Pond weed nightmare
StellaMan
Posts: 5
Hi all, this is my first post here so be gentle with me 
...
I have a small wildlife pond at the bottom of my garden that's about a year old, it's actually in an old tractor tyre, so it's about 5 foot across, of which about 3 foot of that is open to the sunlight, and it's about 10 inches deep (though it needs a top up right now, so probably about 8 inches deep).
I am getting a LOT of blanket weed in there, despite putting plenty of Barley Straw in there along with other stuff that is supposed to help with the natural bacteria (Interpret Bio start). Nothing seems to be helping though, I cleared this weed (mostly) out a couple of weeks back but now it's back as bad as before !!!
My pump / small fountain, isn't strong, would it help if I got a stronger one or one that circulated the water as well as having a small fountain ? I need to do something soon as I have a bad back and I can't keep cleaning it out at this rate 
!!!
Posts
Try this link to the RHS.
https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=162
Thank you Dave, but there's nothing there really to help that I haven't read before ...
I know it's too shallow really and it could probably do with a bit more shade, but there's not much I can do about either without starting again
What plants do you have in there? Could you add something like frogbit that would add shade? Or put something tall near it? Fennel is lovely and grows quite tall in a few months. Or even shrubs in containers. I think it's a great idea. I'd love to see a picture of a tyre pond!
My pond is smaller than yours but deeper (it's a bathtub). It's partially shaded. I do get blanket weed but I tend to pull it out regularly so not much builds up. I wonder if it's part of having a small pond. I understand about the bad back. With my pond if I get on my knees I can do it easily-- and if I remember to use the lovely kneeling bench my sister bought me even better! My back is still groaning from my weekend slug hunt and destroy missions
.
I get blanket weed in my pond and as other do I twirl it out with a bamboo cane - however it's difficult to get all of it without uprooting the oxygenators that it's tangled around.
I've just ordered some pond snails from http://www.naturescape.co.uk/acatalog/british_native_pond_plants_T_Z.html and I'm hoping that when they arrive they'll start chomping their way through the algae and blanketweed
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Duck weed is a good help in new ponds... it grows very quickly and shades off algae and weeds. If you have gold fish in the pond they will probably control it for you, else, you'll have to gather some of it from time to time and toss it in the compost.
I don't know really what they are, just pond plants, but none of them give any shade. I do have some free floating tubers that are supposedly oxygenating, but they don't seem to be thriving, and I suspect the young lilies have been smothered by this weed
, thanks ...
I have bamboo around it but it too is young and therefore not giving any shade yet, I'll definitely look into what you have suggested
Duckweed I can get, thanks, goldfish I don't have, just some minnows and the like that my kids caught with nets last summer ... I hoped to get tadpoles this year but the frogs don't seem to have found me
Looking into the snails too, thank you
get a bunch of watercress and a little barley straw in an old sock, put it in and wam! it will go....we have a huge pond that was full of blanket weed, we dragged out as much as we could, then added the magic ingredients and in three weeks it has gone, we still have the watercress and barley straw in there as a precaution...it works