What to do with our 'pond'? Help!

[Ralphstar]

We have recently moved house and have inherited a beautiful mature garden with a teeny tiny pond. My guess is that it is an old shallow butlers sink, that fills with rainwater. We did have a resident frog, although we haven't seen him for a couple of months. This last week, it is absolutely teeming with mosquito larvae and without a frog to eat them, I am terrified they will hatch and we will have a mosquito infestation. Emptying the 'pond' would seem like the most obvious option, and filling it with soil and plants, but it has no drainage holes and I fear that drilling some in would shatter the ceramic. I'm guessing without drainage, every time it rained, they'd get very water logged. What do we do with it?? Put fish in it and hope they eat mosquito larvae?? I'm worried the 'pond' is not deep enough for the fish to find shelter from the elements/birds. Sorry to ask such a ridiculous question, but I just can't seem to think of any bright ideas!

Frogs are everywhere and will often find the water to eat the food source, so I wouldn’t worry. You could fill the sink in and make a big garden.

Could you dig the whole thing out? It doesn’t sound ideal. Maybe if you do want a pond you could start again?

I'd fill it in with soil and plant as a bog garden, that way when it's full of water you won't lose the plants, and the frogs will still have somewhere to go.
We have a small pre formed pond which was overgrown and full of muck when we moved in. We'd seen two frogs so had a bucket ready to put them in as we cleared - we found 21! We still never see more than four or five at a time

Yes, a bog garden would be a good plan if you'd prefer to fill it in.

Otherwise you could add a small shoal of rosy minnows. They are tiny, delights and love mosquitoe lave. You'd have to work out how many would be right for the size of the pond and (presuming it really rather shallow and will freeze solid) bring them in in winter though.

IIRC 5-6 minnows per 10 gallons is about right.

Are you in U.K.? We don’t have mosquito. Apparently some places in south east are prime to become mosquito breeding areas, but not yet.

I'd get rid, we had a pond for a while and it was so difficult to keep clean and provided a brilliant water source for perennial weeds that I wanted to get rid of.

We don’t have mosquito We do, and I have had the bite marks to proof it. What we don't have (yet) is any of the diseases associated with mosquitoes.

www.gov.uk/government/collections/mosquitoes

If you break the surface tension of the water the larvae will die, couple of drops of washing up liquid will do the job if it's a small pond.

We don’t have mosquitos? My limbs beg to differ!

see here: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/577340/Mosquito_control_factsheet.pdf

PMSL at 'we don't have mosquito'.
WTF? I'm in Cambridgeshire and the f*ckers are around most of the year. Not in droves, and no not with disease. But we do have them.

You could put some oil it it, olive or rape seed etc. The larva will die as they wont be able to breath. You just need a few drops and then add a couple more each week. The frogs wont like it though

mosquitoes only lay eggs in stagnant water, you could try putting a solar powered fountain in the pond?

You could fill it with pebbles and have a little fountain in it.