July 16, 2010
Types Of Well Drilling Equipment
There are a few different types of water well and so some of the water well drilling equipment necessary to produce them will vary too. However, one piece of apparatus that you will always need is a means of drawing the water out of the well and this can vary from a bucket on a rope to a modern solar powered water pump.
Some types of well are dug out by hand with shovels as they were for thousands of years and others are drilled out with powerful, large rotary drills as are used in the oil industry. Here follows the main types of water well:
A water well that is known as a ‘dug well’ is precisely that: a well that has been excavated by hand with a pick and shovel. It is the same type of water well that existed in Biblical times and before and the equipment used to create it has not changed either. The only change is the quality of the equipment – it has increased inestimably over the last 2,000 years.
These wells look like the wishing wells famous from farm houses and fairy stories with a bucket wound up and down on a rope by the help of a winding-handle. They normally have a small roof to discourage things from falling into the water too. These wells most often exist in hotter, poorer countries and they are often brought into the 21st Century by the addition of a solar powered water pump.
These water wells are often clad in stone to stop dust and soil from dropping into the water. It also cuts down on long term repairs, because you do not have to keep digging out the well to clear it of soil that has slipped into it.
A much narrower diameter well can be created by drilling. The water well drilling equipment required is not complicated, but you will have to have a heavy-duty power source such as a generator, because you may need to drill through rock.
This method of drilling is similar to that used in the oil industry. A drill bit is attached to a pipe which is first hammered into the ground to give it a bite and then rotated like a drill.
You have to keep drilling by adding extra pipes until you strike water. Then the drill is extracted from the well and a water channel is inserted in its place. A solar pump can be added to this pipe to provide water.
A similar technique of drilling a well employs water well drilling equipment that is similar to that used for pile-driving. A point is hammered into the ground by a very heavy weight. Every time the weight falls, the bit rotates a little. It is slow and old-fashioned, but it has got the job done for hundreds of years and still does.
The drill bit has to be pulled out often to remove the debris. When water has been struck, the water well drilling equipment is extracted and a pipe is fed down the hole. Once again a pump may be installed to bring up the water. A solar powered pump is the way that most people tend to go.
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is at present concerned with water garden pumps. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for a special deal.
categories: fish,pond,water,garden,home improvement,recreation,pets,animals,outdoors,other,uncategorised,family,environment
Filed under Aquarium Fish by Owen Jones
July 10, 2010
Aerating Your Backyard Fish Pond Water
Are you interested in having a backyard or garden fish pond or water garden? A fish pond certainly sets a garden off and becomes a focal and talking point for guests to your garden. However, never think that a backyard fish pond is a set-and-forget feature – you will always be involved with aerating your backyard fish pond water.
Fish need an environment that mirrors their natural habitat, say, a river. Rivers run into the sea and are regularly replenished by clean rainwater.
This natural process, coupled with the flow of the water over rocks and other obstacles keeps the fish’s environment beneficial to the fish. You cannot do the same, but you can emulate nature. If you fail to do this, your fish will get sick with diseases that a beginner will not notice and die.
The main item that fish require is clean, oxygenated water. So, how do you manage that? Well, the first thing to realize is that pond fish do not need as much oxygenated water in the winter as in the summer, because fish are semi-dormant in the winter. However, warm water is not capable of holding as much oxygen as cold water, so you genuinely need a good aeration system in the summer.
Therefore, you need to set up some sort of effective fish pond water aeration system. This aeration system will be linked closely with your pond filtration device. The front line equipment for aerating your backyard fish pond water is the pond pump. In fact, you may even need two pond pumps.
Oxygen can be drawn out of your pond water by rotting vegetation and algae, so removing these will help aerate your pond water. Therefore, you should use a general pond pump that will permit pond debris to pass through its impeller blades. The pump will send the water to your pond filter in order to remove it.
The water will then go back to the pond. If you let it fall from step to step on its way back, the water will be polished and aerated when it arrives home in the pond. Another measure you can take is to install a pond fountain.
However, you will probably need a different pump, because the filtration pump lets pond vegetation debris through, which would choke the jets of the pond fountain. The water from the fountain will oxygenate the pond when it falls back to the surface.
Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is now involved with water garden pumps. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for a great deal.
Filed under Aquarium Fish by Owen Jones
July 6, 2010
The Importance Of Keeping Your Koi Pond Clean
The primary concern of any koi pond keeper, indeed of any fish pond keeper, it to preserve the pond water at a high level of hygiene. This basically means that you have to keep the nitrate and ammonia levels down. However, the fish will not help in this endeavour, and nor can they, since they live and defecate in their surroundings, the water. You can accurately say that the live in their own toilet bowl.
Therefore, it is up to you, as their patron, to keep their water as clean as possible. This is actually not so difficult and much or the cleansing process can be automated, leaving you, the owner, to only have to carry out routine, weekly checks.
The first check that you should carry out can be made on a daily basis if not more frequently, when you feed your fish, does the water look clear? Is it green? Are there lots of leaves floating around in it? If it is translucent enough to see the bottom of the pond, you are probably doing OK, but do not rely on that, wait for the weekly chemical check up.
Never forget that you have manufactured an unnatural environment for your fish to live in. It is nearer to nature that a fish tank, but it is a long way from being a river or a lake. This is why the bigger your pond is, the easier it will be to maintain, because the closer it will be to the real thing.
The smaller your pond, the more that you will have to rely on water filtration and oxygenation systems to keep the water crystal clear. One way of helping to maintain clear water is not to over feed. Most fish pond owners give far more feed that the fish require.
This results in more excrement and more rotting food on the bottom of the pond. All this excess energy in the water is happily soaked up by algae, which will also draw the oxygen out of the water as it blooms. If you find yourself in this position, the first thing to do is reduce the amount of fish food and scrape the sides of the pond of algae. If you do not, the lack of oxygen will stress out your fish and stressed fish are more susceptible to disease.
Keep the water in your pond circulating as much as possible, as this will reintroduce oxygen into the water that the fish, algae and plants have used up. The standard ways of doing this are to have a fountain, a waterfall and an oxygenator (or bubbler, like you see in fish tanks).
Another way of dealing with oxygen and algae problems is to not overstock your fish pond. Koi will breed freely, so if you just start your population off with a few fish, you will soon have dozens. They know when there are too many of them and they will eat the young or control the breeding in other ways. If you do all you can to give your fish a good milieu, they will do the rest.
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is at present concerned with fish pond accessories. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for some special deals.
Filed under Aquarium Fish by Owen Jones
July 2, 2010
Winter Care Tips For Your Backyard Fish Pond
The fish in your backyard fish pond will be semi-dormant during the winter, that is to say that they will almost hibernate, but not quite. You will see your fish lying on the bottom of your pond hardly moving a muscle. They will be living off stores of fat that they have built up throughout the summer, but they may decide to eat every now and again, so you have to keep giving food, but in very reduced amounts.
There are a few things that you ought to do to ready your backyard fish pond for the winter, because this will help them survive the winter.
The first thing to do is clean up your pond and the surrounding area. Any dead vegetation that finds its way into your pond will have months to rot down and spoil the quality of your pond water, just when your fish are at their most susceptible.
Dredge your pond, aiming to take out at least half of the slush at the bottom, but try to leave any grubs, larvae and insects behind, because they are a good source of protein for your fish.
Scrape the sides of the pond of algae and get it out. You should also remove any plants that are unlikely to make it through the winter. Fix a leaf net over the pond in order to stop tree leaves from blowing into the pond at a later date when the weather gets rough. If you expect flooding or heavy rain, sandbag the perimeter of the pond to a height of two feet to stop fish being swept away.
When the water temperature drops to 55-60F, reduce feeding to once per day and when it drops to 50F, stop feeding completely. Even if the temperature goes up above 50F for a day or two, do not feed until winter is over. This is because the fish may eat instinctively, but at this temperature food can take four days to digest and could kill your fish.
Clean your filtration system and remove your pumps and fountain from the water. Once you have retrieved your equipment you can scrub and maintain it at your leisure. You do not want it to freeze solid during a frost.
Stock up on your chemicals, medicines, water testing kits and foods now while you have plenty of time, because basically, you are closing your pond down for the winter.
Turn off all pieces of equipment that supply or recycle water in your pond. Make certain that they are unplugged and unable to be switched on by mistake. If water recyclers are switched on accidentally, it will disrupt the layers of cold and warmer water in the pond and could stress or even kill your fish.
Test and install your de-icer. It is very important to maintain a hole in any ice that forms, otherwise the gases and chemicals that emanate from rotting vegetation and fish excrement will build up and the water will not be able to take in oxygen. This is crucial or one day the ice will melt and your fish will all float to the top – dead.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is at present concerned with koi pond kits. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for a special deal.
Filed under Aquarium Fish by Owen Jones
July 1, 2010
A Year’s Maintenance Cycle Of A Koi Pond
Spring
Fish ponds, together with koi ponds, come awake in the spring after a winter of semi-hibernation. As soon as the temperature goes above 10C (50F), your fish become more lively and your plants will start growing again. This means that it is a great opportunity to do some upkeep – a spring clean – because you will not shock or stress your inactive fish. If you try it any earlier, you will upset your fish in their slumber and any later and you may disturb breeding.
You ought to take out any leaves that has fallen into the pond and dredge for some of the algae. Then clean your pond filter and turn your filtration system back on, if you switched it off for the winter. Test the water for any chemical imbalance and treat any problems.
You ought to also add a broad spectrum medication for common fish ailments. Depending on the treatment you use, you may have to replicate this procedure a week later or when the temperature rises above a certain degree.
Summer
This is when your pond is in full swing. Your aquatic plants will be flourishing as will the algae. You must keep the algae under control, which means dredging, netting and scraping. You will have to clean your pond filter more often as well. Check it daily and keep it working at full tilt. The cleaner you can keep your koi pond now, the less work you will have to do afterward.
Aeration of the water is a major concern in the summer, because warm water is able to hold less oxygen than cold water. Therefore, you will need to keep your fountain running and your bubbler bubbling, if you have one.
If you do not have one, think about buying one. You fish and the blooming algae will be competing for the oxygen in the pond water. You can tell if the water is short of oxygen, because the fish will be gasping for air at the surface.
The warm water will not only awaken your fish and your plants, it will also bring parasites to life, so keep a keen eye on your fish’ health and treat anything dubious straight away. Be on the look out for fish rubbing against the sides or each other – scratching themselves, in other words.
Feed frequently. Your fish will have eaten very little in the winter and now they have to replenish their fat for breeding and next winter.
Autumn
Autumn is variable, but the first half may be like the summer and the second half more like winter. Continue to feed well. As the trees start to shed their leaves, you must eliminate them from your pond water.
Drag the leaves off at least once a day or sling a net over the pond and skim for leaves weekly. If you have any pond plants that will not survive the winter, either take them indoors or throw them away; you do not want them rotting in your pond.
Winter
Life in your pond will slow down as winter progresses. You ought to feed less often, maybe only once a day until the temperature gets to 10C (50F) and then discontinue feeding – your fish will be in semi-hibernation at this juncture. Remove your filtration pumps and your fountain and switch all electrical gear off.
Put a pond heater in the water. This is a floating device that keeps a small surface area from freezing. If you permit all your pond to freeze over gases will build up, oxygen will vanish and your fish will die.
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many topics, but is at present concerned with the fish pond filter. If you are interested in a Solar Powered Pond Pump, please go to our web site now for a special deal.
Filed under Aquarium Fish by Owen Jones

