bgarthe
- #1
Ponding…..Absolute Matters of SAFETY and SECURITY…Plz Read
I’ve learned much in my 40+ years of indoor and outdoor koi ponding. Being both safe and secure will provide years of hobby fun and protect you and your fish at the same time.
Does the thought of coming home to an empty pond with fish flopping around at the bottom of an emptied pond or getting your self electrocuted concern you? It should. If you incorporate these three practices to your ponding, these disasters are greatly reduced.
Like many, my pond filtration is done outside the pond in two filtering devices connected by hoses to the pump and to the water fall. If one of the hoses were to break, the pond water would be pumped out of the pond into the yard to the level of the pond filter pump. Since many people, including me, place such a pump near the pond bottom, the fish wouldn’t stand a chance…..they’d be flopping around perishing without water. To remedy this, I installed a mercury Float Switch at the power source (in line) prior to the plug of the pump itself. In so doing, the Float Switch would only allow the pond water level to go down say 8” and then (because the float was angled downward as the pond level got lower) the power to the pump would be turned off. The fish would still have water to live in (with no filtration) until you came home and fixed the issue at hand.
Many years ago when I had just started my koi ponding, I used a plastic tub beside the patio and had a small fountain in the middle. One day I saw the fountain was not working and noticed a leaf blocking the pump intake. I promptly bent over and reached into the water to remove the leaf. Wow….as I did this, I got that sudden sharp tingling shock as I quickly pulled out my hand.
As it turned out, unbeknownst to me, the pump had started leaking electricity into the tub water. Had I been on a wet patio floor or doing it with metal, the results might have been catastrophic. I was lucky. I’m no longer willing to trust to luck that I’ll always be so fortunate.
The pond filtration devices mentioned earlier are powered electrically. There are two major things one must do to prevent possible electrocution. First, realize that no matter your pond material….a rubber lined pond or a plastic tub/container…..if there is an electric current leak or failure with a pump in the water, your reaching into the pond or tub may provide the means for the electrical current to find ground thus killing you. Note that by your touching live electrified water (a rubber pond liner or plastic container with electric current in it has no where to go), you will effectively provide the means for the current to find ground via your body as you stand beside the pond/container, on the ground, outside the water that has electrical current. The current going through you from pond to ground would, in fact, likely electrocute you. So, to fix this, there are two critical things to do.
First, run a stainless steel cable or any 1/4” or so bare wire from inside your pond/container water over and out of the pond/container to a metal/copper stake driven into the earth/dirt/ground outside your pond. This will allow the electric current to get to ground before you, unwittingly, do so by reaching in to the water. Yes, if this happens, you may lose fish, have a tripped circuit breaker, or have a shorted out pump, but you’ll be alive as opposed to dead. At the end of the wire/cable in the pond water, there may be a sharp point/edge. I simply screw a large wire nut onto the tip so as to protect the fish and my rubber pond liner.
A is stake in ground beside pond. B is wire(attached to stake) into pond water, although, atm, it’s frozen over bc of the time of the year.
Second, please connect all your electrical pond devices to GFCI outlets. This may involve paying an electrician to come and rewire an outlet or two, but it’s worth it. As the current going through your outlet is, in a nano second, surging as electrocution is about to happen, the GFCI unit will automatically break the electrical connection thus avoiding the massive amount of current involved with a major short out/electrocution from going through you.
I don’t mean to scare anyone or seem like an alarmist, but taking these precautions is of paramount importance to safely maintaining a pond. Now…..suppose you need confirmation of what I’ve said. That’s ok, I get it. Before you just read this and go about your business, please go ahead and call an expert electrician to verify my claims. I won’t be offended, and, if this just prevents one human electrocution or just one pond from being pumped dry with dead fish on the bottom, it will be worth it. Happy ponding.
I’ve learned much in my 40+ years of indoor and outdoor koi ponding. Being both safe and secure will provide years of hobby fun and protect you and your fish at the same time.
Does the thought of coming home to an empty pond with fish flopping around at the bottom of an emptied pond or getting your self electrocuted concern you? It should. If you incorporate these three practices to your ponding, these disasters are greatly reduced.
Like many, my pond filtration is done outside the pond in two filtering devices connected by hoses to the pump and to the water fall. If one of the hoses were to break, the pond water would be pumped out of the pond into the yard to the level of the pond filter pump. Since many people, including me, place such a pump near the pond bottom, the fish wouldn’t stand a chance…..they’d be flopping around perishing without water. To remedy this, I installed a mercury Float Switch at the power source (in line) prior to the plug of the pump itself. In so doing, the Float Switch would only allow the pond water level to go down say 8” and then (because the float was angled downward as the pond level got lower) the power to the pump would be turned off. The fish would still have water to live in (with no filtration) until you came home and fixed the issue at hand.
Many years ago when I had just started my koi ponding, I used a plastic tub beside the patio and had a small fountain in the middle. One day I saw the fountain was not working and noticed a leaf blocking the pump intake. I promptly bent over and reached into the water to remove the leaf. Wow….as I did this, I got that sudden sharp tingling shock as I quickly pulled out my hand.
As it turned out, unbeknownst to me, the pump had started leaking electricity into the tub water. Had I been on a wet patio floor or doing it with metal, the results might have been catastrophic. I was lucky. I’m no longer willing to trust to luck that I’ll always be so fortunate.The pond filtration devices mentioned earlier are powered electrically. There are two major things one must do to prevent possible electrocution. First, realize that no matter your pond material….a rubber lined pond or a plastic tub/container…..if there is an electric current leak or failure with a pump in the water, your reaching into the pond or tub may provide the means for the electrical current to find ground thus killing you. Note that by your touching live electrified water (a rubber pond liner or plastic container with electric current in it has no where to go), you will effectively provide the means for the current to find ground via your body as you stand beside the pond/container, on the ground, outside the water that has electrical current. The current going through you from pond to ground would, in fact, likely electrocute you. So, to fix this, there are two critical things to do.
First, run a stainless steel cable or any 1/4” or so bare wire from inside your pond/container water over and out of the pond/container to a metal/copper stake driven into the earth/dirt/ground outside your pond. This will allow the electric current to get to ground before you, unwittingly, do so by reaching in to the water. Yes, if this happens, you may lose fish, have a tripped circuit breaker, or have a shorted out pump, but you’ll be alive as opposed to dead. At the end of the wire/cable in the pond water, there may be a sharp point/edge. I simply screw a large wire nut onto the tip so as to protect the fish and my rubber pond liner.
A is stake in ground beside pond. B is wire(attached to stake) into pond water, although, atm, it’s frozen over bc of the time of the year.
Second, please connect all your electrical pond devices to GFCI outlets. This may involve paying an electrician to come and rewire an outlet or two, but it’s worth it. As the current going through your outlet is, in a nano second, surging as electrocution is about to happen, the GFCI unit will automatically break the electrical connection thus avoiding the massive amount of current involved with a major short out/electrocution from going through you.
I don’t mean to scare anyone or seem like an alarmist, but taking these precautions is of paramount importance to safely maintaining a pond. Now…..suppose you need confirmation of what I’ve said. That’s ok, I get it. Before you just read this and go about your business, please go ahead and call an expert electrician to verify my claims. I won’t be offended, and, if this just prevents one human electrocution or just one pond from being pumped dry with dead fish on the bottom, it will be worth it. Happy ponding.