Help please, Last year I cleaned the bottom of the pond with a small nett. Quite a lot of debris but not massive. I also placed some " rocks" in the pond to give the frogs a means of escape. This year, frogs have gone, the pond weed does not seem to be doing well, the Flag Iris's around the ledges have not flowered either! The water is very clear and the fish seem fine. Have the rocks i bought from BQ changed the quality of the water please? Thanks
I'm building my first pond. Everywhere I ask for commercial underlay to put on top of sand layer and under butyl pond-liner, I'm told to use cardboard instead. Is this right? Is it OK to wet the cardboard to make it more flexible to lay? I'm very confused. Can anyone help?
The tadpoles need to be in water body of some sort, garden pond or ditch or lake. They are possible to rear in an aquarium, but there will probably be fairly high mortality. They need fairly dense plant cover and much murkier water than you would have to keep fish. They also need some way to get out of the water when they turn into froglets, so boulders or rocks or logs at one end. The little frogs, 10âÂÂ15 mm long can be released somewhere near a relatively natural water body so that when they return in a few years time to mate and breed themselves, they do not try and get into your garden shed or whereever you keep the water tank.
Patty, I used old carpet, but you have to be very careful to get out all of the tacks and nails. The point of the underlay is to stop any sharp objects in the ground, such as rocks, stones, broken glass or shards of metal, penetrating and puncturing the butyl sheet when the tremendous pressure of the water pushes down on it. Corrugated card would probably be OK, and yes, damp it to make a good squidgy fit.
Stinky,not sure about rocks affecting the water, but you won't get much luck from returning frogs producing tadpoles if you have fish in the pond. I'd be tempted to get rid of the fish.
I have a pond with koi,sterlet,gold fish and frogs and tadpoles all live happy together.I got extra liner which I didn't cut off instead down the length of the pond on one side I dug a ditch about 10" deep and planted some things in baskets and some things in hessian sacking this area is out the way of the fish because has anyone knows who have koi, know they are really destructive, it also makes a safe place for tadpoles,I also dug out on the corner at the top of the ditch/pond a 1' basin which was to have a lilly so the fish did't rip it up this is also occupied by tadpoles to the right of that the liner continues with a large filter system stood on it,this also has a few inches of water over it and more tadpoles.Down the right side is a shallow ledge with bolders and plants in hessian in it, I've even seen tadpoles in this part, birds drink and bath in here so all live happy together.Theres a bamboo water shoot into the basin so the water quality is good and the water in the ditch is fed from the pond but it passes through a bank of mimuless which I've found keeps the tadpoles out the reach of the fish.
We have a newly created garden pond which is settling down very well. However, we have a vast number of whirligig beetles...... very entertaining to watch but can you have too many in a 5mx4m pond?
I have recently bought some sticklebacks for my son and put them in our small garden pond. For the last two weeks we have only seen them twice? I was advise the pond water should be fine and not cause them problems. Can anyone advise what are suitable conditions for sticklebacks, and is there disappearance normal behavior?. (we have not had herons visit the garden!!)
Hi - I made a wildlife pond about 4 weeks ago - I have one frog already, and the pond is full of insect larvae, but i don't know what they are! at first glance I thought they were very tiny tadpoles, about 2mm long, but looking closer they have a "jointed" look to their backs. Does anyone have any idea what they are?
Judging from my own experience with newts, I suspect the fish are very good at hiding, and that they are still in there, just invisible. A great trick for seeing some of these more secretive pond creatures is to go out at night and shine a torch beam down into the water. This shows up what's down there, and you are unlikely to startle anything with your shadows.
Reply to Gardenbabe. The first insects to arrive at my pond were mosquitoes. I suspect you have their larvae, or larvae of some other midge. Don't worry though, you'll soon get damselfly, dragonfly, boatmen and skaters. All these are predators and keep the flies down to acceptable numbers
Richard, what's your opinion on pond pumps? My mother keeps threatening to buy one. They say they're fish-friendly, but what about the other wildlife? Especially those high-powered ones that suck up all the gunk, do they take newts and froglets and larvae with them? Thanks
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Patty, I used old carpet, but you have to be very careful to get out all of the tacks and nails. The point of the underlay is to stop any sharp objects in the ground, such as rocks, stones, broken glass or shards of metal, penetrating and puncturing the butyl sheet when the tremendous pressure of the water pushes down on it. Corrugated card would probably be OK, and yes, damp it to make a good squidgy fit.
Stinky,not sure about rocks affecting the water, but you won't get much luck from returning frogs producing tadpoles if you have fish in the pond. I'd be tempted to get rid of the fish.
Reply to Gardenbabe. The first insects to arrive at my pond were mosquitoes. I suspect you have their larvae, or larvae of some other midge. Don't worry though, you'll soon get damselfly, dragonfly, boatmen and skaters. All these are predators and keep the flies down to acceptable numbers