Southern California Wizard

I've been asked by many people that have come to my house and seen my patio just how I did it. While I will state right away I'm no expert in many of the fields covered here in the creation of my water garden, I'm not afraid to hammer and glue with the best of them.

If you look closely at this picture, you see an ecosystem at work. There are many pieces to this puzzle and each have their role in maintaining a healthy, thriving pond. This didn't come easily. I went through many months of trial and error to get my water garden to be self-sufficient and (relatively) maintenance free. For an excellent description of the process, see Murphy's Fish in a Barrel web site for a more thorough explanation.

I feed the fish about once a week and replenish some water that is lost due to evaporation. The fish eat some of the algae and plants in the barrels, but I give them good quality fish food once a week. I feed them all they can eat in five minutes. In addition, I have a stream of filtered water that enters the system on a timer. I have to monitor this setup since depending on weather conditions it doesn't need as much water as some days. I hope to someday setup a system that will introduce water when the barrel falls to a certain level. I'm thinking of something along the lines of a float like they use in a swamp cooler.

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