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A pond revitalisation program?
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Posted by Balliol (My Page) on Sat, Jul 16, 05 at 12:17
| I dug and built my pond about two years ago, bunged in a few plants and a few goldfish that someone gave me and then spent the next two years writing a guide to camping and caravan sites with a view of the sea so I have neglected the pond.
suspect that it is now time to take it in hand and I joined this forum to look for advice.
The pond is about three meters wide, five meters long with an undulating bottom and has about two thousand gallons of water in it. At the moment it has a small fountain, no filter, a Ph level of close to 9 and it looks a bit murky but the gold fish appear happy.
I believe that I have two options:
1. Leave it as it is.
2. Put a filter in it and clean it up a bit but that poses other questions such as:
3. Do I empty it and then clean the mud and other stuff from the bottom?
4. If so at what time of the year?
The advice that I am looking for is a programme and objectively based recomendations on filters. That is if it is not generally agreed that I should just leave it as it is.
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Follow-Up Postings:
RE: A pond revitalisation program?
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I would not empty it or if you do use some of those large round paddling pools to hold the water fish and plants.
I cleaned the bottom of my fish pound by putting a pump on the bottom, pumping up to a filter and piping the return water back to the bottom to flush the crap towards the pump, it did a reasonable job but probably not a great job.
If the fish are bottom feeding they will stir up the sediment and if there are enough fish this can cloud the water. |
RE: A pond revitalisation program?
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Ph 9 seems quite high. Are you in a hard water area?
Have you done other water tests? eg ammonia, nitrate nitrite? That would give you an idea whether the cloudiness is just green water (good but unsightly) or whether the water is high in toxins/ pollutants/ excess nutrients.
I'm sure I heard somewhere that you shouldn't churn up the bottom in hot weather as it can suddenly elevate pollutantswhich can damage fish and other pond life. |
RE: A pond revitalisation program?
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You have a reasonably sized pond and if you only have a few goldfish I would leave it as it is and let it 'mature'.
Ponds without filters can take up to 3 years to find a balance which is achieved by the right amount of plants and pond life.
Introduce more plants (you say you only have a few) and as the plants mature allow the roots to escape the pots and spread (this helps them take up nutrients from the water)
Planting in Peagravel rather than soil also helps stop the water becoming dirty.
Oxygenators allowed to bare-root on the bottom are essential but must be kept in check and not allowed to 'choke' the pond.
Don't overfeed the fish.
If you do the above and achieve the right balance, you can have a very low maintenance pond with good quality water.
I have one pond I keep like this - It has mature 'bare-rooted' flag iris, watercress, forgetmenots, oxygenators, duckweed etc.is full of 'pondlife', lots of Sticklebacks and the water is clear and good quality (You can't tell good quality water by the 'look' of it....clear water can be bad quality - green/murky water can be good)
In the past I've kept goldfish/shubunkins in a similar type of pond with great success.
A ph of 9 is rather high but within limits. (I also have alkaline water with a high ph)stability of this is more important than trying to lower it as this can do more harm than good.
One problem with high ph levels is that ammonia is more toxic so good water quality needs to be maintained (low fish load)
BUT.........fish DO grow and breed and as the 'volume' of fish in the pond increases, planting alone may not be enough and sometime in the future you may need to think of reducing the fish load or introducing some sort of filtration system. I think I've rambled on enough....but hope this helps somewhat. In the end it's your pond and your decision.
Sue PS Over the years my fish bred and grew WAY to big (pond was smaller than yours) and yes.......they are now in larger ponds with pumps and filtration! |
RE: A pond revitalisation program?
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| What Scotty24 says appears to make sense but Ph 9 is what I have. I'm not sure if Oxfordshire is a hard water area although after just comming back from Somerset where we just needed a slight squeeze of washing up water to get bubbles I think we are. The tap water is 7.0Ph. I have not done other water tests such as ammonia, nitrate and nitrite but I will get a kit tomorrow when I expect I will then have to think what I do if the results are not good but lets wait and see. Many thanks all. I'm getting there. |
RE: A pond revitalisation program?
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Is your pond concrete or have you cemented around the pond?
(Lime increases alkalinity) What time of day did you take the readings (readings are higher in the evening) and have you taken any since??
Is the pond near trees?
As your tapwater is only pH 7.0, a pH reading of 9.0 does seem rather high (7.00 - 8.5 is the 'ideal')and COULD possibly indicate you have decomposing organic matter in the pond.
With our 8+ pH tap water, we expect to have a pH of around 8.5 - 9.00 which causes us no problems. (Apart from the guy who constantly scrubs his concrete pond!)
Saying all this I personally don't have much faith in test kit readings and very rarely use them nowadays. (I'll probably get 'shot down' for saying this)
If your fish look well, have good colour, are active and feeding I wouldn't worry unduly. Goldfish are very hardy and can thrive in less than 'ideal' conditions.
Sue |
RE:pond revitalisation?
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Is your pond concrete or have you cemented around the pond?
(Lime increases alkalinity) What time of day did you take the readings (readings are higher in the evening) and have you taken any since??
Is the pond near trees?
As your tapwater is only pH 7.0, a pH reading of 9.0 does seem rather high (7.00 - 8.5 is the 'ideal')and COULD possibly indicate you have decomposing organic matter in the pond.
With our 8+ pH tap water, we expect to have a pH of around 8.5 - 9.00 which causes us no problems. (Apart from the guy who constantly scrubs his concrete pond!)
Saying all this I personally don't have much faith in test kit readings and very rarely use them nowadays. (I'll probably get 'shot down' for saying this)
If your fish look well, have good colour, are active and feeding I wouldn't worry unduly. Goldfish are very hardy and can thrive in less than 'ideal' conditions.
Sue |
RE: What happened?
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RE: A pond revitalisation program?
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| When I first planted my pond the plants were not thriving and the ph was 9+. I then realised that the bricks I had used to prop up the baskets, were concrete. A bit like putting Superman on a bed of kryptonite and expecting he gets a good nights sleep! Improved greatly once those bricks were out, and I must admit I do now plant in the soil on the basis that nature knows best and so just let it get on with it. The less I fiddle and fuss, the happier the pondlife seems to be (the aquatic centre isn't too pleased though as they just love trying to sell me stuff!). And no attack of the dreaded yellow globules this year, nor swaths of blanket weed either and this is the first year I have not tested (and therefore treat) the PH levels. Coincidence? Mind you, the only fish are stickelbacks in the pond, and I do understand that the larger more exotic fish are pickier about the water. |
RE: A pond revitalisation program?
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| I bought a kit and found that my ammonia, nitrate levels are perfect so it looks like its the waterfall that was built from stone and sand and cement mortar which I don't think I sealed. There is also a concrete slab that I used to balance a fountain on so the next job is to seal them both. |
RE: A pond revitalisation program?
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| Another thing to watch out for is whether any pebbles you have added are limestone, especially if they wee dusty when you put them in. |
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