Outdoor Water Features - Great Way To Cope With Stress

Today, in this hard economic climate, work is stressful enough to create health conditions that would entail much healthcare cost. Hence, a good solution would be engaging oneself in relaxing hobbies like caring for pets like fishes, having a backyard pond or even an aquarium.

Perhaps you have noticed that Asians are fond of water elements in their home or office setting. Many Japanese homeowners maintain a beautiful Koi pond in their backyard because they find it relaxing to watch bright colored Kois. It can be a truly relaxing experience enough to relieve you from daily stress.



Another great way to cope with stress is pursuing aquascape as a hobby. The water is an important element and Feng Shui is a term that translates to “wind water” and defines the Asian practice of harnessing the energy (“chi”) of a location for maximum prosperity. Using the ancient secrets of Feng Shui to balance your home can help alleviate stress, remove obstacles and invite harmony.

Can you really imagine such a balance in the environment, today?

Just gazing at a refreshing waterscape such as mini waterfall can refresh you from a hard day at the office. You may even find yourself listening to the gentle gurgling of water that drips from rocks. Even gazing at the fluid movements of fish in the water can make you fall asleep.

If you are looking for a water feature that will make your garden pond look both sophisticated and very beautiful, if you want to make all those neighbors jealous, if you are a successful man or woman who has exquisite taste and wants to show it, then, call off the search because the Oase Pond Jet is most certainly the thing you have been seeking. This is a stationary floating fountain unit. It will fit like a glove and improve the overall look of your garden wherever you put it, and if you have any problems with dirty surfaces or ponds that you cannot remove the time has come to stop worrying about it. Just install the magnificent Oase Pond Jet on these surfaces, put an easy chair at a desirable distance from it, sit down, relax, and enjoy the show.

Let’s now go into the details and specifications of this remarkable product.

• The Oase Pond Jet has a 12000 liters per hour pump. The maximum height that the spray of water can reach is 3.5 meters in height and 3 meters in weight. If you think about it, this is extremely high. The demotions of the product are 670mm x 540mm. The maximum head of the water is 7.7 meters. It weighs 9kg, and the voltage used is 230V/50Hz. The place where you should connect the water hose is an inch wide in diameter. With it you get a 20 meter cable. Now, these are all just numbers, but, if you compare these numbers to the specifications of another product like this, you will eventually find out that the Oase Pond Jet is better than most (if not the best) of its competition.
• This product comes completely ready for installation. This means that you don’t have to worry about the whole process of combining parts and components in order to get it working. The best place to put it is a natural pond or some kind of lake, or even at places where the depth of the water is too big.
• The process of installing the Oase Pond Jet is rather easy, with just a small amount of money spent for necessary cost. Of course, a simple and easily comprehensible guide is supplied within the package. Having said this, it is natural to conclude, that you don’t have to have a permanent spot for it. If you are dissatisfied with the place you put it after some time, simply install it somewhere else. You can also use it just for special occasions like fancy dress parties, weddings, birthdays, any kinds of performances, and so on. It will definitely make you feel good about yourself when all of your guests start complementing you and your magnificent garden.
• The Oase Jet Pond Illumination Set is sold separately, but it is strongly recommended that you consider acquiring this as well. With it you get loads of fascinating light effects at night. When this add-on is installed I can guarantee that you will be spending more and more time in the garden, just sitting and enjoying the very beautiful display in front of you. You will find that friends and family are stopping by your house more frequently, just to drink a cup of coffee in the garden, but we all know that, besides a healthy conversation with you, they came to relax near the water and enjoy the futuristic light and water effects.
• The minimum water level required for the Oase Pond Jet is 1 meter if the water is clear, and 1.5 meters if the water is rather muddy. The illumination functions like this. You have three 50 watt halogen spotlights marked Oase – Laguna 10, and they are connected to UST 150 transformer which are located under water. As a result you get fantastic illumination of the patterns that the spray of water makes.
• Within the complete package you get the pump, the float, the nozzle, the dual function nozzle which gives you the opportunity to connect even more nozzles. The lights are sold separately, as mentioned before, but for your pleasure it is highly recommendable that you complete the set by purchasing them too.

In order to show how this product looks like when it is installed properly here are some pictures:

Without lights:



With lights:



In conclusion, is perfect for sitting in the garden during the summer and relaxing with this product near you. It is definitely what you deserve after a long day of work. It is most certainly at the top of the list of outdoor water features, and it has certainly satisfied many customers in the past. Now, it is your turn.

Read More

OASE Aquamax Eco Pond Pump

OASE has been making the Aquamax range for about almost two decades now, and their products have only become increasingly efficient over the years. They are great at displacing the dirt and muck, and this really is their  main task - sucking muck from the pond and displacing it from the pump into the filter. The Aquamax Eco pump has a big, semi-globular cage with some generously sized holes – each hole is about 10mm in diameter. Anything getting sucked in there will get pumped up to the filter with ease.

Because it draws from such a large area, there is no place on the cage where the pump sucks very forcefully, therefore wildlife tend not to get sucked into this particular design – which means it is good for the environment as well.

This design has two pipes, an inlet and an outlet. The pump sucks from the surface of the domed cage, as well as from the inlet pipe, which allows it to draw from two locations at the same time, while remaining situated at the bottom of your pond. There is also an optional smaller cage that attaches to the inlet via pipe, so that you can then set the inlet to draw with varying degrees of power, leaving the big cage with the smaller percentage of draw power, or disabling the suction on one end entirely. This can be useful in the winter, when the water at the bottom is relatively warm, you can set the part attached to the skimmer to draw at full power, drawing of the surface, so that the water at the bottom of the pond stays pretty much at the same temperature.

The double suction feature especially comes in handy if you have a crescent moon shaped or elongated pond – like a sort of canal, because you can draw from both ends (by attaching a length of a hose to the inlet pipe and draw it out to the desired area while the main apparatus remains on the other end). The inlet can also be attached to the skimmer, so you can actually suck water from the top of your pond, sucking away all the filth and muck, the dead leaves, dead bugs, small twigs and other materials that eventually accumulate on the surface, while at the same time drawing from the bottom of your pond as well. So by setting it fifty-fifty, you can maintain a steady suction on both the surface and the bottom.

As far as what pipework to attach to the inlet and outlet of your pond pump, using a big hose is recommended, so that you have the maximum amount of water being pumped out without pressure. Ultimately you will get more water coming down your cascade or more water being pushed through your filter.

            The Aqua Max range carries a 5 year guarantee, and you can be sure that you will still be using them for years after the warranty has expired. Most of the time, when people experience a problem with one of these pumps it is simply neglected. They install the pump and then just leave it laying at the bottom for years, without ever giving it a second thought, so it eventually gets all clogged up. Periodical cleaning of the Aquamax Eco will ensure that the sturdy little pond pump keeps on chugging along, as good as new, for years and years.

            The running costs on these pumps are really low, even the Aquamax ECO 16000, which pumps 16000 liters an hour, runs at only 170 watts. Eco models 12000 and 16000 also have “Seasonal Flow Control” (SFC) that adapts all year round to the relevant seasonal changes within the pond, and enables a circulation that is dependent on the water temperature.

They are not cheap to buy, their price range is from $900 to $1150, but in the long run they will save you a lot of money on running costs (since they will last for years with little maintenance you can expect great savings over time), and you don’t have to buy a new one every few years like some of the cheap models found in hardware stores.

So in conclusion, you get a very functional, high quality garden pond pump, with enhanced sucking capabilities, that is also very eco-friendly and saves you a ton of money in the long run. These Aquamax pumps are just one of those things for which you might have to save up and carefully plan to purchase in between various everyday expenses, but then ten years from the time of purchase you will look at the good job it’s still performing and mutter to yourself that it was money well spent.

Read More

Garden Pond Filters 101

An indispensable element of sustaining a healthy ponds is by utilizing garden pond filters to keep pond water clear and sanitized. There are multiple factors continuously doing their best to turn your pond into a murky bed of debris. These factors include decaying grass, sticks, and leaves; fish excrement, and detrimental compounds like ammonia.

A dirty pond is not a pleasing sight, and if there are plants, Koi and other creatures trying to survive in there, hygienic water is vital to their continued existence and health. The best way of guaranteeing sanitary water is by using a verified garden-pond filter, or a number of pond filters together.

Now that you understand how important it is to have a superb working pond filter, you must decide which type of filter suits your pond best. Making the right choice may seem a bit perplexing; however, pond filters are classified into several key groups. First, we will decipher how to select your garden pond filter.

-Garden Pond Filter Shopping Tips

1. First, you must consider how much water needs to be filtered. If your filter is not large enough, you will inevitably have to worry about algae problems, which can turn the water environment of your pond into a hazard for the creatures living there.

2. Check vigilantly for the capacity the filter can cope with. You will find volume-measuring devices that are available through the Internet or at your local pond equipment shop to decide what size is most appropriate.

3. In essence, it is better to have a garden-pond filter that is too large than one that is too small, so if you become a bit confused always select the larger one.

-Different Types of Garden Pond Filters

Pond Skimmers
Skimmers are garden pond filters, also known as mechanical filters that require some type of screen, basket, or net to trap waste. Skimmers are normally installed around the surface of a garden-pond and drags in the top-layer of water, filtering-out floating waste like grass, sticks, and leaves. Skimmers are vital for preventing free flowing debris from ultimately plummeting to the floor of a garden-pond and putrefying. The amount of debris floating within a pond will establish how frequently the filter will be detached-from the skimmer to get rid of debris.

Biological Filters
Biological filters consist of useful bacteria inside the actual filter that sanitizes the pond water at a molecular level. In order to decompose ammonia within the fish-excrement, a biological-filter will be required. Biological filters metamorphoses destructive ammonia into nitrates, that then turns into a form of food for vegetation inside the pond.

-Summary

Mechanical filters with a pond skimmer are quite efficient; however, it must be installed on the exterior of the garden-pond because it can occupy such a wide area. Therefore it is best suited for large garden-ponds. Many people prefer a combination of mechanical and biological filters. The best thing to do is to consider where you have space to install your garden pond filter and how you want the outcome to appear.


If you want to find out more, check out our pond filtration guide:
http://www.pondquip.com.au/pages/Pond-Filtration-Guide.html

Read More