Methods and Myths
A newly formed concrete water lily pool, even after the prescribed setting period of ten to fourteen days, releases a tremendous amount of free calcium into the water the first few times it is filled. This water, like the alkaline strong 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 thrive at all. Water too bitter for humans to drink is also poisonous for goldfish to "breathe." In fact, a green, or uncured, water lily pool will kill goldfish immediately. An improperly cured pool, one in which the water contains persistent traces of alkalinity, will kill them 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 die first, the hardier ones soon afterwards. There is a lot of advice about curing water lily pools. Some of it can be helpful but some of it is based on myth. The following will look at curing advice and dissolve a few myths on the way.
Exploding Some Myths
There is one bit of headache causing advice that many casual water lily pool gardeners insist on passing to novices: build the pool, fill it, plant it, sit back and wait. These "experts" go on to say that everyone knows water lilies will not 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 will also find the water lily pool liveable.
One of the difficulties in beating down this misinformation is that it is partially true. Fill an uncured pool and plant it with strong-growing water lilies and, sure enough, they will grow but not well. Probably they will not even bloom. But water lilies 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 run-off 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.
So I can not say that the natural mellowing story is an out-and-out misrepresentation. I can say only that it is a very slow and disappointing way of doing business. Why put up with a green pool for a whole wasted season when you can cure it quickly, plant it and within a few weeks see growth in your pool that is really worth watching!