Newbie to ponds

20 years ago

Having just moved into a house which had a pond, i find myself totally a novice to ponds.

We have goldfish in it, i have installed a filter with a fountain, but now i want to get rid of the algae and green stringy stuff in it. Im not sure what the best and most economic way is to do this (any advice would be great. I clean the flite bout 1 a month.

What do i do with all of the green sludge and water once cleared... I am a bit apprehensive to throw it down the drain or in the garden..

Help Pls!!

Thanks

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Comments (5)

dampflippers
20 years ago
Hi there!
Firstly, if you remove algae from the pond, leave it on the edge so that pond creatures and bugs can crawl back in. You can then add it to the compost heap. What! Not got a compost heap? Start one in a corner immediately or buy a compost bin, or make one out of old pallets.
Now, your pond.
Have you got any submerged plants in? They are called oxygenators because they add oxygen to the water. They are essential if you want a clean natural "balanced" pond. You can buy bunches from garden centres or mail order.
Don't fertilise your plants as the excess nutrients may lead to algal growth too.
You also need pondlife. Things like fresh water shrimps and water louse will eat debris at the bottom. You also need microscopic life eg daphnia, which can do a great jopb clearing green water. If you wanted to you could buy a bag or 2 from and aquarium shop or some pet shops (phone around) cost 30p to Â£1 a bag. They will also sell brine shrimps and blood worms.

Are you feeding the fish or are they just living on whatever they can find? If you feed- watch out that you don't feed too much as this can soon make the water "bad".

Good luck- I'm sure others will add more.
hitesh
Original Author
20 years ago
Thanks for the reply

Fresh water shrimp? Water Louse? daphnia? Where do i get these from.. and how much do i need?

I will need some oxygenator plants... do i just submerge these in the pond? as for fertilising the plants, i wouldnt know how too... so no worries there..

The algae, do i have to go in and manually remove or are there products on the market that can help me get rid of these?

Thanks for taking the time in replying...
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I think the real problem here is that you are expecting the plants to supply an overabundance of oxygen in the water and this is just not going to happen. Most of the oxygen the plants release is going into the air. Eventually without frequent or continuous water changes that supply more oxygen in the water the water becomes stagnant ie. anaerobic, (sometimes known as black water)which may be great for some bad bacteria which thrive when there is no oxygen but is deadly for fish long before the water becomes cloudy. Eventually the plants will die too,since the combination of lack of oxygen and anaerobic bacteria will kill the roots. You may know of this as root rot. You must supply air to the water in some manner to avoid this. Another problem which comes with just topping off the pond is a buildup of minerals in the water. This can kill your plants almost as fast. Filter material can prevent some of this but not all of it. You may see evidence of this when the plants get brown edges. Some plants handle these alkaline conditions better than others. A spider plant is a good signal plant for this problem. Sandy
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hitesh
Original Author
20 years ago
also what do i do with regards to frog spawn, and do i need to change the pond water from time to time, e.g a few buckets out and then topped up again with fresh water?
dampflippers
20 years ago
Oxygenators: usually sold as weighted bunches of about 10 stems. Either just bung in, or take off weight and tie to a stone with string and bung in, or take off tie and plant in gravel.
Algae: If you have tadpoles, they will eat some. If it gets too thick you may need to carefully take some out (watch out for stranded tadpoles).
Once you have plants in that use up nutrients in the water, you shouldn't need to do water changes often if ever.
Shrimps, lice, snails etc: Have you got a net? When you get one, scoop from the water and from the bottom, tip it into a white container eg ice cream tub, and take a long look. There should be lots of things crawling about. If there is nothing, try to find someone else with a pond (preferably a wildlife one) and ask for a scoop or 2 of their pond. But if you do this you need to beware of introducing fish or frog disease or invasive weeds.
http://www.bromfieldaquatics.co.uk/store/erol.html#1x0&&;
For some ideas on plants look at the website here. Look at oxygenators, marginls and floating plants. There is a section under special selections of native plants, which are a good idea.

Here is a link that might be useful: Planting ideas
chippewacat
20 years ago
Welcome to the joys of ponding, and thanks dampflippers for the reminders about daphnia etc.--I forgot they help with green water.

You will tempted by all sorts of products promising wonderfully clear water and the like to improve your pond---spend the money on good native plants instead and trust nature to find the balance. And algae is food too, and if you are interested in wildlife in your pond then they do need places to hide and food to eat! So think of algae is something which is managed, rather than got rid of completely--and load of critters can live in a handful of blanketweed, especially at this time of year.

Don't forget tapwater is full of chemicals too so should be used sparingly and not seen as 'fresh'. I have a water butt not too far from the pond which I use to top up in warm weather, and only use tapwater if I have to.

One big mistake I made early on was using a cement brick to weigh down some plants--the cement is to healthy pond water what kryponite is to superman!! The plants hated it and turned yellow and I did have to work hard to get the PH back to normality.

Go out with a torch at night (watch where you step), and you will really get to see what is in there, and also that you are seeing only the tip of the iceberg so to speak! The longer you look at a clump of weeds for example, the more you can see what is very well hidden (caddis fly larvae, various bugs, tadpoles, snails eggs, very shy newts--perhaps not newts if you have fish-- dragon fly nymphs, tadpoles and the like.)

I have had very good plants from bromfield aquatics--they are small to begin with but have grown better than more expensive bigger plants from garden centres. Just make sure you know when they are being delivered and arrange for the plants to not taken back to the depot--that happened to me and I had goo 5 days later!! Indeed, always have had better luck with younger smaller plants no matter the source.

So enjoy your pond, be patient, and don't fiddle too much with mother nature!!

Newbie to ponds

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Newbie to ponds

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