Hi, I have recently built a 30ftx30ft garden pond. I am also trying to keep it as natural as possible. Does anybody know where I can get sticklebacks or can point us in the right direction please. We live in Battle, East Sussex.

Dave, That is an unbelievable sight. I remember you putting a pic on the gallery of the pond having so much spawn. What a sight. How many frogs are going to survive in that lot????? They are certainly not leaving anything to chance down your way. What do the neighbours think when the froglets start moving through their gardens? It puts my few tads to shame. I thought I had a lot but lately it is so hard to find any. We have been doing a video clip for my website of the life cycle of a frog which was quite easy when the tads had just emerged as they were easy to collect, but now to continue the video we need to catch some more to see how they have grown. It is much harder for us to do whereas you can literally just go and pick up handfulls. If you do visit my website you will notice on the home page a link now to a forum we are hoping to get started. One without adverts and popups. it is live now (well when NTL don't have probs anyway) so maybe drop in. It's still www.the-horsfalls.co.uk Alison

Any moving water- fountain or fall? NO Any filter? NO Edges, Rocks or logs around? ROCKS WITH SPACES UNDERNEATH AROUND THE POND, LARGE WOODPILE COVERED IN IVY ABOUT 3 FEET AWAY FROM THE POND Type of weed, STARWORT, AND THAT REALLY COMMON BORING OXYGENATOR WHOSE NAME ESCAPES ME RIGHT NOW... How much sun, ONLY ABOUT 6 HOURS IN WINTER, SUMMER GETS SUN MORNING AND EVENING (NOT FOR ABOUT 3 HOURS MID-DAY) Density of weed- how much clear water? 2/3 When do you normally first spot newts and babies each year? THIS YEAR LAST SAW NEWTS IN NOVEMBER, AND NEWTS APPEARED WITH FROGS LATE JANUARY How tidy is your garden? NOT VERY! BELIEVE IN SEMI-ORGANISED CHAOS Do you also have frogs or toads? YEP!! Do you also have ornamental fish? NOPE Do you also have native fish ie sticklebacks? YEP Do you feed fish in this pond? NO How long have you had newts? or how soon after building pond did they appear? I THOUGHT I SAW THEM AFTER ONE YEAR (SPRING) BUT CONVINCED MYSELF IT WAS A FAST STICKELBACK AND MY WISHFUL THINKING. SAW THEM FOR SURE THE FOLLOWING YEAR (ABOUT 6 INDIVIDUALS), SO I THINK IT WAS A FLASH OF NEWT I SAW THE FIRST YEAR AFTER ALL. Mine are common newts (although a mile away there are great crested newts, so I keep hoping). Garden is triangular with two sides busy road, so I am amazed they found the pond. Other corner backs onto gardens which back onto woods/lake. Never seen babies, but that does not mean they are not there, as each year there are consistently adult newts about. I think though that the main predator would be the big dragonflynymphs. Deepest part of pond is 3 feet, so glory knows what happens there. Noticed that the newts congregate near the rocky houses, and some extra holes between the rocks have appeared near the water surface.... What is your situation?

Thanks tropicbreezent. I had not heard of chloramine before and that when it breaks down it makes other different toxins. All I know is that when I leave the tap water in these buckets longer than about five days to a week that they start getting a green hue of algae growth (and an occasional mosquito squiggler, whereby I immediately use up the water ... recommend using light-colored buckets so you can see if any skeeters have visited the water). There is another chemical that you can buy at the pet store to put in the water to "cleanse" it, but I haven't had to use it. I did buy and use this cleanser chemical when I first started out with the goldfish, but these mosquito fish seem to be impervious to what else may be in the water and their environment. Also, I feed the mosquito fish with a micro-pellet, not flake-type foods they make for goldfish. Prior to doing my mini-ponds, I use to keep a large plastic trash can underneath the roof spout so when it rained I'd collect rain water. In this scenario I never had any issue with the goldfish dying off ... fresh rainwater and a plastic container. I used this rainwater to water my plants, etc., and the goldfish prevented mosquito growth. Realize that even with rainwater you will have many different types of contaminants in it as well, but no chloramine or chlorine. I did an experiment years ago with water and I put some Sparklett's purified water (poured into a bucket) out in the sun, a bucket of rain water and a bucket of tap water. Naturally, the rain water turned green first, then the tap water, but the Sparklett's water still hadn't turned green even after one month (and had no skeeters)!!! Naturally, I didn't drink the Sparklett's, but wonder to this day what's in it to prevent algae growth (and if it is all that safe to drink). Despite various contaminants rain water picks up via the making rain & depositing rain processes, it is still by far better for your fish and plants. Water hyacinths are a good water cleanser/purifier ... this is why these plants have been used to clean up toxic spills, etc. Also, they grow like crazy!! So, maybe if you were to add more water hyacinths to your tank, they'll cleanse the water of the toxins. A few plants might not be enough. With my third mini-pond (plastic container), I decided to try out putting some potted plants into the mix. I used red bricks to raise the pots up higher in the water so they are not submerged. I put only two water hyacinths in it along with some mosquito fish. You mentioned putting some plants in your tank, so am curious, also, what type of soil (if any) you used for your plants. I used some higher-end near-black mulch to put in these pots. One plant is designed for this kind of thing (some kind of lily), but my other on is a passion fruit (a water lover). I pretty much have designed this mini-pond to be more of a bog ... with lots of dead and decaying matter at the bottom. The plants, the fish and the water hyacinths are all thriving. You mentioned the parrot feather plants were thriving, so something is going on well with your system. You mentioned adding some wildlife to the tank when you were around ten years old and things were fine. I imagine that you were not removing a lot of the water when you were a youngster, just adding life to it. Sometimes we tend to "overthink" things and do more stuff out of kindness, but that kindness could be what's not working. You have many different things to take into account ... your hard untreated well water (which certain minerals will interact with the metal tank), the galvanized metal(s), the type of fish and plants, the temperature factors, possible soil interaction from potted submerged water plants, and the amount of full sun versus less sun. I would test the water as another person suggested using the strips to see what you uncover. Having little or no algae is not necessarily a good thing ... your snails need it, plus the algae helps somewhat in cleansing out the fish urine, too. I have LOTS of snails, too. My next door neighbor started a mini-pond, too, after she saw mine, so I gave her a bunch of water hyacinths (and some other plant snippets), snails and mosquito fish to get started. Some months later, she can't get over how LARGE my water hyacinths are compared to hers. The main difference here is that I have mine more shaded via an umbrella, so the hyacinths are reaching out high and the leaves have grown bigger to grab more sunlight. So, I will be closing the umbrella now that the heat of the summer is pretty much done. One odd thing with my neighbor's mini-pond is that her plants keep getting knocked over ... probably from visiting birds. So, in addition to all the things IN your tank, there might be outer environmental issues and wildlife to weigh into consideration. Just one thought to add ... birds do love to take baths in water when available and like to eat fish. Your water tank will attract more wildlife than you think. I've seen a few raccoons visiting my yard late at night, too. I even have a feral cat hopping my fence to grab some clean drinking water. Don't get discouraged, you'll get it figured out.