A water garden can add serenity to your landscape, bringing a wonderful addition to your home. Water gardens are easy to install yourself and are really fun for kids to feed fish in the pond and to enjoy. A water garden will also add value to your home and bring another outdoor activity to your yard.

Water gardens are available in either a pre-fabricated plastic configuration of varies sizes and shapes or installed with EPDM liner - which is reserved mostly for the larger ponds. If you want fish in your pond, such as japanese koi, you should plan on at least a 500 gallon pond. You will also need to aerate your pond to keep it free of algae and mosquitos.

Many people circulate the water of their pond with a recirculating pump, which runs through a filter and or UV control filter. The water discharge from this pumped system can be run through a waterfall feature giving you another interesting feature in your outdoor garden.

When he liner or prefab pond is installed you can add your edge treatment and plantings, fill the pond with water and then add your goldfish or koi. I tend to favor the smaller fish as they acclimate much easier than larger fish and they are by far much less expensive to purchase. Plan on about 1 fish per 100 gallons of water.

Koi can be fed with floating fish food, which is healthy for them and makes them grow faster. What we do is clap our hands prior to feeding time and the fish swim over for their treats. The kids love it!