Pond Skimmers should be a major consideration for fish ponds second only to the biofilter and the UVC.

OK, if you think pond skimmers are so important, what are they and why didn't someone tried to sell me one when I bought all the other kit for the pond?

Most ponds are in gardens and gardens have plants and shrubs and trees in them. These produce all manner of debris and detritus. In the Autumn you can cover your pond with a net to stop leaves from blowing in, but even so you will only stop the majority of leaves. Many hundreds of leaves will find their way in early or late on either before or after or under the net, despite any strict adherence to the mantra to make the pond site away from trees. The Oase Floating Lake SkimmerBesides there are hundreds of successful ponds that have only been properly landscaped into place when they have a ruffle of trees and shrubs around them. In spring and summer, pollen and flowers blow off the trees and in very late spring many evergreen shrubs and trees have a fall that sheds many of the old their old tired leaves.

If you had a swimming pool you would have a skimmer system built into the side of the pool sucking in the water and collecting all the floating debris on the pond before it sinks to the bottom. You folks iThe Oase poolside skimmer of the swimming pool type.n the USA have been building this sort of skimmer into the side of your ponds for years and you cant understand why I'm bothering to make any bones about it. Well, here in the UK it has always been something that we thought we didn't have to bother with, besides it requires quite a bit of forethought and plannning and real engineering i.e. building. There has always been the excuse that we wanted to keep our ponds looking natural and besides the skimmers would suck up the tadpoles and goodness knows what. 

Well the news is that pondlife friendly skimmers have been around for a long time, and now , even if you had forgotten to put a skimmer in that's no problem any more. You can put one anywhere in the pond and hide it with plants or float it out in an unobtrusive spot. Some sit on the bottom of the pond and by linking up to your present pump can be adjusted to any height to reach the surface. The floating type have are generally self powered with their own little motor, but with these you not only get all the muck and the pollen sucked gently off the surface, you get a blast of oxygenating bubbles below the surface too. The floating types dont have to be permanently their either. You could just set them up for that shed of pollen that say comes from Lime trees in the spring, or petals from Cherry trees in May. Anything that helps delay the inevitable day of the big pond clean out, has to be worth its weight in gold. Oase do some of the best skimmers available in the UK, but they are expensive. There is a floating one for lakes and a couple of small floating Swim Skims for ponds. The also do one for installing in the edge of your pond but that can be difficult to instal retrospectively. They also do one that sits on the bottom of the pond and is adjustable in height. This is the least noticeable, but it needs a pump dedicated to it. Theoretically the pump can also supply water to a waterfall or ornaments, but dont expect a great deal of performance from it. People who get these also always seem to have ponds which have variable water levels, in that they are probably leaking and losing water. They are constantly wading out to adjust the level of the skimmer to make them effective as the water level drops and then wading out again them when they have disappeared after they have topped the pond up.

The simple AquaSkim 40 pond skimmer that sits on the bottom of the pond

A cutaway to show how the Oase Swim Skim floats, skims and oxygenates.

Diagram showing the SwimSkim in action.

 THE WAY TO DO IT IN THE USA

Like I said, skimmers are part of the typical pond kit for your average American pond builder, and the size of them may make you feel that you are installing enough plumbing that cope with a effluent from an average sized petrolAnother pond with with a Savio skimmer. Where is it?: You can just see the cover top left of the picture Savio Skimmer filters can look a bit beyond the amateur at first sight.: This is because they are for people serious about their ponds and plan to get it right from the start.refinery than a small pond, the the art is in the design and the installation. In the States installing ponds is an established profession that is taken seriously. Nothing is left unconsidered. Everything is planned for, a team moves in and is gone in a matter of days. There is no disruption,  and if there is it is short lived. The only way you know they have been is the fact that you now have a pond - but more about this at a later date. Everything that is used is of a professional standard and looks purpose built for a proper job. There is none of this frail 'Toys R Us' level plastic junk that hardly manages to see out its guarantee.

Most ponds are built to last and work. They are crystal clear and why not? If the  technology is available to keep them clear what is the point of building ponds that just turn green. So in the Sates you get the sort of kit that Savio supplies all around the world. It looks big and intimidating but once it is in the ground it is doing its  job, not just skimming but filtering too and you just cant see where it is doing it. Savio are the US company we at Water Gardener Magazine know best and a lot of their best materials are available in the UK. It is good, some of it is unusual to our eyes, but it seems to be effective. We'll be reviewing some American fads, fashions, techniques and kit very soon with evidence to show that it really works. Meanwhile visit Savio for more information at www.savio.cc.