Taking the water garden a little less seriously

Don't believe anyone who tells you a backyard pond or water garden is maintenance-free. I once wrote a magazine story about high-end water features and heard many landscape architects tell me that once their ponds and waterfalls were installed, they would take very little maintenance. As the "maintainer" of two backyard water features I inherited from my home's former owner, I challenged each of them. In the five years I've had these ponds, I've learned the hard way that ponds take a lot of work, but they are also amazingly resilient. Now I let nature to the mothering and expect the survival of the fittest. Here are a few things I learned from my misadventures in water gardening:

1.) Don't feed the fish.
I used to feed the goldfish in my two little ponds. It took me a while to realize that was the reason they were reproducing so fast that my filters couldn't handle their waste and I was forced to rinse out the gunky pads weekly. I stopped the feeding, added a water plant and made sure not to clean the ponds so that there are always plenty of microorganisms to sustain them.

2.) Just use a plain old hose to clean out the filters.
My ponds' former owner was diligent about maintaining a healthy environment for her goldfish. She told me to be sure rinse the filters in water taken from the pond so that I wouldn't upset the pH balance and disturb the fish. This made filter-cleaning messier and more cumbersome than it needed to be. I can't seem to kill my fish even if I try. They've survived winter freeze-overs, food withholding and a great blue heron with the patience of Job. Now I just haul out the filters, flop them on my deck and spray them with a hose until I don't see any more black water pouring out. I put them back in the fountains, turn them on and the water flows freely.

3.) If it's more convenient, just turn off the fountains.
I used to agonize over the need to keep the fountains running for the health of the fish. When I'd go away, I'd line up neighbors are relatives to pop by and make sure the fountains were still running and I'd give them a number to reach me so that I could tell them what to do if they were not. Now I just turn the things off when I have to be away. I figure it's going to be more trouble to replace a $100 fountain motor that burns out because the filters grew too clogged than it would be to replace a few goldfish. And quite frankly, those fish don't seem too bothered by the occasional shut downs.