Thanks in advance

Hope that helps , pond size 4mx4m,with liner, I also remove (safely) great diving beetles, put in village pond!!

Mine are common newts (although a mile away there are great crested newts, so I keep hoping). Garden is triangular with two sides busy road, so I am amazed they found the pond. Other corner backs onto gardens which back onto woods/lake. Never seen babies, but that does not mean they are not there, as each year there are consistently adult newts about. I think though that the main predator would be the big dragonflynymphs. Deepest part of pond is 3 feet, so glory knows what happens there. Noticed that the newts congregate near the rocky houses, and some extra holes between the rocks have appeared near the water surface....

What is your situation?

Have noticed the large stickelbacks will gorge themselves on small tadpoles, and some tadpoles seem to have rather short tails. But the spawn increases year by year so I don't think they cause much of a problem. I don't know about newts as I have never seen baby ones yet (or toad spawn, but as I have seen toadlets something must be going on down there that I can't see--I don't have the clearest water in the world, a lot of soil in the pond, and lots of hidden areas under weed).

I do think that the very very small fry are eaten by the amphibians and other stickelbacks, and now the stickelbacks seem to have reached an equilibrium. The first year I had the stickelbacks there was one male (Spike) and 3 females (Buffy, Drusilla and Dawn) and with the permission of a kind ranger, I released 800 into the wild! Now there are more males that kind of explosion hasn't happened, and I have noticed they don't get as big. (Caught Spike munching on newly hatched tadpoles before the first breeding season--he was huge!).

The main predator is the big dragonfly nymphs--that's why I brought some spawn indoors last year to get them to a bigger faster stage. I think the tadpoles are most vulnerable when they first hatch. Blackbirds seem to feast on them too, until they get deeper into weed and under pebbles. The nymphs and dragonflies are amazing too, and they go after the fry too so they don't have to only eat tadpoles---so I hope that between lots of spawn and lots of fry to munch on then the dragonfly and the amphibian population can increase.

Have to admit though, watching the male stickelbacks during breeding season is a laugh!

Have fun,

Chip