​We HIGHLY recommend (and have been preaching this for years) that Phoenix pond owners keep some battery-operated air stones on hand in case of emergency during the summer months. Warm water naturally holds less oxygen than cold water. At night, aquatic plants respirate carbon dioxide and steal oxygen from the already low-oxygenated warm water. Combined with a power or pump outage, this can create a very dangerous situation and suffocate the large fish in your pond overnight. Water movement and oxygen exchange are critical for keeping larger fish in your pond.

​Having an aerator in your pond is a great way to help out the oxygen transfer (as well as offer some predator protection because they can’t see through the bubbles), but if your power goes out for any length of time, a battery-operated air stone could save the lives of your larger fish. Having an extra pump on hand may seem like a smart idea; however, the warranty period starts running at the time of purchase. Air stones are not ideal, but it’s certainly way better than nothing!

There are some general guidelines to help determine how many air stones you might need to have on hand and drop in your pond in case of emergency. The guidelines assume the following:

• Your pond fish are no bigger than 6” long
• The surface area of your pond is 20% or less covered by water lilies and plant life
• The mulm on the floor of your pond is less than 2” deep

​If your pond meets the standards listed above, there is a rule of thumb you can use to determine how many 8” air stones you would need to keep your fish alive during a power outage or pump failure. If your pond exceeds any of these standards, you will need to adjust the recommended quantity to account for your specific conditions. Err on the side of caution because you can't have TOO much oxygen.

​We recommend one 8” air stone for every 25 sf of pond surface area. Remember, square feet is calculated by multiplying length times width. So, if you have an 8’ x 10’ pond, you have 80 square feet of surface area. 20% plant coverage would mean no more than 16 sf of water lily/plant coverage over the surface, so you would need a MINIMUM of 3 air stones. Again, if you have fish over 6” long, you need more because they need more oxygen than smaller fish.

​If there is mulm on the bottom of the pond, keep the air stone(s) on a shelf above that so that you’re not stirring the mulm into the water column, which would exacerbate the situation.
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​Air stones are used for bait keepers, and can generally be found at any sporting goods store. They are used to keep bait alive for fishermen.

​Don’t wait until something happens, and the emergency is upon you – prepare now! ​​At this time, The Pond Gnome does not offer 24-hour emergency service outside of our Platinum Maintenance Program. We may not be able to get help to you as soon as we would like for a pump replacement (and we have no control over power outages or electrical failures), so please, please, PLEASE take steps to take care of your fin-babies!

Besides all of the wonderful aquatic plants available to us, we can also use annuals in Phoenix ponds and water features to spice things up a bit. Being annuals, yes, they will eventually spend and die, but they last for a whole season! This is most helpful in the wintertime when most aquatic plants are dormant and not showing off with blooms. However, it's also a great way to really liven things up in the summer, and add even more variety to your aquatic plant palette.

Yes, you can avoid draining & cleaning your Phoenix pond! There are some simple maintenance techniques that will keep your pond in tip-top shape all year long, for many years. In fact, we have clients who have NEVER drained and cleaned their pond in 20 years.

​Watch this short video to learn the secret to never having to drain & clean your pond:

​Oh, no! My beautiful waterfall just quit working! What can I do? What's it going to cost? Can I deal with this myself, or do I have to hire a professional? Will my fish be okay?
These are usually the first panicky thoughts that run through people's minds when their pond pump quits working. ​Before paying for a service call to a professional, let’s check some basics to make sure you actually need professional help. Here are some basic, logical steps to checking out what's going on so that you'll know which professional to call if you need help.
If you're worried about your fish, you should have an air stone or two on hand to help with oxygenation of the water.
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If it's been raining recently, and things have gotten pretty sodden around your yard, unplug the pump and let everything dry out. Once you're sure it's all dry, reset the GFCI plug (and the breaker) and plug the pump back in.
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​If rain and potentially wet connections aren't an issue, unplug the pump and check/reset ALL of the GFCI buttons and breakers to make sure that it’s not just a push of a button or a flip of a switch to solve the problem. There should be a GFCI reset button on the outlet where the pump plugs in. There's also a breaker in your home's breaker box. Make sure you check them both. If anything is tripped, reset it, and then plug the pump back in. Sometimes a surge in the electrical service can cause this to happen, and then it's no big deal to reset everything and you're back in business. It's always nice when a problem has a simple fix, isn't it?
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If the pump is still not coming on after resetting the plug and the breaker, then unplug it again. Now, take a hair dryer or a lamp or something easy to carry and plug it into the outlet that the pump was in (again, after making sure all the GFCI's are on). Does that appliance work?

• If not, then the plug itself has a problem, and you’ll need to contact an electrician. Yes, GFCI plugs and breakers can go bad -- nothing is forever. A licensed electrician will be able to find the problem and get it fixed. In the meantime, you can use an extension cord and plug the pump into a different GFCI-protected outlet temporarily.
• If the appliance works when plugged into that outlet, then it’s probably the pond pump. You can double-check this by using an extension cord into another GFCI-protected outlet to see if it comes on. Don't plug it into a non-GFCI outlet because it may work, but there's probably still a problem, and you could cause a serious problem by keeping the pump plugged into that non-GFCI outlet (like a house fire). If the pump works on the other GFCI outlet, then it may be the original outlet, after all, depending on the age of the pump. If not, then the pump is definitely a goner.
• Call your local professional (us, person who installed your pond, licensed electrician, etc.) and let them know that you’ve checked out the issue and it’s definitely the pump that’s the problem. If you're calling someone who didn't install the pond, they'll need to know the details of what kind of pump you have, so be prepared with that information. Better yet, send them a picture of the pump and the label on it with its specs.

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Not necessarily! If you have a pump that just plugs into a standard GFCI outlet, you may be handy enough to replace it yourself. You may have to call around to find the appropriate replacement.

The price will include a service call (varies by professional), as well as the price of the pump. You can obtain a replacement pump yourself at one of the big-box stores or from Amazon.com; however, be aware that if there's a warranty issue with the pump later on, it will be all on you to deal with it -- a professional will not honor the warranty on a pump that they did not provide.

​During the winter, when the water is cold (below 55 degrees), your fish shouldn’t be in any immediate danger, especially if you have a good amount of surface area of water exposed for oxygen transfer, and your fish are less than 6" in length.

Hope these tips help, and might even save you an unnecessary service call fee. Let us know if we can be of service!

Yes, we DO have a Fall season in Phoenix, albeit not very darn long. And there are some things you should and should not do to prepare your pond for the "winter" ahead.
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Decaying leaves and foliage produce toxic gases that can harm your fish so you want to remove this debris before they can get saturated and sink to the bottom. If you have a skimmer on your pond, this helps tremendously. If you have any deciduous trees around, our Fall winds can blow them right into your pond. You don’t need to remove every single last leaf, but try to remove the majority. If you have a skimmer, check it weekly.

It's tempting to get everything "cleaned up" to prepare for winter. This is actually the worst thing you can do for your aquatic plants. We typically don't get any hard frosts in Phoenix; however, we can get a freeze or two. If you've trimmed and thin your aquatic plants too much, they will have no protection, and a frost could kill them. After the last danger of frost has passed (around the end of February), THEN you can go after any dead stuff and reveal the new lush growth getting ready to "spring" forward.
​Aside from protecting the plant, if you have any amphibious life in your pond, they need the protection from the cold, too. They'll snuggle down into the heart of the plants and hibernate for the winter.

Add Cold Water Beneficial Bacteria to the pond once the temperature drops below 50 degrees, if you need to use any at all. You may not need it, especially if your pond is mature.

​Once temperatures drop to 50 degrees at night (remember, pond water more closely follows nighttime temps rather than daytime temps), stop feeding your fish. They need to get ready to hibernate and you’ll want to avoid any metabolic complications. You can feed them Cold Water Fish Food, or give them natural treats like melon, oranges, lettuce, and even Cheerios.