Comments on: Help me illuminate my little aquatic ecosystem

Question: Help me illuminate my little aquatic ecosystem

saraswati — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 01:16:16 -0800

There's a pond in my new backyard, help me brighten it up

The previous owners maintained a fish pond in the backyard and I absolutely love it. I thought it would be really cool if I could put an LED pool light in there to make things a bit more visible underwater at night. Will this affect the fish? Will the light be okay when the top of the pond freezes over in the winter? Is this even the best way to accomplish what I want to do? If not any assistance from seasoned pond professionals would be appreciated.

By: Robert Angelo

Robert Angelo — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 06:40:17 -0800

We use two pond lights in our fish pond. They have regular light bulbs, not LEDs. There is a timer on them which turns them on at night. They came from one of the big-box hardware stores (Lowe's or HomeDepot) and were not expensive.

The fish have never had any problem with the lights, as far as we could tell. There is some cleaning that you will have to do from time to time. For ours, the light bulbs have plastic snap-on clear panels covering them. We have to snap those off for cleaning.

It does not get below freezing where we live, so I can't advise on that point.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 07:11:28 -0800

I got my father a floating solar powered LED light for his pond that worked very well. It's floating shape made it immune to negative freezing effects. He didn't have fish so I'm not sure how they'd react.

The light was less than $20.

By: Tacos Are Pretty Great

Tacos Are Pretty Great — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 07:45:11 -0800

We had a pond in our last house, and lit it with underwater pond lamps. No obvious negative effects to the fish, though we only turned on the lights if we were actually sitting around outside, or entertaining.

By: ceri richard

ceri richard — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 10:40:48 -0800

Based on our British pond, as long as the light is insulated it'll be fine in all seasons. And it's a lovely way to watch the fish at night.