Maintain for Ponds Autodoser Pouch (Available at Splash)
In April, feel free to use up any remaining Cold Water Bacteria before switching to either Pond Starter Bacteria or regular Beneficial Bacteria.
Liquid Beneficial Bacteria comes in an easy-to-use pump-top container. If you buy an 8 oz, 16 oz or 32 oz bottle, simply add one pump of bacteria per 100 gallons of water in your pond once a week. If you buy a gallon bottle, use one pump per 600 gallons.
(Dry forms of bacteria are also available. See your container for dosing instructions.)
To Calculate Pond Size in US Gallons: Length (in feet) x Width (in feet) x Average Depth (in feet) x 7.48
All of the Beneficial Bacteria products listed above are completely safe for fish and plants – making them a great alternative to potentially harmful algaecides.
3. Schedule or Complete a Spring Pond Clean-Out
Our Spring Pond Clean-Out schedule fills up quickly. If you haven’t reached out to our service team yet for Spring Service, you’ll want to do so ASAP to get on our schedule.
April Deep-Dive
3 Ways to Deal with Spring String Algae
More plants, more kinds of plants, more colors of plants. If you’ve ever asked us for advice on dealing with string algae, you know we usually prefer a natural solution: add more plants to the pond.
But what do you do when the plants aren’t blooming for the season yet?
We receive tons of questions in the early spring and late winter about how to handle the stringy, gunky algae that sticks to rocks and waterfalls. This stuff seems to show up in force just as the weather turns nice.
At a Glance: How to Get Rid of Spring String Algae
- Wait for your plants to come out of winter dormancy, and they’ll do most of the work for you.
- Manually remove the string algae.
- Try a contact algae-control product.
- Remember: It’s completely normal to have some string algae in your pond. It’s part of a healthy ecosystem!