LED POND LIGHTING

I’ll deny I said this, but I want to turn your pond green.
As I try to continually steer Full Service Aquatics towards becoming “greener” in our practices and products I sometimes feel like that goal gets a bit farther away with every step forward, but in a good way. The more I utilize green products and incorporate green practices and educate myself on all things green, the more I realize that there is such an enormous amount of possibilities out there that I can put into play that I feel a bit behind in my strides toward a greener way of business and life.
The pond business for me has always been about the attempt to be green, what other job actually creates habitat and encourages biodiversity? Being green has always been something inherent in my personality. Yet when I look back on what I was doing, and how I was running my pond operations about 18 years ago I realize that I was pretty far from being green, yet just a step ahead of many others. One big difference from back in the dawn of Full Service Aquatics is that I do not use ANY chemicals (algaecides, herbicides, various medications) in my ponds any more. Over the years I have found methods to fight whatever pond battles I have by natural, sometimes organic methods.
Even in how I equip a pond has become important to me in regards to being green, sustainable, and environmentally friendly. One group of equipment that I am very excited about is the use of LED lighting for ponds. Lighting ponds is, to me, a critical part of pond design; so a pond can be enjoyed anytime of day or night. In the past, and admittedly now at times, I used non-efficient forms of lighting to achieve our lighting designs. My method of being energy efficient with these pond lights was to install timers so the lights could go on and off at specific times and not run all hours. Then I came across photovoltaic timers which only turn on when it gets dark and can be set to turn off “X” amount of hours later or when the sun comes up, whichever the client prefers. This was a slight improvement. Then I discovered solar lighting which I still employ sparingly but the technology is not perfected so the whole design lost a bit of appeal for me, and clients. More recently the advent of submersible, waterproof, all weather LED lighting has come to market and I’m psyched.
As with most new products I personally am the guinea pig for testing these products, so I installed all LED lighting in my pond. LED lighting many people know to be extremely energy efficient costing about $.08 for every $1.00 spent on traditional efficient lighting methods and who does not want to save 90+% on energy costs? The LED can deliver up to 30,000 hours of lighting (some say up to 200,000 hours, but I prefer to be a bit skeptical) compared to about 4,000 hours of lighting with traditional lighting. LED pond lighting fixtures are rugged and durable, although not recommended, they can handle being dropped…on ROCKS! LED lights are brighter too, like a lot, and have a whiter color band to them than traditional lighting. Every year the LED lighting gets better too, as technology improves, and this is only a good thing.
Most of us may have already seen the huge popularity with LED lights being used for Christmas and holiday lighting, but we can now see them in our municipal city lights, park lights; they are in our car’s headlights now; and before long we will only reminisce about the good old incandescent light bulb because LED is here to stay.
LED pond lighting looks great and makes sense economically and for sustainable reasons. Try them on your pond, you’ll love them! If you don’t have lighting for your pond what are you waiting for? You are missing out on a whole dimension of pond keeping I dare say you will enjoy immensely! Turn your pond green this season.