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?

Early spring and/or late autumn. I usually do March and October.

Late August/ early September is good because tadpoles will etc will have developed but nothing is hibernating at the mud in the bottom ( except for dragonfly larvae)
Herons need to walk into water so you can put up a wire fence to prevent them and it's less intrusive than netting. I have also had a crow take fish from my.pond!

Ah I hadn’t considered there would be anything hibernating in the mud, that’s good to know! I was planning on getting one of those suction vacuums. Looking at the pond I don’t think a heron would be able to access it as I don’t think it would be able to walk into the water from the sides as it’s quite deep once you get past the marginal shelves. This is the pond we have: https://www.oase.com/gb-en/products-a-z/family/product/p/36770-preformed-pond-pe-1000-int.html

That’s interesting because we already had frogspawn in March - is that normal or could it be due to a warmer winter?

Yes we did too, I used to worry about disturbing it but somehow it seems to survive the clean or some of it. Pond man is a bit meh about frogspawn as he says toads and frogs can spread disease but I don’t think he deliberately removes it (am usually at work so not sure what goes on).

After nearly five years of being a pond owner a lot still remains a bit of a mystery, ie one year we had a grass snake in there but I have never seen it since. I do believe though as long as the water quality in the pond is ok and there are no leaks that everything else generally sorts itself out.

Oh a grass snake would be amazing to see!

That’s interesting about frogs and diseases-I was not aware of that, my assumption has always been that frogs and toads are always encouraged. I like the frogs so am happy to keep supporting the tadpoles.

I do want it to be become as self-sustaining as possible, there was a leak in the old pond which is what caused the rush to sort everything out and another reason we went with a preformed one.

how lovely, I love a good pond.
A few points

1. don;t deep clean. at least not regularly. You don't need to, scoop out the leaves that fall in and let the whole pond just evolve as it should. Ours is over 20 years old and we deep cleaned it once when we moved in.
2. 50% or more of the water surface area shoudl be covered by plants. that stops too much algae growing and it provides hiding places for the fish. Lots of plant cover = bad luck for herons.
3. Put something on the bottom for the fish to hide under. A pipe or some bricks with a shelf
4. if you buy a water lily, think about size. full size ones are huge. Miniature are actually not that small and work well. But the fish will dig it our of the pot. So put a cage of wire mesh round the wtaer lily pot
5. we used to have LOADS of frogs and toads, but now none. I think the fish eat all the tadpoles

Also be careful in the winter as its only 2ft deep usual guidelines to keep any fish in a pond is min 3ft deep.

Never ever use tap water to clean the filters out as I've seen above someone mention they do, always use some pond water.

I was hoping to avoid deep cleaning for a while but since we had to keep some of the old pond water the new pond already looks…established! Hopefully it will now stabilise.

We have just had a delivery of more plants including a fringed water lily and a floating basket which will both go in today, and I’m still waiting for the trapa natans to bloom which seems to be taking a while!

I will definitely look at hiding places for the fish, that’s a good shout. And I don’t know if the fish do eat all the tadpoles here because there were a lot of frogs and the tadpoles are still happily swimming away! I’ve also just put in the snails so fingers crossed they do well.

What is the significance of the pond depth in winter?

Ice can go down a lot further than you think, which is why 3ft is the min recommended. As you haven't i would suggest you get some polystyrene to float on top of the water in the winter so it helps keep a small gap open for air and to stop the pond freezing over.

ETA: its good you have kept some of the old water as this would have kept some of the good and necessary bacteria needed to keep the water stabilized.

I’ve got a pond. Will post more about it later. Other creatures to watch out for are cats. They will certainly try to fish for fish if they get a chance. So a net is a good idea. Or get a yappy dog who will hopefully chase cats away.

Don't break the ice in winter by bashing it, it will shock the creatures in the pond. Pour some hot water on it to melt a hole for oxygen.
most important - get a comfy bench, and enjoy!

We used to float a tennis ball on the pond,to break up ice. If you have fish,you can't pour boiling water in,it has to be dechlorinated. We have water butts. When they run dry, we have to fill every container and leave for 24 hours to de chlorinate. We now have a pond heater.

We’ve actually just put in a floating basket made of polystyrene so that’s good, and yes I’ve made sure to keep some of the old water. It was gross but it’s in there!

I’ve already got my lounger ready! We’re building a rockery on the other side which will give a nice seating area-all the massive rocks that were around the old pond are being put to use.

My pond came with the house. I had no idea what to do with it so my stepdad helped out, installing a pump, waterfall, fountain and putting in aereated (sp?) plants. Don’t think I’ve ever seen water snails. Just got a few plants from local aquarium including water lillies. The fish came with the pond, goldfish. There used to be frogs in the bottom pond but they’re not there this year. There are steps for frogs to climb out onto.

We have a large wildlife pond (9m x 5m) which is full of newts in particular. They are great and lovely to see but they do eat everything else. The frogspawn never stands a chance. We also had sticklebacks in there but I think the newts have even out competed them. I might add some more to address the balance.

Okay we have a frog in the pond! Just saw it swim down. Ridiculous question I know but it will be able to swim back out won’t it? With it being a preformed pond it doesn’t have lots of ledges at different heights so it would need to swim from the bottom to the top in one. There is a shallower ledge near the top and marginal shelves as well as a hedgehog ramp.

Yes it will be able to swim out or hop out. You could make ledges for it though to crawl onto.

There is one inbuilt ledge in the pond (I’ve encircled it in green here) - it’s probably around 10-15cm deep so the can rest there and then there are the marginal shelves all around it. I’ve also attached a photo of the hedgehog ramp which is also available (excuse the leaves in the water in the photo-it’s much clearer now!) I think I might be worrying too much…

We have a wildlife pond about 4m by 3 m.
It flourished when it was covered with a grid for 15 years when DC were little. A few years ago I had to have it relined as it was leaking too much. Since then I've been plagued with blanket weed don't mention barley it doesn't work
It's got a lot of soil in the bottom where a container tipped in. Lots of newts who have killed all the frogs and eaten all the tadpoles.
Bit stuck with what to do. I can't get in it myself.

Fish and wildlife don’t mix depends which you want

To clean mine I use a plastic grass rake and gently let the weight of it scrape along the bottom - leave the gunk in a basket for 24hrs by the side to let the critters make their way back this should be done in winter when stuff is dormant

That should be fine.