garden pond water

[catinboots]

DH has spent today proudly finishing our new garden pond. We don't have a very good track record for keeping goldfish alive so wanted some advice before I go and buy some! Have filled said pond up with tap water - but need to know what else to add???

wherever you get your fish will sell water treatments too

Do you know the volume of the pond? Does it have any kind of filtration system? Is it in the sun or does it get lots of shade? Have you got many plants?

You don't need to add anything else - but if you don't you'll need to wait a while for the water to de-chlorinate (IIRC its a couple of weeks, depending on how much water you're talking about and the surface area / filtration in the pond).

Before you buy any fish you need to have an idea of how many inches of fish your pond can support while maintaining a healthy environment - fish produce waste and bigger fish produce more waste and, if that waste is not removed, the whole thing will become pretty toxic pretty fast. You can either remove the waste by using lots of plants, by having a biological filtration system, or a combination of the two. If you're relying on the former you'll be able to have fewer, smaller fish than if you have a filtration system.

When you're starting the pond from scratch its a good idea to introduce new things gradually and allow the pond system to adapt and stabilise - so you'd usually add some plants first, which will help get an eco-system kick started, and then add a few fish every week or so until you've got to the stocking level you want. Don't feed them too much!

This site has quite a lot of useful information in it that might give you some more ideas.

Good luck

Hidnsight is a wonderful thing - you should never fill a pond with tap water and should use rain water instead, but it's too late now.

Chlorine will be gone within 24 hours - it's the phosphate that'll be a problem initially. P is added to tap water supplies to reduce lead dissolving from old pipes. P is also a plant nutrient and will cause algal blooms. Expect your pond to go very green this summer until the nutrients get into some sort of balance.

Do you really want fish? High maintenance and I get the feeling that you haven't looked into the topic very much.

Far easier to set it up without fish and encourage a range of wildlife instead. Oodles of advice on these sites:
www.pondconservation.org.uk/millionponds/pondcreationtoolkit/
www.gardenadvice.co.uk/howto/wildflowers/water/index.html
www.wildlifegardener.co.uk/AdaptingYourPondForWildlife.html

Another great source of info and free advice is your local wildife trust - Google Wildlife Trust and your county.

Good luck with your pond - ponds are great habitats and we need more of them! :-)