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| Curing the Fountain or Pool |
A newly formed concrete pool or fountain, even after the prescribed period of ten
to fourteen days to set, releases a tremendous amount of free calcium
into the water the first few times it is filled. This water, like the strongly
alkaline water in various streams in the West, is too bitter for man or
livestock to drink. The most vigorous of water plants may be able to
exist, but will do poorly, in water such as this. The gentler plant species
will not progress at all.
Water too bitter for humans to drink is also too poisonous for goldfish to "breathe."
In fact, green, or uncured, pools or fountains will kill goldfish
immediately. An improperly cured pool, one in which the water contains persistent traces of alkalinity, will kill them somewhat more slowly
but just as surely. Their fins and tails will split and fray. Gills will become inflamed. Eventually, the fish will give up the ghost and rise to
the surface, belly up, the weaker ones first, the hardier ones soon afterward.
It is a needless, though unintentional, cruelty which can be avoided
by curing the pool. There are various techniques for curing, and none
of them involves much trouble.
Exploding Some Myths about Fountains, Waterfalls, and Pools
"Natural Mellowing"
First off, let's explode some myths. There is one bit of advice that
many casual water gardeners persist in passing on to novices, and it
lets the novices in for headaches they would not ordinarily have. Build
the fountain, the self-appointed experts advise, fill it, plant it, sit back, and
wait. They go on to say that everyone knows water-lilies won't grow
well in a brand new pool, but a "natural mellowing" takes place after
the first season, and the lilies will then begin to reach out a bit. After
the flowers have become well established, goldfish, too, will find the
pool or waterfall livable.
One of the difficult things about beating down this misinformation
is that it is partially true. Fill an uncured fountain pool and plant it with strong growing water-lilies and, sure enough, they'll grow. They won't grow
well. Probably they won't even bloom. But they will grow. Also it is
true that after the first season, if the pool is well situated in the sunlight, the lilies will begin to bloom.
But this so-called natural mellowing procedure is merely attrition on
the part of Mother Nature. In a year of rainfall, and subsequent runoff through the pool's drainage system, the entire water capacity of the
pool is replaced many times, resulting at last in a fill that is no longer
alkaline.
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