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Wildlife pond - Algae and Newts
Crazy Tomato Lady
Posts: 67
Hi All, I have a large wildlife pond (approx 1700litre) with lots of frog, Newts including great crested Newts, but have a lot of algae which is difficult to remove as I have to go through it for Newts... so I was thinking of putting a pump in, does anyone know if this is possible with a wildlife pond, I don't want the Newts to get sucked in?
Part of the pond is 8feet deep, will the Newts go that low? was thinking of putting part of the pump there
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Pumps and wildlife pond don't go together. Have you tried the barley straw?
I don't know that a pump would do much to remove algae anyway.
In the sticks near Peterborough
You definitely wouldn't want it sat on the bottom of an 8 foot pond as it will either silt up or churn up all your silt making the pond a muddy soup. You would probably just increase oxygen to your algae making it grow faster!
Is it the stringy green blanketweed? A pump wouldn't solve that problem and would cause others.
I find that poking a bamboo cane into it and winding it around will pull it out - then I leave it on the bank for critters to crawl out - I do it in the evening so the weed doesn't dry out hard in the sun that way they can escape more easily.
But some blanket weed is fine in a wildlife pond - as you say it's cover for newts and other wildlife
It sounds like a fantastic pond 
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I found that when the pump was going to circulate the artificial stream, each year there would be at least two newts killed in the pump.
I don't think a pump would do anything to improve matters in terms of blanket weed but you can put barley straw in bundles (or get an extract solution) which does a fantastic job of clearing it (I use the extract).
I do the same as Dove, using a bamboo cane to twirl up the blanket weed - I once caught up a baby newt in the twirl, which was very traumatic for both me and the newt!
I also used the barley extract last year to clear the weed, and it helped a lot.
I got a lot of blanket weed last year but less this year. I have planted some Ranunculis Aquatilis (Water Crowfoot) in this Spring and I can actually see oxygen bubbles coming up from the plant, and I wonder if it is this plant that has helped prevent the blanket weed? I don't know if anybody else has planted this?
I have newts in the pond, including babies about 2" long.
I think blanket weed and algae are both caused by excess nutrients (e.g. from fish/plant waste, soil getting in or using tap water to top up). Any plant you put in should in theory use up this nutrients then they won't be available to the blanket weed or algae. This year will be particularly bad because winter wasn't that cold so it hasn't been killed off.