Show me your pond!

Last week I’ve set up the UV filter to run seperately and have had this running for a week 24/7, at the moment I’ve noticed very little improvement in the water clarity.

What would be your next steps?

I know you said it looks green in the pond but this can be misleading. Take a pint glass and fill it with pond water. Is it brown or green?

Green is algae, you need to kill it with UV or clump it together with something like Tetra Algorem I recommended earlier in the thread and remove it with your mechanical filtration.

Brown is detritus, bacteria, etc. You need to improve mechanical filtration (for example sponges).

Yellow tinted is tannins, ensure leaves do not rot in the water.

Generally ‘cloudy’ but not obviously coloured could be a bacterial bloom, especially if it’s a new pond. Check ammonia level with a test kit. If over zero, add a bacteria product to your bio-media (assuming you have some, if not add some)

Thanks for the advice.

I checked the water in a glass as you suggested a couple of days ago.

As you say the water is in fact a cloudy yellow rather than green.

We have trees close to the pond so it suggests more a bacterial issue.

We added Pond Klear in to the pond the other day and the water clarity is improving.

In terms of filtration we don’t have anything currently, without any fish we didn’t think this was necessary but it looks like it is.

Would a flat filter box be sufficient? We don’t have any fish in the pond.

I’m sceptical of chemical or mechanical solutions. A pond should reach a natural equilibrium. A bit of patience may be necessary, plants will help once established but a couple of little things probably won’t be enough. You may need a large part of the surface to be covered. I can hardly see my ponds right now for vegetation, will prune back the growth at some point. But the water is lovely.

To be honest I’d much prefer going down the natural route with plants rather than adding my devices in to the system.

We’re not interested in keeping fish in the pond, we already see a lot of nature around the pond I guess out frustration is looking at murky pond so looking for a solution to improve the water quality y.

Happy to throw some cash at establishing more plants – neither us have much of a clue!

Would something like this do the trick: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161653029876?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=ObC7BRNYT62&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=-HIW4HgORWy&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Foolishly, we dug this during the first 40° heatwave.

20ft x 11ft and 4ft where they are standing. Ledges are 3ft deep as we have had problems with herons before.

It’s finished now, but problem with the UV means water is not clear, there are 13 koi in there, the biggest couple are about 2ft long.

Just back from 2 week holiday some hopefully be able to sort out UV and see the fish!

Do any of you Pondies have dogs too? i am also inspired by this thread but im fairly sure my dogs would massacre all the frogs and newts giving the opportunity!? 🙁

Not a great expert on pond plants @mikehow but I’d be looking more for floating cover with spreading leaves rather true marginals that may mostly stick to the edges and/or grow upright (eg reeds). You need to absorb a lot of the light and heat hitting the surface. I have something that I can’t remember the name of, unfortunately, and also water mint has taken off well. Water lilies of course. And that frondy stuff that floats under the surface (usually described as an oxygenator). Basically I also bought a lot of random things off ebay and chucked them in, one or two vanished but most have settled in.

Marginals are fun and often attractive, of course – round the edges of my ponds I have a growing collection of pitcher plants which are fully hardy, also a couple of sundews, and various other flowering things. With an accompanying bog garden area (in theory, fed by pond overflow, but not so much right now!) that hosts some candelabra primula and a Chilean gunnera, which is restricted in size by the root space. I made the bog garden by digging a hole and lining with pierced pond liner.

@mahalo
My dog has never touched one that I know off.

@mikehow
Free Member

To be honest I’d much prefer going down the natural route with plants rather than adding my devices in to the system.

We’re not interested in keeping fish in the pond, we already see a lot of nature around the pond I guess out frustration is looking at murky pond so looking for a solution to improve the water quality y.

Happy to throw some cash at establishing more plants – neither us have much of a clue!

Ah okay, with no fish then @thecaptain ‘s approach should work nicely. Bacterial blooms will resolve in time and without fish there’s no need to hurry particularly.

A question though, how did you have UV running with no other devices in there? Or did you mean you just had it hooked up to a plain pump with no mechanical filtration attached?

thecaptain

I’m sceptical of chemical or mechanical solutions. A pond should reach a natural equilibrium.

Mechanical filtration is simply removing waste before it can break down into ammonia/nitrate/phosphate (aka algae food), plus the benefit of physically straining things out of the water making it clearer.

TBH It’s right to be sceptical of pond/aquarium chemicals in general, there is a lot of snake oil about. However the one i referred to (AlgoRem) is simply a flocculant plus phosphate binder and it works very well for green water.

Your approach is a good one for low nutrient input ponds but if you have any decent amount of fish (and therefore fish food) in there, you’d need a metric buttload of plants covering the water to stand a chance.

@sc-xc looks great, similar size to ours. The UV/mechanical filters plus a bit of clear pond treatment in the summer means I can see my fish. But it means the Heron can see the fish too remember. Have you built any caves on the bottom for them to hide in?

Don’t know what happened to our water lilies this year. Most didn’t shoot at all 🤔

Do any of you Pondies have dogs too?

Yes, and she loves swimming too but has never bothered with the pond, other than drinking from it. She’ll sniff any frogs or toads but leaves well alone. I think they can actually be an irritant, so maybe she tried it once and learnt it was a bad idea.

Today this happened and I am chuffed!! https://twitter.com/darwendashers/status/1560953086100836352?s=21&t=Dtdh1B-XB3i4MIWRSAMITA

UV starting to work, here’s ours tonight..

Have we all got frog spawn/mini tadpoles yet?
Our frogs have almost filled the pond this year. There was a frost for a couple of nights this week, which luckily hasn’t affected the wriggly things in the pond.
I need some more pond plants, as Mrs, Blackbird keeps taking out the soil around some of the smaller plants (in baskets) to help build her nest.

Yup had 12 frogs this year in a pond that’s roughly 1mt2.
Lots of spawn of 2 different types definitely not toad spawn
One lot floating and the other about 100mm below the surface and a bit cloudy looking.
No taddys yet.

Have you tried leaving a small tray of mud for the blackbird. We did this and it saved some of the damage to the existing plants.

Bruce – great idea. Will try that thanks.

https://postimg.cc/MfK9gRb7

Bunnyhop
Full Member

Have we all got frog spawn/mini tadpoles yet?

Nothing this year, a heron or a cat killed all but one frog and two fish. 😔

Gonna nab some from my friends pond I think.

On the subject of herons/cats, are there any solutions which don’t involve having a net over the top?

Possibly mentioned this before but I’ve never bought a fish, and yet I have half a dozen that absolutely love to sunbathe. They’re getting bigger too.

Also spotted a froglet a few weeks ago, so there appears to be some kind of agreement in place.

bearnecessities – I love your pond.

Our tadpoles are getting legs. The other day I saw two waterboatmen take a large tadpole and start to eat it.
The hedgehog drinks from it, as do many other insects.
To everyone that has a pond, its worth going into the garden at dusk, the area around the pond will have many moths and if you’re lucky visiting mammals will come to drink. Last night I was watching 2 woodmice, and several hawkmoths.

Thanks! Funnily enough I was sat out there last night and a moth flew straight into the water, so I scooped it out.

It then flew straight back in.

And a third time.

Our ‘poles were legged up and jumping round the garden a long while back. Which is a bit unusual, in previous years we’ve had some stay as monster tadpoles all year.

Am a bit disappointed to never have had dragonflies or newts in our ponds, but maybe there just aren’t many of the latter around locally. We did get a brief visit from a family of ducks (inc. small ducklings) a while back, they must have had a fair walk from wherever they came from. It’s all drystone walls and fields round here, a bit of a mystery where they came from and went to! I’m particularly pleased with the pitcher plants though (sarracenia and darlingtonia), will try to take a pic once they are fully grown again. They seem to thrive on complete neglect and a miserable climate.

Six weeks ago, we decided against building a greenhouse, but putting in a pond on a spare bit of ground. A busy weekend digging down a metre, then forming some shelves. Liner, water, plants and we left it. No fish, and unless they make their own way in, there won’t be any. Leaving it now to see how it develops.

No photo, will try again!!

Where do people go to to get plants for a wildlife pond? We’re thinking of getting bare rooted plants off the internet to try and keep the cost down. Using our local garden centre will put the cost pretty high and we’ve got a fair area to cover. 14′ diameter.

I am not an expert, but you shouldn’t need too many plants, they grow, ask friends with ponds, also here, where are you located? Last year I had to remove lots of plant life as the roots had taken over, literally had to cut the roots out thought we had a pond liner leak but just the plants taking water (smallish pond 5×3′ very approx) we have frogs, they  were happy enough and life came back to pond OK, we also have shade now and lost very little water with our recent drought conditions i.e. hot weather!

I have bought some assorted pond plants through eBay. The pitchers came mostly from a stall at a local flower show but that company also does mail order which is how I got the darlingtonia.

It’s probably a good idea to get a variety as some might not like your environment for some reason (or you might not like them! Eg while the pitcher plants have flourished, I can’t get sundews to survive – even native ones peg out after a season or two.

Note also they all start small but some of the ones that settle in will soon fill the available space!

Where do people go to to get plants for a wildlife pond?

We got a lot of ours from Waterside Nursery when we built our pond – https://www.watersidenursery.co.uk

Pond specialists, Online only, lots of good advice on their site to help.  Not the cheapest – good quality and would recommend though.

As others have said – don’t go mad putting in loads of plants – they will fill out quickly.

Thanks very much for your help. While I was contemplating where to get the plants my wife had already gone to dobbies and bought a load! Tbf the discount for the bulk buy meant that prices compared quite favourably with what I’ve seen online. Here in Suffolk rain isn’t that plentiful so I built a fairly large pond with a decent depth in the sump and plenty of shallow area for the main marginal and emersive planting. Hopefully there is still enough time left before autumn for them all to establish and spread a bit. We had the pleasure of seeing a first wildlife since filling the pond, swallows diving down to take a drink. Marvellous!

Our native waterlily isn’t doing very well this year, it’s spread but not flowered yet. I think the very warm June has affected a lot of plants. Ducks coming into a small garden pond always bring a smile.
If the pond is big enough Daubenton’s bats will pick up midges and other insects from the top of the water.

Our waterlilies have done well, I think a warm June here is basically tolerable weather for a change compared to the usual bleak windswept hillside 🙂

Possibly also helped by renovating that pond over winter and making more space.

Can I just second the “don’t get too many plants”.

I’ve had my pond three years now and have pulled most of the plants out. I’m no expert so won’t comment on specifics but so many spread it was ridiculous. One that was a kind of mint was a particular sod. The ‘reed’ type thing pictured was tiny when I bought it, and it’s still in its basket, but it spreading like a bugger – I’m leaving it though as the frogs love hiding in it, but an example of how something initially about 5″ wide and a few fronds can spread.

Forgive the liner/general appearance – I’ve done some remedial levelling and clearing of wild flowers around the pond, which were a bloody terrible idea in hindsight – I’ve  realised wildlife/wildflower areas are for those with fields or huge gardens they can allow to neglect.

Six weeks ago, we decided against building a greenhouse, but putting in a pond on a spare bit of ground. A busy weekend digging down a metre, then forming some shelves. Liner, water, plants and we left it. No fish, and unless they make their own way in, there won’t be any. Leaving it now to see how it develops.

Ours has generally settled in quite nicely, we’ve had a couple of visits from (I assume anyway) a heron that has reduced the fish population from 5 to 3, but other than that all ok. Birds love it, insects love it and it generally brings us a lot of pleasure 🙂

Agree about planting too much. We’ve only got 1 water lily, 2 oxygenaters and 2 flowering pond plants. But ine has gone beserk.

I’ve had to dismantle the covid infinity pond to make way for a kitchen extension. Not very happy about that. Kept the, plants, liner and pump and we have tons of stone and the wood from the original project so hoping to create a new pond somewhere soon. This thread is great – inspiring stuff, and lovely to see the early projects maturing.

Fairly new to this pond lark. We’ve put two in this year. The one that gets the most sun went a bit “milky” during the May/June heat wave and is starting to clear a bit now. Would this have been caused by excess UV?

Pond is full of life BTW. Frogs, snails, plants, bugs etc. There is a pump too to keep the water moving.

Harry_the_Spider
Full Member

Fairly new to this pond lark. We’ve put two in this year. The one that gets the most sun went a bit “milky” during the May/June heat wave and is starting to clear a bit now. Would this have been caused by excess UV?

Pond is full of life BTW. Frogs, snails, plants, bugs etc. There is a pump too to keep the water moving

I posted earlier in the thread about identifying different causes of cloudiness. Depending on the colour it could be bacterial blooms, algae blooms, or even just dust/detritus that’s getting stirred up.

Milky white. Seems to have subsided a bit over the last week or so.