Forum home› The potting shed
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

Pond Oxygenators dying off

Pattijessiman3Pattijessiman3 Posts: 2
in The potting shed
We are new to the wonderful world of ponds, and this year created a wildlife pond.  We are having varying success with our plant life, but we seem to be struggling to keep our oxygenators alive for more than a couple of months. The water is fairly clean and we give it a once over the skimmer most days.
We've tried a variety (potted and free floating) but they all seem to die off.    Any thoughts on what we could be doing wrong gratefully received.  I don't mind re-stocking if we have to, but they are not particularly cheap to be buying on a regular basis!  
Thanks in advance!

Posts

  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    I had a similar experience with mine in the first couple of years with the oxygenators dying off.
    I think your pond just needs a bit more time to balance.
    I put hornwort in several times and it just disappeared during the first year or so.
    By around year 3 I had so much hornwort I had to pull out the excess.
    I did have elodea (?) that grew well from day one, but as I believe it to be an invasive species I composted all of it.
    The hornwort I now think is ideal

    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    I started out with Hornwort and Elodea,  just a set of 10 branches in a lead weight, very cheap from eBay,  after a short while, like Pete,  we were raking it out for the compost bin.
    You could also buy a bag of watercress from the supermarket and just throw it in.  All helps. 
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • thevictorianthevictorian Posts: 1,279
    Are they completely dying off/disintegrating or do they still have green tops but browning bottoms? It's quite natural for the growth to go brown and die as it's shaded out or out competed for nutrients. Ours are a little rampant and if I pull some out you see the top is nice and lush and the bottom brown.

  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    Just a thought. Is the pond fairly shallow or in direct sun all day? I was quite surprised how warm the water in my pond became at the surface. Perhaps your plants are not coping in the heat?
Sign In or Register to comment.