Did I ruin my new pond?

herzausstahl

herzausstahl
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Looks really good. Glad you pressed on without pumps or a filter. I have wanted to build a second pond like this since my first. As for your soil in the bottom I found a mixed bag of reviews, some did, some didn't. Ponds like this seem more common in the UK, those were the sights I found a lot of info on. Was back and forth with adding minnows myself, because they would help with Mosquitos but also could eat the other insects that would eventually prey on the Mosquitos once established. Have you considered adding Lillie's to the deep area? When you used the mosquito dunks did you notice a drop off of other insects in the water? Please keep updating on its status. I'm sure you will probably get some posts about the water being "stagnant" during the summer heat when the algae possibly takes off but upon closer look it will be teaming with life I would expect. I do remember reading to cover half the pond surface with floating oxyginators (anacharis/hornwort) to help with algae control & to support the pond life. I am interested to see how it turns out and you've rekindled my interest in making a second wildlife pond in my yard.
 

c2g

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I am interested to see how it turns out and you've rekindled my interest in making a second wildlife pond in my yard.

Thanks. Here's hoping you go ahead with that second pond build. These do seem quite common in the UK and I'm hoping they catch on here, which is pretty much why I pan on documenting what works/doesn't in this thread.

Aside from duckweed, all of my plants are in the planting shelf. After being under thick ice and a couple feet of snow for over two months, I was weary of my fall plantings making it through the winter.


(photo from last September)

Blueflag and green arrow arum are already coming up strong. I'm glad I used clay in the first half of the shelf backfill because they really seem to have rooted nicely. Pickerel weed is just starting to come out. No plans for lillys, but I do have a potted one in my barrel pond that I could transfer if need be. A good amount of leaves fell in over the fall and I can no longer see to the bottom of the deep end.

I just took a rake and swept out a decent amount of string algae. I don't have any plans of adding anything to the water, so I'll just be pulling it out if it gets out of control. Guessing it's good fertilizer for everything I planted around the pond.

Next step this spring is to put in a path and get the rest of the plants on the outside in. I'll be sure to update.
 

herzausstahl

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Sounds like a good plan, I mostly have to pic a site in the yard where my wife will let me have a second pond (aiming for one I can see from the kitchen table during winter) and then the time to dig it. Glad to see the clay seems to be working, I was thinking of using that or more likely the cheep non clumping clay cat litter as the clay I have in the yard would be almost too solid for the roots to grow easily in. If I used the cheap top soil like you did at first I would put it in the bottom of the pond so it was at the lowest level and couldn't "wash" off the shelves. What kind of plants did you have planned for the outside of the pond?
 

c2g

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All in all, there will be almost 30 species of natives planted between the aquatics and the grasses/perennials surrounding the pond. Plus the existing trees - sweetbay magnolia, black birch, eastern wahoo, serviceberry - and buttonbush shrub.
 
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Love your pond, it's so big and beautiful!

I noticed that the plants I have in my nature pond (like 10 gallons) do very well, a lot more than the ones in my pond. Especially hornworth, it looked like squirrel tails in that little pond but it looks like rat tails in my fish pond.
Other plants like parrot feather did great too, took over the pond itself, water lettuce just sent roots like crazy in there. and the water remain super clear the whole time. (granted I used a smallest fountain pump for a few weeks at the begining when my plants are small but then I stopped using it)
I did put guppies in the nature pond once in a while to eat the mosquitoes lavre though. This year I'm thinking about adding a few rosy red in there instead.
 
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Hi John, I got your message on the string algae...

You clearly understand what a Wildlife Pond is and are committed to that kind of pond. That's pretty cool.

The next step, and it will probably be on on going forever changing type view, is to figure out what kind of Wildlife Pond you want...and that's what you're doing now...deciding how to handle the string algae. The pond will keep throwing new things at you and the process is always pretty much the same.

The most basic, or you could say "true" Wildlife Pond is hole + water and stand back. But we normally do want to make adjustments and there certainly isn't anything wrong with that. I'm sure not a purest in any sense and consider humans to be part of nature.

IMO a "true" Wildlife Pond really needs to be pretty large, 30x30' maybe and a mud bottom. Could be a liner but still covered with maybe 1' of clay soil. I say this because the large area just seems to give nature enough room to do its thing. Like I've seen these fill 1/2 full of string algae, but never 100%. Like algae will start growing around the edges and slowly grow out toward the center. That gives time for other things to respond to that food source and they do battle. Plus temp changes (winter) help.

Smaller ponds are tougher. They can fill completely with string algae in a month or two. Some insects will love that, others won't. Frogs and turtles can have a problem with it as there's almost no open water. Duckweed can cover a small pond fast. One type of marginal can take over. Smaller ponds make it easier for a few types of plants to dominate. In bigger ponds I have seen cattails dominate.

These types of ponds (big and small) will fill in completely over time, as dead organic matter piles up, and become land again. That can happen faster in smaller ponds.

Some people are OK with all that but most people will want to make adjustments along the way. There is no right or wrong way, only what you would like at any point in time. One year you may be OK with lots of string algae, other years maybe not. It is interesting and informative to see a complete cycle of string algae, what it does as it decays, what lives in it at different stages. That does take maybe 3 years, but you learn a lot.

It is true that string algae, duckweed, etc., all add food to the environment. When growing but also, and more importantly, while decaying. But so do other species of algae. Hacking back string algae will generate more diverse life imo. So you'd be removing one food source but probably allowing other types of food sources (species of algae) to grow. That gets you more species of bugs.

The decision imo should be driven by your goals. In England it seems very popular to create Wildlife Ponds to support newts while in the US people seem to like frogs more. Weird why that is, but they have different goals which can drive how the pond is managed. A pond for birds (drinking and bathing) are popular and even ponds to maximize dragonflies, butterflies, etc. So owners may tweak the pond as needed to meet those goals.

Here's how I look at a small backyard Wildlife Pond, not saying you should do the same. I remove things that seem like excess. Totally subjective call. For example, I wouldn't want 100% duckweed coverage. Blocking sun blocks life. So I'd start pulling it to keep it at maybe 10-20%. I once pulled almost all the duckweed thinking the stuff grows so fast it would bounce back...but it didn't, it disappeared completely. These systems are surprising. What I learned was to see these system as much more sensitive than I did.

For ponds collecting a lot of leaves I pull some off the bottom from time to time, trying not to disturb the bottom too much so just with my hands. Not trying to clean the bottom, just trying to slow the build up. If chunks of muck start breaking off the bottom and floating around I remove that and will remove more muck off the bottom. I take it as a sign that too much (for my goal) organic matter built up too fast.

For string algae I pull it pretty hard. I don't consider it a great food source when alive, at least the stuff I see. Because I never notice insects really eating it much, or a population of an insect exploding to use the food. Makes me think it's not a great food. And it seems really slow to decay, so again, not a great food. I assume new algae growth is better food because I see that in other plants. So to me string algae isn't hugely productive and I don't mind scaling that back. A lot of insects do seem to live in the string algae so I think it provides shelter and some food, but it isn't exactly a power food imo. The big plus to string algae is it can really jump start a pond. So I'd allow it more in the first couple of years an hack it back more as the pond matures (more diverse life).

So to me removing string algae isn't going to hurt anything, makes life more diverse and speeds up getting to a more mature pond (lots of kinds of life). Plus it's easy to add better foods if you think the loss of string algae is impacting the food chain. For example you can add fish food (dog, cat food) even though you don't have fish. Lots of bugs love that food. How far you go is your call. Fish food will benefit some bug species more than others so you would be changing the system. But when you scale back the food those populations will crash which will feed other kinds of bugs so its all good imo. In large Wildlife Life ponds many people add manure and other fertilizer to kick start life.
 

c2g

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Hi John, I got your message on the string algae...

Wow, thanks for all the info! The take-home for me is that there is no conclusive road map, which is what I wasted a lot of time looking for (although I learned a lot along the way). Give things time, see what thrives with particular algae/plants or lack thereof, take notes, and make tweaks to fit my goals.

Only a month into spring and I'm noticing something new each week. Can't wait until the summer when all the plants around the perimeter are in bloom and providing habitat to see what other visitors I can attract.
 

c2g

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Temps in the 80s over the weekend and got a chance to take in some observations. First dragonfly sightings of the year, especially using the scouring rush as a landing. Also saw some damselfly larvae. As I mentioned, I am using the mosquito dunks and I was hoping these didn't affect the good larvae I'm trying to support. Also, I do a lot of container samples and I haven't seen ANY mosquito larvae, so the dunks are working quite well. I do see lots of adults skimming the surface, so hopefully whatever is breeding in neighbors' standing water is enough of a food supply at my pond until some other sources discover the area.
 
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The stuff in dunks has been studied a fair amount and is surprising how it does seem to only effect a few kinds of bugs. Damselfly and dragonfly larvae is considered to not be effected. However, they do eat other bugs, so killing mosquito, black fly, midge larvae would/might have an impact on damselfly larvae. But I'd say you might have fewer grow to adult, but there'd be food enough for some.

Just saw a Nature (I think) show that showed how damselflies are attracted to water moving on the surface. Just a tiny patch was enough. The males defend these little patches. Very interesting and maybe a way to make a Wildlife Pond more attractive to these creatures.
 

c2g

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Pond update: blue flag iris just started blooming and all the marginal plants planted last fall are filling in. Been keeping up on the mosquito dunks. Although still no larvae, there's no shortage of adults out in the evening skimming the surface or making a meal out of me. Although I've seen toads in the rock piles and logs I deliberately left along the borders, no eggs or tadpoles, so I collected about 100 toad tadpoles from a nearby puddle to jumpstart things. Been seeing some new invertebrates, including water boatmen and the predatory diving beetle larvae, A.sulcatus.

Two months into using balled barley in mesh seems to have no impact whatsoever on the string algae. I've been fishing it out once a week using a rake, but with the tadpoles added I'm just going to let it go now. The margin is blanketed in duckweed, but hardly any toward the middle of the pond where the string algae is. I figured duckweed would block some of the light getting to the string algae, but now I'm wondering if the algae is preventing it from taking hold in the middle?

Just a fascinating experience so far. Really enjoying watching it evolve, even if it makes me late for work every morning.
 

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I just this year put in trapdoor snails. supposed to help with the organics. real bodies of water are actually pretty complex ecosystems that have developed over a long period of time. I would also suggest a filter with even a small spitter just to give it a bit of a hand. Hey Waterbug, is there a concern that the p-treat chems from the wood would leach out? I don't really know what is in the new p-treats.
 

herzausstahl

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The stuff in dunks has been studied a fair amount and is surprising how it does seem to only effect a few kinds of bugs. Damselfly and dragonfly larvae is considered to not be effected. However, they do eat other bugs, so killing mosquito, black fly, midge larvae would/might have an impact on damselfly larvae. But I'd say you might have fewer grow to adult, but there'd be food enough for some.

Just saw a Nature (I think) show that showed how damselflies are attracted to water moving on the surface. Just a tiny patch was enough. The males defend these little patches. Very interesting and maybe a way to make a Wildlife Pond more attractive to these creatures.

Thanks Waterbug I was always curious about this myself. I wonder how long before the dragonfly/damsel fly population would controll the Mosquitos?
 

herzausstahl

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C2g thanks for the updates. A local aquarium store owner I know told me to try crayfish (craw dads) to try to eliminate the string algae in my stream. Could be interesting. Haven't tried it yet because I haven't had time to clear the debris out of the stream to turn it on yet. Curious if anyone else has tried this.
 

addy1

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When we first moved here I used mosquito spray all of the time. With the pond, critters that came with it, frogs, dragon flies etc I have not had to use any anti spray for years. Have only seen one mosquito in around 3 years and I am outside all of the time.

For us here the mosquito control is fantastic the pond critters do a good job
 

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