posted 12 years ago
Hi Alexa,
ducks are the angels of doom for a Natural Swimming Pool!...OK well I'm over dramatising.
Here are the reasons:
1) They pull up the plants in and round the pool. The plants are needed to condition the water in a Natural Swimming Pool.
2) They stir up sediments, introducing nutrients into the water. (nutrients leads to algae)
3) Their poo introduces lots more nutrients.
4) They are a health hazard albeit not a dangerous one. Swimmer's ich - cercarial dermatitis. Flatworm parasites that use both freshwater snails and waterfowl as hosts in their parasitic life cycles. On leaving the snail, they mistake swimmers for ducks and die as soon as they enter our skin. But it can cause an irritating itch.
A quack can send me into a Pavlovian response, I jump up, run out the door and shoo the wild ducks off the pools.
Hi I’m David. I am probably the only person to have two Organic Pools (aka Natural Swimming Pools). The reason for this over indulgence was to make a DIY film of the process. Loads of these pools have been made all over the place, helping make the world slightly wetter, pond by pond. I have also made a short film for the BBC about Natural Swimming Pools introducing the concept to a wider audience here in the UK. As a consequence of all of this, I have started giving courses to fellow self-builders who have traveled from far and wide to come and sit in my garden and talk about pools and ponds for two days. What could be nicer?
David Pagan Butler organicpools.co.uk