do you have a pond in your garden

[HoraceCope]

i notice a couple of ponds around where i live are completely empty
understandably given the drought.
what happened to the fish or dont people necessarily have fish in their ponds

I have a pond and have been topping it up now and again as a lot of water seems to have dehydrated. The fish are fine and the birds come and drink there.

Lots of my pond water has evaporated over the past few weeks but I’ve been topping up from a water butt to keep it at a level that’s manageable for the fish.

Garden wildlife ponds tend not to have fish, but ornamental ponds sometimes do. Putting fish in is a conscious choice unlike frogs etc. which find the pond.

Most people with fish in their ponds would keep them topped up.

My elderly mum has a pond in her garden. No fish. It was my dad's hobby; he died 9yrs ago and mum couldn't cope with their upkeep, so we had them moved. The pond has water in, with lots of plants and is teeming with frogs and other wildlife. Mum does top it up occasionally to protect the creatures living in it.

I have a small pond with two fish, I leave tap water in a couple of buckets for a few days then put into the pond, and repeat. The water level is not up to the top but is reasonable, if i did nothing there would be no water. The chlorine in tap water evaporates after a few days, hence the buckets.

Our pond looks very sad, it’s down to about 1/3 it’s level even though we kept it shaded and topped up when we could with a water butt. We have lost some fish, mainly because it’s easier for the heron to get them - we have now netted it to stop this happening again.

we cut the plants down so they didn’t take the water which was very upsetting they looked so lovely, but then of course this exposed the fish to the heron ‘( something we should have thought about, ) thank goodness the dog chased it off or it would have eaten more,

one of the biggest problems is keeping the water oxygenated. It’s got to a level that running the fountain doesn’t work. And the filters are too low for them to add much oxygen alone, the best way is to break the surface water - like rain or the fountain. So DGD suggested using her little sisters bath toy, runs across the water splashing, we set this up a couple of time a day and has really helped.
Added a photo taken in june when it looked lovely

Ours has fish, and is teaming with wildlife, with have 2 toads - Tommy and Tilly, loads of newts and the dragonflies this year have been huge

Small ponds empty surprisingly quickly even when it’s just a little warm or sunny. Ours is pretty tiny, and in the heatwave it pretty much evaporated overnight.

thanks for t he explanation
i was wondering where the fish were, i guess or hope they decided not to have fish

Interested as I am actually currently putting a pond in my garden, don’t want fish beer really hope to get frogs and newts etc.

Can you not get some air stones and an air pump?

I tend to run the hose straight in now and the fish have been fine.

We're on a hosepipe ban here, and our water board exemptions say that you can use a hosepipe for animal health/welfare reasons, and fish in garden ponds are included in that exemption.

I would love to put a frog pond in but I worry that frogs need to migrate to find their own pond when they mature and no-one else in the nearby streets has a pond so where would they go? Welcome advice as I am obviously a complete beginner

Same here. We have frogs and lots of insects and plants that rely on the water.

I wouldn't have fish, I wanted an 'organic' wildlife pond where the ecosystem grew itself plus I'd be very upset if the heron came and nicked them all!

When I was a kid, my dad knew somebody with a large house and he dug a massive pond in his garden. He didn't stock it with anything. Within a couple of years it was full of life - all sorts of pond weed, amphibians etc, plus fish, and a fisherman told him that fish eggs had been unwittingly carried into the pond by waterfowl who'd arrived with the eggs stuck to their legs and undercarriages.

Nature finds a way.😍

Just love this!

I don't have a pond in my garden. If I did, I suspect that DDog would refuse to come indoors ever again 😂She is quite the water baby! Big puddle? No problem for the Splash Queen!

Also, my visiting heron would probably go fishing in it.

The one at work has hardly any water in it. It's a wildlife pond.

I have a wildlife pond with newts and frogs. We don’t have a hosepipe ban so I’ve been keeping it topped up.
To be honest, even if we did have a ban I would still top it up. It’s horrible to think of any animal dying. We’ve lost enough to wildfires. It’s a horrible situation and I hope the rain comes soon.

I have a small pond, which I keep topped up, but it doesn't have fish or frogs in. I just keep it for the water plants and for drinks for any insects. I have large tubs full of water and plants which provide drinks for birds, as well as a bird bath. I live on a barren housing estate where virtually no one has a garden, so hardly any wildlife.

I'm having to top up my koi pond frequently. All summer we've had so many birds hanging out in the waterfall to drink and cool off. There's a gang of wood pigeons who queue up on the fence and take turns. It's been quite fun to watch.

What a beautiful post. I feel like framing that and putting it on my wall

I did. It is totally dried up now.

We have a Koi pond and have had to fill it up to stop it getting low.