[hubballi]

No it won't. It doesn't have a filtration. Ponds in the wild, in people's garden's I know have not got one. The plants are supposed to do that.

[8doubles]

Don`t worry too much it much the same happens to the sea around our coast at this time of year, anglers call it May water or May weed. It soon burns the nutrients and itself out.

[JayG]

My pond is about 8' X 5' (max width - it's semi-circular!) and about 2' deep. It has lots of marginal plants, "oxygenating plants" (hornwort) and a water lily. It is also home to 7 quite large goldfish so it's far from being a wildlife pond! 

There is no filtration or aeration and apart from the water going a bit green in spring before the plants get going it all seems to work quite well (certainly not stagnant, although that could happen in a pond which was either too small or with too many nutrients for the amount of plant life available to absorb it.)

It is often claimed that Duckweed is a problem if introduced, but it's not unattractive, cuts down the light levels in the water, doesn't significantly affect the exchange of gases at the surface, and is easily skimmed off if it spreads too far (doesn't happen in my pond as the goldfish eat it!) 

Simple it ain't: as with an aquarium (which I also have) it's not easy getting a "natural" balance in a relatively small volume of water.

[savbo]

and in terms of filtration, a good snail populations does that - any gunk they 'breathe' in gets stuck together and expelled... freshwater bivalves too if you can find them (pea shells)

M

[hubballi]

There is now a thing almost oily film of green on the surface. I keep netting it out but it all seems to come together again. I have oxygenating plants under the water, some tadpoles I put in a couple of weeks ago and a few snails. Should it clear ? again, no pond skaters :-(

[ANHBUC]

We had a nightmare with our pond and blanket weed last year.  Used barley straw extract which kept on top of it.  Had to keep topping the pond up due to the hot weather and used the mains water which did not help.

This year the blanket weed started early so put barley straw extract in over a month or so and it looked green slimey oil slick on the top.  Have had hardly any rain this year so our pond level is about 2 1/2" below its normal level.  We are not topping it up and have been rewarded with a clear watered pond, well as clear as a wildlife pond that is.  We are hoping for good rainfall on Monday but doubt it will make much difference to the level.  Sometimes it is trial and error or just leave it to find its own balance.

[Aunt Sally]

Can you post a picture of the pond for us hubballi ?

[ANHBUC]

Can you post a picture of the pond for us hubballi ?

They were on his other post Aunty
http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=74309.msg866285#msg866285

[Aunt Sally]

Thanks me dear

I've turned them into pictures rather than links (that's probably why I missed them  )

[ANHBUC]

You are always welcome Aunty.   

[Alastair-I]

There is now a thing almost oily film of green on the surface. I keep netting it out but it all seems to come together again. I have oxygenating plants under the water, some tadpoles I put in a couple of weeks ago and a few snails. Should it clear ? again, no pond skaters :-(

Sounds like there is dead plant matter rotting, the film is probably from organic matter decomposing anaerobically on the bottom of the pond.  This is a slow process over winter, but once the water warms up and thing get going you can sometimes get a patchy oily sheen.  Just keep netting it out.

I am getting confised about the age of the pond, this is your new pond built in April, but you have had two frogs return that were in the pond last year?

Have you still got the greenwater and algae problems?

Looking at the photos, are the bog plants in the pebble area planted in soil, regular compost or aquatic compost?

Please don't add tadpoles to a pond.. let the wildlife arrive on it's own.

[Aunt Sally]

I've merged the two tpoics together as I was a bit confused 

Have you put some barley straw in the water ?  It clears the algae.

[andtiggertoo]

sorry to hijack your post hubballi, I am having the same kind of problems in attracting wildlife to my garden pond.

My pond in now in its third year. It's about 3' by 6' and at the deep end about 3'deep.
I don't want to keep fish in it and am not bothered about keeping the water clear for appearances. I dug it purely to attract wildlife. I have tried to just leave it to go 'wild' so that hopefully wildlife would appear. But so far just one frog last year, this year no frogs, frogspawn or damselflies or such.

I planted water irises, a tall grass looking thing, and a couple of surface spreading things which died. These were all bought at a watergarden specialist.

The water is now quite gloopy looking and there is a film of very small round leaved weed, Which I assume to be one of the ones you have been advising hubballi on. I don't mind the look of this weed, but if it's what's keeping the wildlife away I could try to get rid of it.

I have a pic of how it looked last summer, and now but I'm struggling to add it to my post.

[Alastair-I]

sorry to hijack your post hubballi, I am having the same kind of problems in attracting wildlife to my garden pond.

How wildlife friendly is the rest of the garden?

Frogs only use ponds to shelter during the heat of the day and for breeding in the spring.  They need a garden around the pond that will provide them with food (insects, slugs, worms, etc).

[hubballi]

My old pond was a sunken round plastic tub full of marsh marigolds and iris. This pond has wisteria flowers hanging above from next door that have been dropping in. I have netted as much as I can out but some have rotted down. As you can see from my pics here the wild end has got logs, nettles, foxgloves and comfry for the frogs to shelter. The rest of the garden has lots of nooks. One strange thing I noticed swimming upside down on the surface of the water was a pale grub like thing a bit like a Caterpillar with a long pointed tail. Never seen anything like that before. I have never heard of a wildlife pond with a filtration system. Can you imagine all the small creatures getting sucked into it ?