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?

How so?

I got some pond mussels for my pond and they help to filter the water naturally. I only have a small wildlife pond with no electric near it so I'm relying on nature doing its thing. We had 6 frogs join the 2 fish in the pond for a while and have seen a lot of birds drinking from the pond too. I've got a lot of oxygenating plants and things for the fish to hide under too.

Another question I have is for those of you with fish, do you have some form of waterfall/water aeration system alongside the filter or do you just have a filter? We have an external filter that returns water back to the pond via a hose in the water (do not have a waterfall or anything). Will that provide enough water movement to keep the water oxygenated? There’s a pump on the floor of the pond that feeds into the external filter.

Oh good, I imagine the frog is just getting used to the new space.

Yes we have a fountain to aerate the water.

I think it’s filter and waterfall - stepdad put it in.

And have fountain too. The pond is fairly easy to maintain now. Doesn’t get dirty.

Fish will dominate a pond they prey on smaller wildlife and increase the nutrient level which has a detrimental effect. If your pond is large go ahead but frogs and newts and bugs are great fun fish are boring and poo a lot in my experience

fish are definitely not compatible with wildlife. Thats why we just put in a few sticklebacks even though our pond is very large. I wanted to attract as much to the pond as possible. Unfortunately as soon as the newts took over nothing else stood much of a chance. They are cute though.

We have refugee fish from a neighbour's now-defunct pond. They've been there about 9 years. They're obviously happy as they are breeding.

We also have frogs, water boatmen, pond skaters, loads of damselflies, at least one newt and the annual swarm of tadpoles.

Lots of the tadpoles get eaten but there are thick mats of vegetation they can hide in there fish can't access.

We flush out the pond filter regularly but it's a pretty self-sustaining system.

If i turn my filter off and tap two stones together all mine swim up and and take the food from my hand. They are like marine labradors! I spend hours picking out the hair algea and they are crazy tame. It's an inherited pond but I think we have goldfish, tench, minnows and sticklebacks. No snails so interestingly I think an above poster might be right about them getting eaten. Our non fish wildlife pond has many snails though.

Our wake up call was Herons, decimated our fish, so we netted the whole pond in the end to keep them out.

We originally put in Goldfish, Shubunkin, Yellow Goldfish and Comets. Over the years they seem to have cross bred so we have all sorts including big black fish that never turned colour and white fish as well as yellow and orange and multicolour, mainly orange and white and yellow and white. The blue shubunkin trait seems to have faded away. Our pond had got pretty overgrown last year, clearing the worst of the plants (weeds?) recently I was pleased to see quite a few young fish as well as a few big ones. It does all need a revamp this year the netting is getting old and the edging needs sorting and bits replacing.

We have a bio edge on our pond that the fish don't usually get into, the tadpoles tend to be swarming about in there, baby fish often get in there as well which increases their chance of survival the adult fish are not picky about what they eat.

We had a fish pond but the fish grew huge and ate all the tadpoles, insects, waterweed and plants. Rehomed the fish and now just have a wildlife pond still have a pump and filter to aerate the water. Now have loads of wildlife.

As I think has been demonstrated by this thread - ultimately everything in a pond gets eaten by everything else 🤷‍♀️

I’ve got 2 ponds separated by a ledge. The frogs bred in there separate to where the fish were in the other pond.

Fish do grow big in ponds though apparently.

You’re already doing a lot of the right things, especially getting a UV filter and pump in early and adding plants straight away that makes a huge difference in a new pond settling in.
With a 1000L preformed pond and ~10 fish, the main thing to watch is water stability in the first few months. Even if it looks clear, the biological filter is still building up, so ammonia spikes can happen quickly, especially with feeding.
For your setup, flow rate matters more than people think. A lot of beginners go too weak on circulation ideally you want enough movement to turn the pond over about once per hour. That’s where choosing the right Best Pond Pumps really makes life easier, because underpowered pumps tend to leave dead spots where waste builds up.
One tip I wish I’d known earlier: don’t over-clean the filter media. Just rinse it gently in old pond water if it clogs, otherwise you wipe out the beneficial bacteria you’re trying to grow.
Also, once your plants establish, they’ll end up doing a surprising amount of the “filtering” work for you, especially marginal plants and floaters they help keep algae in check naturally alongside the UV.
Sounds like you’re on a really good track already with the hedgehog ramp and tadpoles too it’ll probably settle into a nice balanced little ecosystem sooner than you expect.

We have an inherited pond. It was for koi but they were rehomed and it was abandoned for years. Last winter/spring I dragged out loads of debris and gunk but no where near all of it as it was getting warm and I didn’t want to mess with the creatures too much. I added some cress and hornwort to try and use up some of the nutrients in the water and they have taken off. I tried adding back a pump but the power supply a has broken and apparently it’s not great for a wildlife pond so meh. ATM something is EATING the duckweed and I’m not mad about it, it gets so thick you can’t see in, can’t see deep anyway as it’s merky but the many newts are happy enough and we have a frog or two as well.

Id like some flowering plants to add but must try and wash them off this time as the ones I added before I think are where the bazillion snails came from.

We don't have fish, so the two small ponds we have came to their own equilibrium without cleaning or pumps. One of the ponds is a large builders trug and has been there for 3 years without cleaning. Froggy finds the water quite clear enough. Blooming foxes think the other pond is their play park and keep pulling out the plant baskets to use as a football. I guess that makes it a wildlife pond, just not the wildlife I expected!

We’ve just had another delivery of plants, and now have a range of deep water, marginals and oxygenators in, and one of the oxygenators is already growing quite large!

This is the filter and pump we have: https://www.pontec.com/en/pond-filter-multiclear-set-8000.html

We went to a pond specialist and this is what they recommended - this one is 2500 litres an hour. It’s not pretty but it seems to be getting the job done! I’m going to plan to install a waterfall next year.

It’s been really warm here today and the fish have been quite lively, by my count there are eight rudd (I think they’re rudd) one larger one that I can’t make out yet, and we definitely rescued a large goldfish but I have not seen it yet for the life of me-no idea where it’s gone!

That looks great! Yeah the local pigeons are enjoying pulling up the plants we have planted around the pond! Some bees seem to have also taken residence in one section of the hole we dug out for the filter so we’re leaving them to it for the season-they seem to be especially attracted to the water mint.

I really do want a newt, that’s the aim! Emptying the old pond was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever done-I couldn’t even eat for a few days afterwards. The smell! I am amazed all the fish had survived and it’s so nice seeing them swimming in clear water now.

Yeah I guess ultimately you have to let things find their own balance! I really do hope some of the tadpoles survive, we had to scoop all the frogspawn out of the old pond and transferred it to the new one so I am emotionally attached now!

That’s amazing! I’ve already taken to spending ages just staring at the water-it’s very calming. I hope the snails make it, they’re absolutely tiny at the moment. We fed the fish a little bit today as they were so active. I’m going to take it slowly with the food though so they’re not overwhelmed, they’ve had a very stressful couple of weeks. It’s so nice to see them properly swimming about though, they just hid for quite a while but seem a lot more relaxed now. The small group of eight keep schooling together which makes me think they must be rudd but I won’t know unless we net one of them and I don’t think we can do that for a while as they’ve been through enough.