All posts by Owen Jones

Gardening

The Way To Prepare Your Fish Pond For A Storm

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It does not matter where you live, I am sure that you have storms at some time of the year. In the north of the northern hemisphere, we are inclined to get lots of rain in winter and spring. In the tropics, there may be monsoons. Whatever you call them, they produce lots of wind and lots of rain in a short space of time – it is basically a storm.

The fact is that, if you know that a storm is approaching, you can take safety measures and save your precious fish, whether they are expensive or just dear to you. It might be useful to distinguish between minor and major storms, but that is only helpful if you can trust your weather announcer.

Minor Storms: the first thing to do is to stop feeding your fish, if you have enough notice of the storm. Fish can easily live for weeks on the insects and plant life in the water, so do not be concerned. The reason for stopping feeding is that if the storm damages your filtration system, the quality of the pond water will not deteriorate so much, if there is no uneaten food in it.

Take out some of the water to allow for the rainfall, but do a partial water change too, because otherwise the reduced water level will contain greater levels of toxins until the rain comes.

Remove items from the vicinity that can blow over and fall into your pond. It is a good idea to put a net over the pond to prevent debris being blown into it too. Flying twigs or branches could alarm or even spear your fish.

Major Storms: we are not talking about hurricanes here. If a hurricane threatens to hit, you ought to evacuate your fish to a temporary tank somewhere safe – maybe a 50 gallon barrel in the basement or something like that.

If you want to be totally sure that your fish will be ok, you could ask your local pet shop to take them away to look after them otherwise continue as for a minor storm but with the following extra precautions.

Disconnect all the electrical apparatus in and around your fish pond. Make certain that there is no way that a live wire can fall into the pond and electrocute your fish. Remove all the plants from your pond as they could be damaged by the wind and waves, but leave any stone hiding places that your fish will surely look for while the storm is raging. If you reckon that perhaps you do not have enough ‘caves’, build some provisional ones from bricks or blocks.

Put a double layer of netting over your pond and tie it lower down than normal, say only a few inches above the water line, but not so low that if a fish gets out, it cannot get back in. Lastly, build a wall of sand bags at least two feet high all the way around your pond. This will allow the water to get in and drain away, without taking your fish with it, which is why the net must be high enough to permit the fish to get back into the pond.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many topics, but is now concerned 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.

Garden Sheds and Offices

The Benefits Of Air Purifiers For Pet Owners

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Most people in the West have a pet: a cat, a dog, a hamster, a rabbit or a budgie. They are excellent company and doctors believe that having a pet lowers stress and stress is the biggest killer in the West. Keeping a pet helps you live longer. It is a real shame then that some people develop allergies to their pets.

If you or someone in your immediate family has developed an allergy to a family pet, it can be a complicated problem to work out. Particularly if you have young children. Young children become close to pets very quickly, so the obvious answer to the problem – getting rid of it – is not always an alternative. If this is your quandary, help is at hand.

You see, the allergens – the particles that cause allergies – are almost always airborne. The allergens come from tiny pieces of dry skin, hairs, feathers and dry faeces floating on the air and entering your nose while you are breathing. It is quite logical then that if you can remove these substances from the air that you breathe, you will decrease the severity of or even completely eradicate your allergy.

Therefore, you stricter hygiene routines could reduce your predicament. Bathe, comb or brush your pet more often and clean out their cages or baskets more regularly. This could work, but it probably will not work completely. This is because these substances are being shed by the second, just as every human being sheds bits of skin every second too. You have to prevent these substances becoming part of your inhalation of breath.

What you really require is an air purifier. Almost all air purifiers will remove pets’ detritus from the air, but be aware that not all air purifiers are the same. Most of the good air purifiers are quite specialist devices. Some will eradicate smoke more efficiently, while others will trap airborne mold and mildew more successfully. Therefore, you have to check the capabilities of any air purifier you like before you buy it.

Portable air purifiers can usually only handle a small volume of air at a time, so they will only cleanse a small room. This is all right if you live in a bedsitter, a caravan or a trailer or are camping out in a tent. If, however, you live in a house or apartment, you ought to try to invest in a whole house air conditioner. As the term says, this will clean all the air in your whole house at the same time, which is far better than doing just one room.

The trouble with less powerful, portable air conditioners is that as soon as someone opens the door, you are back to where you started, whereas a whole house air purifier means that you can walk around the house and go about your daily routines as normal.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with split air conditioning systems. If you are interested in Home Air Conditioning Systems, please click through to our site.