Garden Ponds

[NickK]

Anyone else have a garden pond?

I inherited a pond a while back with the house. We decided to keep it and since had a load of issues with falling water levels, pump failure causing a massive operation over a weekend to save the remaining fish and redo the pond (draining, cleaning it out, remove the over grown pond plants, relaying the position of the pump to the deepest area allowing better water circulation).

Size of the pond is about 3-4 metres by 4-5 metres and a good 1.5 metre deep at it's deepest point. It's water cycle is pond -> pump -> blanket weed electrical thing -> filter -> UV -> upper pool -> single drop waterfall -> pond at the other side. Pump is a 2500 l/hour although I personally think that the previous owners under pumped the pond - this should be about 4000 l/hour and the UV should be far bigger than the 5W system in my view. We also run a twin stone airation system to promote water movement around the pond and for winter.

Now we're in to the second year since the redoing.. the fish remain alive, the pond levels of pH, nitrates, nitrites and ammonia are perfect (according to the test kit). I've put a electronic thing to help prevent blanket weed, added straw bails and regularly pull out any growths - so it's starting to look clearer of algae compared to previous years. I think the refill with tap water caused a bloom that seems to find it harder to grow. Just added some anti green as it appears the pond is getting a few bubbles on the surface - it shows there's something sat on the surface).

Naturally the pond life took at hit with the redoing - we lost the largest fish, the fish now are about four 4-5 inches koi-carp type things (I don't think they're koi), and we have a smattering of smaller fish but not as many before. Oh and the fish now only eat at night compared to being happy to eat when you appeared with food..
We have been growing lillies - although only one is large enough to really look at moving to deeper water (the blanket weed came on these new additions I think) so initially shade will be an issue this summer - I'll make a shade to cover 1/2 the pond (where the lillies aren't) and add some additional plants around.

So anyone have any recommendations for plants? How to re-introduce pond life such as dragonflies etc (i.e. should I dredge a local river?).

Ps.. I would put a photo up but I just added some green away to curb any spring bloom.. so it wouldn't look out of place with a discarded tesco trolley in it at the moment! Once that's clear I'll bung up a picture

 

[NickK]

I've been reading up.. and measuring. I'd estimate about 9-10,000 litres given the measured sizes. As 10K every two hours is 5K/hr means with 1.5m of head that's 6K/hr so the current pump running at 2500/hr max (without head) is definitely under pumped. The pressure filter is a bioforce 3000 so even that's completely under filtered too.

Considering putting a 6000/hr with possibly a ezpod filter (capable of doing 10K with koi, 20K pond) but is only about 23" size. It's also got a great washing system.. so that's a good £600 of filter and pump..

 

[NickK]

This is an interesting read on the use of barley straw: http://www.ceh.ac.uk/sci_programmes/documents/barleystrawtocontrolalgae.pdf

Although I use the sock type of bales it seems that you need oxygen - thus you need an open structure that runs oxygenated water through otherwise it rots in an aerobic form and you end up making it worse. This is identifiable by the smell.

I've opened up the bails in the top section of the waterfall - this means it will have oxygen and be contained behind netting before the water drops down the waterfall.

I've also been researching - I think the top of my water fall is a veggie filter, or at least an attempt at one. So I'll pop down to the local aquatic plant nursery and get some plants that provide shade and will use the nitrogen in the water. So rather than spend a fortune initially.. I'll go straight at the problem of nitrogen and shade with additional plants - possibly water hyacinth which is fast growing and will fix the nitrogen out of the water.

The water lillies I have are slow growers but can be sunk to quite a depth (50-90cm above the plant) and they will give good shade but not in the timescale needed..

 

[lsg1r]

Been a while since we had our pond (we moved) but iirc our pump was around the 3500-4000 litre range for a similar (bit bigger maybe) size pond. It just had 'normal' goldfish (some were nearly 10inches long and some were originally indoor longtail types), some carp type of fish (not koi) like you that were over 12inches in length and at one point a loach which was the last of an indoor aquarium which 'moved' outside (that liked outdoors too...).

Pretty sure our 'filter' just consisted of a pipe into big box filter (1.5x2x1m deep sort of size) with different filter 'stages' made from different size material/stone/sand etc, ie pretty similar to how it works naturally. Can't remember a UV filter, think we didn't use it because it could potentially kill off young insects. The filter just had an outlet pipe run back to the pond at the other end to the intake. Like I say nothing fancy

Didn't really do anything special with it in terms of Ph, that was normally left alone, just needed to add straw in the summer to reduce the green algae.

Used oxygenating plants to add extra oxygen and only rarely needed to remove excess as the fish seemed to enjoy eating it too lol. Had some pond lilies to give shade to the fish. Load of edge planting too (on a 1-2ft step around the edge of the pond), our fish liked it and it also helped attract the wildlife, the taller plants were resting places for dragonflies and also helped their young dry out etc.

We had several different types of dragonfly, some water beetles (didn't really want them), water snails (which usually got eaten by the fish) loads of little water skaters, butterflies etc too (garden around it was built up to wildlife too)... the odd heron (pita) and some other animals used it for water.

Our fish seemed happy enough, they couldn't stop breeding, had several hundred (pretty sure it was over 300) of them by the time we moved and only started with around 30 lol. Would come up for food when you tapped your feet near the pond.

I will also say that don't trust everything you read online/in books, use it as a guide... supposedly you're not supposed to feed fish in winter, we did because they came up after food when we were near the pond, it never did them any harm in our experience (Norfolk temps). The long tailed goldfish that started off indoors thrived outside too (made some gorgeous fish when they bred), they shouldn't have done from what we were told lol

In regards to your shade... we had to string fishing line around and across our pond due to the herons, we just used to lay an old sheet over half the pond which rested on the wire... didn't do it often, just on those excessively hot summer days.

 

[avrc]

I'd suggest you browse / join a number of different forums that deal with fish ponds. You'll find that there are numerous options and opinions as to how you should be looking after a pond and then it's a case of filtering through them and deciding which way you want to go. Finding out what the fish are would be a good place to start as that will dictate to a great extent what filtration you need. For example koi will need better filtration than goldfish.

Keeping fish in a pond is much like keeping them in an aquarium. You still need to dechlorinate the water, you still need to do water changes, clean the filtration etc.

My fish pond is much smaller at 4700L but I do approx a 25% water change each week topped back up with dechlorinated water, I vacuum the bottom at the same time. Leaf debris is netted out daily. Filter brushes are cleaned weekly and the water from each of the multibay chambers is dumped. I do a maintenance dose of a blanket weed remover every month and the fish get fed morning and night when the water is warm enough that they're eating. I run a 6500LPH pump, hard piped to a 55w TMC pro clear UV (bulb change every season) which in turn is hard piped to a KC fibreglass 3 bay filter. Bay one is made up of 3 big brushes followed by 4 finer brushes, the water then flows down and up into the next bay of flocor and then down and up into the next bay through japanese matting and then alfagrog and then back into the pond. The waste from each bay is hard piped to the drain. This method gives me gin clear water year round. I also have a 60LPM air pump running 2 air stones.

This is what it looks like in summer

 

[NickK]

Planted up yesterday.

I have some shallows being used for the lilies but they will be capable of dropping in depth soon.

I popped over to this place in person: http://www.lilieswatergardens.co.uk and picked up some oxygenating plants, some nitrogen users (i.e. watercress amongst others in the veggies filter), some coverage, a rush type and a couple of irises. The place is a really nice - more substance/function over being pretty (i.e. being a day out), the staff friendly and took my description of the pond, flow and areas well. Number of dragon flies in the poly tents were phenomenal!

Still looks bare but now looks like there's something planted!

Opening the bales of straw into the veggie filter has really worked nicely. It seems act in two ways atm the moment - less green algae in the water (even with the sun) but also less cloudiness which is the straw acting to filter out some particulates. Also the straw is reducing down without any smell (of rotten eggs when you opened the bails).

 

[Buddy]

Hi

Moved into the new house late last year and finally sorting the pond out.
I'm a total noob so would appreciate some advice.

The pond is approx 1 foot deep, 3m x 1m.
It has a fountain with a small waterfall - basically trickles down through some rock - not that powerful.

I've been able to clear away the ?duck weed from the top. The water is not too bad reasonably clear but still looks a bit brown. There is a lot of dried leaves at the bottom from the over hanging trees.

Few frogs and newts.

Now I want to make it a Koi pond. Will get a filter at some stage. I'm not too keen about keeping a fountain spraying all over 24/7 but when I look at it I can find an obvious valve that puts the fountain off but keep the waterfall running.

Do I need a pump?? I understand it keep the pond oxygenated. Surely if I have a filter running in at one corner it's basically a waterfall and therefore providing a current/oxygen.

Also should I bother clearing out the leaves at the bottom? The newts seem to love hiding in them.

Would appreciate any pointers!

 

[NickK]

Koi are extremely fussy and require some serious work:
* the pond will need to be deeper
* koi require twice the flow rate that normal fish do
* oxygen levels in the water need to be higher than normal fish
* koi you'll need a high flow rate pump and a filter that is sized for the rate and the fact that koi are present.

Leaves that decay will reduce oxygen, increase nitrite/nitrate levels.

The fountain is probably acting as the oxygenator.

I have largish fish - not sure are

The water is now very clear.. however this was taken before the water cleared up:



Sizing after measuring was a little smaller here's the pond today - it looks shallow until you realise that it's a good 1-1.5 meters deep.



The pots are down there to give cover whilst the plants are growing. The blanket weed is being kept at bay.

Plan for this summer is to replace the wood decking..

 

[Participant]

I know nothing about these but cool thread, loads of detail!

 

[NickK]

Saw an Ezpod in real life today - big, the paving slap size statement by the manufacturer really only covers the central part of the pod and not the UV pod on the side. Possibly a bit large - although it would solve the filter problems in one shot.

 

[Mal Cullen]

How do you keep the birds from grabbing your fish? I live not far from Thames and Herons love to grab my fishies Do you use netting or something electronic?

 

[NickK]

How do you keep the birds from grabbing your fish? I live not far from Thames and Herons love to grab my fishies Do you use netting or something electronic?

Nothing at the moment - I don't have enough fish to be attractive and the fish themselves hide (literally under the pump) and only come out at night. They don't even come up for food..

There's a couple of ways - put a mesh supported by a wooden lattice, and/or, use a few posts (i.e. old rebar driven into the ground) with fishing wire between them.

I will create a wooden lattice for shade but at the same time the herons could also use that for standing on.

The original house owners put a barrel in the centre of the garden, now I have a telescope pier sticking a good 1.5 metres out of the ground. Add the washing line and it's fast becoming an obstacle course for take off/landing - unless they're willing to risk a vertical approach with the possibilities of cats etc.

 

[NickK]

Well the new plants are establishing themselves now

I have been removing blanketweed due to the the sunny periods - but the lilies are starting to finally grow again, even a flower

Currently it's a little murky (i.e. green algae rather than blanket weed) but the fish seem happy as they now wander around the pond rather than just sit under the pump.

 

[NickK]

I think I've identified that the fish above is a ghost koi.. hardier but still needs good filtration.

Anyone used a hydroponic filter?

I currently have a veggie filter with a few plants and straw in - the water cress is loving it. However on seeing this form with hydroponic planting - the same form is used for growing chilli plants (they pulse the water over rather than submerge only):

http://www.koiphen.com/forums/showthread.php?126141-Woman-verses-Pond!-He-he-he!/page3

The Bakki shower filter also looks interesting.

 

[Amp34]

We've had a fish pond for about 10-15 years now. About 2.5x1.5x1 (fibreglass thing). A couple of years in we made another pond slightly higher up (just a metre square and about 50cm deep) and a small stream into another similar sized pond (with narrow surrounding marsh area- about 20cm on each side) that drains into the main pond.

Other than a pump and a hose going to the top pond we had nothing else. I don't think we ever checked the ph levels or anything else. You guys do a heck of a lot of work to yours... Having said that we only have goldfish in the main pond and there is a lot of plant life in the other two ponds so it essentially has significant natural filtration system in it. In the spring we have to move the frogspawn up from the main pond to the smaller ponds as the fish love the tadpoles. We normally have about 20 frogs mating each year.

We did install a large water butt in the ground last year as the evaporation was leading to the pond losing about 6 inches of water over a few days. Now the pump resides in the sump/butt and the water overflows from the main pond into the water butt.

Looking at those pictures I'd suggest it's not a particularly wildlife oriented pond. There is no easy way in and out for frogs for example, and you don't have enough plants to allow insects to grow properly. Perhaps I'm wrong but I always got the impression koi ponds were not particularly insect friendly, due to the needs of koi.

 

[Leesey]

Also inherited a pond on my recent house purchase. Will be emptying and starting fresh once the old owners come and collect the fish.

It's a purpose built pond and from asking the neighbors they seem to think it's around 20 years old.

Anyways, here it is;

Estate Agent Photo:

Mine:

Spoiler

Layout?:

I'm new to ponds but this is what i gather the set up is;

1. UV Light - Yamitsu 55w
2. Pump Out (Not visible apart from a continuous water stream up)
3. Pump Intake (4 inch white pipe)
4. Filter Bay 1 (Full of brush like things)
5. Filter Bay 2 (Just water from looking)
6. Green round thing, doesnt seem to be doing nothing??
7. Sump overflow... Over flow pipe into a hole with a sump pump which pumps the water down to a drain.

I'll take some better pictures soon with all the parts separate so I can get some help.

I plan on emptying the pond completely and giving it a real good clean, rewire and looking at the filtration system properly. Then adding water and plant life, then eventually a small amount of fish.

The pond is large, and from a dip test around 4-5ft deep. I'll take some measurements when I'm down later.

It's currently home to 13 Koi carp, who appear very greedy and surface and suck the water every time someone is near to the pond.

Images over 1,280 pixels wide should be placed in spoiler tags as I've done for you.

Cheers

Surveyor

 

[NickK]

That sounds like a koi pond - 4-5ft is the minimum, koi (as indicated) eat everything. They also need a high flow rate, twice the normal (they eat a lot, therefore poop a lot). Koi are also very expensive (probably why the previous owner wants to take them!)

6 sounds like a centrifuge filter, in theory all the large stiff should sink to the bottom, 5 should be brushes, then 4 should be a filter medium. It could be that the 'empty' one had plants in so that the roots filtered.

I'd be tempted to make a waterfall at the back - the additional water drop means you get aeration, plus the sound is great.


On my pond there's a sloping piece of decking that allows things to get out (before this I found a dead rat in there). In reality when the previous owners stocked the pond they overstocked and then had 2500l/h max pump.. which is about 1/2 it should be.. the filter is also tiny (bioforce 3/4000 I think). It's really the plants that prevent the levels going nuts.

The pond has calmed down too - the blanket weed seems to be easing off but it's a little murky (slightly green) but a clean of the filter and that's clearing up. Previously it had dragonflies etc - but as the new plants only got added a couple of months ago.. I've seen a couple around so fingers crossed they start populating again.

 

[Amp34]

Having something creatures can get in and out of will definitely help. Hopefully when the plants grow fully you'll have a lot more wildlife around.

 

[NickK]

Just did a second test of pH, Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate. All good (i.e. not registering), so I'm happier. pH is in the 7.0-8.5 range which is ok and I know that the pH changes throughout the day-night cycle due to CO2 etc.

 

[DXP55]

I had a pond at my old house - new owners didn't want it so got rid of fish and knocked it out - One thing I would say is if there is a thunder storm on way make sure your pumps are working - Mine packed up and not long after we had a humdinger of storm - lost quite a few fish including two Koi Carp which when Daily Mail was opened out reached either side - they were huge.
I did have pictures but lost them on computer somewhere.

If you go on Youtube you can find plenty of videos on how to make homemade filters - I had two 50 gall drums for mine.

Don't have one now as they are a lot of work and just as you get it right it goes green.

A workmate had a proper Koi pond and each spring he cut all the blossom of his wife Cherry tree next to the pond - It only had fish in it - no plants -nothing and was crystal clear but boring.

Dave