Calling all pond owners

[PondersEnder]

Thought I’d start a pond thread now that we’re in spring. We’ve recently moved into a new house that had a lined pond which was not at all looked after, and after many, many hours of work (including rescuing a lot of frogs and fish) we have now installed a 1000 litre preformed pond.

Still very new to pond-keeping so if there are any pond enthusiasts out there let me know as I am constantly googling at the moment!

Pond stats here:
1000 litres - preformed
Home to approximately 10 fish (species yet to be determined as the rescue was very traumatic!)
Plus lots of tadpoles doing well
UV filter and pump installed
Lots of plants in with more on the way
Hedgehog ramp in place
Pond snails on the way

Any top tips? Things you wish you’d known when starting out? Favourite pond plants?

Your pond snails may get eaten, mine did (or crawled off). Keep a spare small indoor tank as if a fish gets Ill, you may need to separate it from the others. Don’t introduce new big plants without hosing off the old dirt, fish hate it when a foreign object is introduced into their environment. Protect it from herons, they WILL find them. Other than that, enjoy your lovely new pond

That sounds lovely OP.
Make sure you have lots of plants around the pond as wildlife likes a bit of cover to protect them as they get to and from the water.

Sounds as if you’ve thought it all out, sounding good.

Echo what a previous poster said about having a net or the local heron will very soon find you. Also even with a filter and UV the pond can get mucky after a while so I have a professional come and clean it out and refill once or twice a year but with a small pond you could probably do it yourself.

You don’t need masses of plants or they will take over, oxygenating ones are good and water Lillies for shade.

I didn’t consider the snails crawling away! We’ve ordered trapdoor snails so hopefully they’ll spend most of the time on the pond floor. It’s been difficult to see the fish species we have, the previous pond was so green we didn’t even think there were any fish and we didn’t see them until it was 75% empty of water!

That’s a good shout about hosing off the new plants, will do, and there is already a fake heron in place. It’s very ugly though so looking for prettier versions!

Thank you! We have a range of marginals in already (marigold, water mint and forget me nots with more on the way), and are in the process of planting creeping thyme on one side and wildflower seeds on the other for the wildlife. There were so many frogs in the old pond (nearly 50!) and the garden attracts a lot of birds so we want to keep them happy.

I’ve been looking at cleaning solutions for next year, there is already some soil and algae in the new pond unfortunately as we had to act very quickly to get the fish rehoused in one day but we already have a few oxygenators in place. We have a fringed water lily on the way and have also ordered a floating plant holder and there are some trapa natans nuts in which will hopefully bloom soon.

Strange question but how do you all actually see your fish? We get glimpses but they’re so quick! I haven’t started feeding them yet as the water temperature is taking a while to stabilise but they seem to have really woken up in the last few days so I’m going to start feeding at the weekend I think-when do you begin feeding?

They will soon get used to you feeding them, especially if you keep to a similar time each day and you’ll get a good look at them then! I heard that the plastic herons can sometimes ENCOURAGE herons, if they’re looking for a mate! Not sure how true this is.

Once you start feeding them they will quickly start to put in an appearance and become tame. At this time of year only feed them 2/3 times a week, once we get into summer proper and temps rise you can increase to daily. Overfeeding is tempting as in summer months they seem constantly hungry, open mouths etc. but too much fish food can pollute the water so keep to amounts they can eat in a few minutes.

It would be nice if they do become tame, I’ve been feeling sorry for them as the last few weeks have been very stressful, but we’re now at a calmer stage. I used to have an indoor tank so am good with not over feeding fish but it’s difficult when I currently do not even know how many there are. I’m tempted to buy an underwater camera!

Oh no that’s not good! It’s really ugly but we’ve kept it for now but I’ll do more research on their efficacy for keeping herons away as I definitely don’t want to encourage them! Next door also have a pond but they have koi which I’m assuming a heron wouldn’t attempt…

They get used to feeling the vibration of your footsteps approaching the pond and as you gain their trust will approach the top. You can feed them now as it’s warm, they will need the weight gain for when you stop feeding during the winter. The fake heron won’t stop the real herons, we tried that, they are quite clever. You’ll definitely need a net or a pond fence. Herons need to land to fish, so any flat surface around the pond will allow them to catch and eat the fish. 🐠

Our current house we have made a wildlife pond (no fish), but in our previous home we made a fishpond. The fish were fed same time of day, they would be waiting, they will soon get used to you. On hot summer days we sometimes sat in the edge with our feet in the water, and they would come and nibble our toes.
if you can find some drainpipe (preferably terracotta), put at the bottom so they have some shelter to hide in.
this our pond, second year, lots of lilies now

No idea how many litres our pond is,we inherited it. It's above ground brick built,butyl liner. We have a UV filter, which also has these blocks,that look like large scourers. DH removes them all every 6 weeks,hoses them off. Wind and sun evaporate the water fast. We started out with 4 gold fish about 10 years ago, often have 12. One of the originals died recently. We have oxygenators and a rather pretty water lily. The pond is covered with chicken wire. We get herons,gulls.

If you have goldfish or koi they will eat the tadpoles. Personally I'd rehome the fish as I'd rather have native species thriving in the pond.

Oh that’s a shame about the heron, I was hoping to avoid a net!

@FizzingAda Your pond and garden are incredible. I bet you think you're in heaven when you're on that bench with a cup of tea.

That’s stunning! I hadn’t thought about putting anything on the bottom for the fish to hide in, will have a look at that, thank you.

The plan is to not introduce anymore fish and to see these one through. We were going to have a wildlife pond when we thought there weren’t any fish but now we have them we want to keep them. The frogs do seem to have been doing really well in the garden in general-we found an unholy amount when we replaced the pond so I think quite a few seem to be surviving, and we have given the tadpoles lots of places to hide away from the fish. I’d love a newt but that might take a while!

I have about 20 goldfish in my pond and the last time I checked there were lots of tadpoles too.

i didn’t want fish initially but I’m glad I do now, they make the pond for me.

They are fun to have and I think certainly in this pond it doesn’t seem to have affected the frogs, the amount of frogspawn was something to behold!

I’ve been googling the type of fish I think we might have and there’s definitely a large goldfish and then a school of smaller ones that looked grey/white with orange tips - could they be rudd? They are quite small, probably about the size of my palm.

Possibly Rudd. I have goldfish and shubunkin, some of which are quite colourful.

Another question: what time of year is best to deep clean a pond?

There’s definitely one goldfish in there, it’s quite big but weirdly is the one we haven’t seen since we put it in the new pond! I’ve looked today and the oxygenators are growing well on the pond floor so I think some of them might be hiding there.