Any pond success stories??

[Helena2000]

I'm losing the will to live.
DD desperate for a pond in our (small) garden.
So DH and I diligently set upon a project to create one for her. We started out thinking it'd be a lovely thing to make for her.
She's got a few different difficulties going on and her antidote is to spend downtime at home and in the garden.
DH dug the hole, and I spent hours researching pond liner versus pre-formed ponds and size of pond/litres of water and learnt all about how many fish you can put in a certain amount of litres of water.
Anyway, bought a £280 pre-formed pond with a 250 litre water capacity because lots of reviews said cheap pre-formed ponds are useless and pond liner laid down in the hole splits.
Installed it and filled with water.
Spent an eye watering fortune on an all in one pond pump/filter/fountain. Made sure it was the correct pump strength for the pond's capacity/litres of water. Again, this took me hours of research and reading reviews.
Put plants in - oxygenators, marginals, a water Lily. These were very expensive, I was surprised by the high cost of pond plants! But I learnt they are essential for healthy ponds.
Let the pond sit for a week like this, then happily and excitedly travelled to the aquatic shop to but fish. Got told they won't sell them to us without testing the pond water first.
Travelled all the way home again. Fish less.
Following week, returned with sample of pond water. Happy days, I thought. Our pond water is crystal clear. Has been settling for 2 weeks now. Healthy plants growing in it. Lovely fountain. Pump and filter running splendidly. The fish are going to love it, I thought.
Man at aquatic shop tested our sample: chlorine levels too high.
Wouldn't sell us fish.
Sold us a de-chlorinator product, told us to put it in the pond and return in a week with another sample.
We did this.
Returned. Man tested pond sample: Chlorine issue resolved but now the nitrates are a problem.
Wouldn't sell us fish.
Sold us a nitrate solving product.
Told us to add this and return in 2 weeks.
We did this.
Returned with another pond water sample: nitrites too high. First the nitrates. Now the nitrites.
Wouldn't sell us fish.
Sold us a load of bacteria to put inside our pump/filter and told us to return in 2 weeks.
We did this.
Returned. Water sample. Tested: nitrites still too high. Told to add even more bacteria balls daily for 2 weeks then return. Even Sold us a bacteria 'bomb' to tackle the nitrites.
Went back with yet another sample on Saturday.
Tested: nitrites still too high. Still won't sell us any fish. Man at centre said he can't sell them to us until water nitrites and nitrates and chlorine are all within regulations.
So 2 months after installing this pond, we still have no fish.
And guess what has happened now. The water in our pond is rapidly going down in volume by the hour. It's obviously developed a leak. Despite me buying an expensive good quality one.
Waaaaaaah......this was supposed to me such a lovely little project to do with our DD!
I've spent hundreds of pounds and am no closer to having any fish!!!
Why is a pond creation so hard?!

My grandad had a pond and we put the one remaining goldfish in it when we got rid of our tank - 10 years on it was still going strong along with a handful of other ls he had, no filters, no special chemicals etc, just a natural looking pond. They are pretty hardy once established. No idea how long it lived as the house was sold with pond to pay for care, the new owners showed a picture the following summer when we bumped into them but didn’t keep in touch obviously

You're trying to establish an ecosystem which has a bacterial cycle. You can do it quickly and artificially but the chemistry is complicated to balance, or do it the natural way and leave it to establish itself for 6 weeks or so. I went down the wildlife pond route so after a couple of months nature just moves in and it doesn't take any work at all but it does take time for the plants to grow and start oxygenating the water and for the bacterial cycle to be suitable for life. Chlorine will re-set the bacteria so you should use the dechlorinator if you top up with tap water. Setting up a fish pond at this time of year is difficult though with the hot dry weather. Once we get the rain in the Autumn it will be easier. Just forget about it for a while and in a years time it will be lovely.

Birds are welcome to drink from our pond,we get gulls and herons, unfortunately the pond is pretty much covered with chicken wire.

I dug my own tiny pond. I aerate it with 2 large aerating stones bubbling away and have oxygenating weed and a small water lily (native British). It is so small I have only 2 goldfish and one green tench (who is useful as they eat a lot of the crud at the bottom of the pond. Definitely test the water (strips bought online) regularly, particularly in hot weather. Top up if need be (not too much in one go). You can lose fish really quickly if you don't keep an eye on water quality. Leaves in the pond eventually sink and rot, so pull out any and periodically clear excessive silt from the bottom to help water quality (I leave some for the larvae , newts etc). About a year after I started my pond I was getting newts, frogs and toads. They are excellent at dealing with the slugs and snails - if you go down the garden at night you will meet them doing their excellent work. My pond is very small and slightly overhung by a plum tree so the herons have not been a problem as they haven't noticed it.

Not much help to OP as I don’t have the space for a big pond although at my last house I did
We just tested the water ourselves and were never refused fish purchase
Our 2 local garden centres sell pond fish and have never even asked for water samples
For anyone with a small garden I can recommend a surface pond

This is pretty much ours but we’ve upgraded the pump and filter.

Think carefully about getting fish, they need the time and effort plus the expensive pump, filters and cost of electricity etc. Plus fish eat
frog spawn, newts and other good pond dwellers.
Wildlife ponds are so much easier and you get loads more inhabitants. Also get a water butt so you can top up with rain water, ponds don’t like to much tap water (avoid where possible). We have run a water gutter from the roof into the pond so it refills whenever it rains (always have an overflow though).
Make sure you have a beach area so that visitors can access the water to drink safely.

This is interesting as it sounds like ours. Its very small and has a pear tree over hanging. I do cover it over in the autumn to prevent leaves dropping in. No fish but does have a resident frog. Would love newts too. Anyway it has been taken over by water shamrock which has grown all around the edges and formed a thick blanket. I cleared as much as I could of the leaves and stems but pulling at the foliage causes the thick blanket to come away from the sides and it fills the water with mud. What should I do? Try to remove as much as poss or just leave it? Thanks for any help anyone can give!

I think I would pull it out a bit (so it is where you want it to be, not all over) and wait for resulting mud to settle then in an hour or so put your arm in and pull the mud out in handfuls (delightful task) so the pond is clean enough for the wildlife. I had to look water shamrock up and I see it is certainly fast growing! My newts just turned up but I do live next to a forest, so that helps. Do the pears drop into your pond when it is windy?

My pond is basically a big stable bucket sunk into the ground (I have a very small garden). It spent the first year being totally sterile while I worked out how to get plants in it without them just sinking without trace into the water. Bought some 'pond pockets', planted them up and haven't looked back! I've now got snails, all kinds of creepie crawlies and frogs for the first time this year (pond is five years old). No fish because there's not enough pond. I do have to top up frequently at this time of year, but everything seems to be going well.

Maybe it just needs time to settle. You're trying to rush it. Give it all time to breathe, and consider leaving it 'fishless' to encourage frogs, toads and newts.

If you know someone with a thriving pond, ask them for a bucket of water from it. That will contain the sort of micro organisms which get the balance right(probably have eggs from other larger creatures as well).

You're waiting for the filter to 'cycle' ie, to develop a colony of denitrifying bacteria that can cope with the ammonia and nitrite build up (the nitrate build up is solved by removing and replacing water) from all that lives in the pond.

This can only be done gradually - all the products marketed as instant cycle are going to be using the wrong bacteria (bacteria that survive in a bottle) and as those die off, the correct bacteria take time to colonise and the pond will experience high ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels again.

Shame the fish store didn't bother to tell you this but the reason is if you knew, you'd probably not bother, its boring.

Keeping fish/pond/tank... is about keeping water chemistry perfect. The fish/plants/inverts are secondary to that.

Buy your own chemical testing kit, when you see the nitrite levels and ammonia levels stable at 0 and nitrate is present (but reduced by chucking out a few buckets and replacing with dechlorinated tap water, you're safe to add a couple of small fish... then give it a month, test a couple of times, add a couple more small fish.

A pond can either be a wildlife pond... or a goldfish pond. Trying to have a pond be both is very tricky as goldfish aren't native and will out-compete native species for food (or will eat them).

If you do know someone with a very healthy pond - ask them for a chunk of sponge media from their filter, don't let them swish too much muck out of it, and ensure it is kept wet and transferred into your filter rapidly (within a couple of hours at most). This will transfer a good chunk of healthy bacteria and is the only way to 'instant cycle' but... if you then overload the pond with too high a bio-load (fish) you can still crash it. Ditto if youf ill pond up with untreated chlorinated tap water or other chemicals.

mrsjoyfulprizeforraffiawork
Thanks for the advice. (Sorry, I have hijacked this thread as I'm not the op). Ok, I'll try pulling it out..i'll probably have to use some secateurs as it's that thick and embedded into the sides. The pears don't drop in as this is the first year we've had any as it's a new(ish) tree. I felt all around the bottom and kept disturbing the frog but no sign of any newts. Also did have water snails but found an empty shell so they might be perished now. I think the balance is all wrong, probably due to the shamrock taking over and hardly any rain. Maybe I need something like a surface plant like a water lily.

@BooseysMom
You can order testing strips online (ebay probably or any aquatic/fish type businesses) so you can test the water easily. I have 2 sorts of pondweed for oxygenating and one small lily. Also, bundles of barley straw (online from pond supply places & ebay again) keep the water clearer - they float initially but later, when full of water, sink below the surface so not unsightly.