Hello, advice needed

[Paul@Thetford]

Hello all,
I just joined this forum and wanted to say hi.
I've just build a small wildlife pond around 2x2m with shallow end and 50cm horseshoe around a central stacked slate waterfeature in the middle. It's about a month old and I've just introduced plant life. Marginals and some deeper bottom grasses, which are starting to take.
I'm looking for advice on water as my water butts are empty. I live by a river, is it wise to use river water to top up the pond or should it be left well alone?
Many thanks

 

[Stephen Noble]

Welcome Paul,
You have a beautiful pond! Using water from your water butts is a better choice but if they are dry I would use treated tap water to top up the pond. Are you going to have fish or is it to remain a pretty water feature? Looks great. Glad to have you on board!

 

[Paul@Thetford]

Hi Stephen,
Thanks very much. It's still in early stages. Things are difficult to get hold of at the moment due to the current pandemic. I forgot to say I've built a fake wall around the back of the pond to encourage wildlife to live in. I'm having problems getting floating plants at the moment so it's a bit sparse around the back.
I'm not planning on having fish just frogs and newts etc which is why I'm thinking river water may be ok, but I don't know what I'd be bringing into it

 

[addy1]

Welcome to our forum!

The problem with river water, if you have fish, you could introduce a parasite. If no fish I don't see using the water would hurt.

With just frogs newts etc, they live in the river water so they should be fine.

Beautiful pond btw

 

[Paul@Thetford]

Welcome to our forum!

The problem with river water, if you have fish, you could introduce a parasite. If no fish I don't see using the water would hurt.

With just frogs newts etc, they live in the river water so they should be fine.

Beautiful pond btw

Welcome to our forum!

The problem with river water, if you have fish, you could introduce a parasite. If no fish I don't see using the water would hurt.

With just frogs newts etc, they live in the river water so they should be fine.

Beautiful pond btw

Thanks addy1.
In that case I think I'll use river water. I guess it might bring in food which wild animals might eat

 

[j.w]

@Paul@Thetford
River water should be fine for what you are doing w/no fish.

 

[Mmathis]

Hello and welcome. What is a water butt?

 

[poconojoe]

Nice! I like the sculpture you built! Very creative! I think I see water shooting out of top of it. It looks like you drilled a hole in the middle of a bunch of flat stones, stacked them up and ran your water line up through them. Great idea!

 

[Paul@Thetford]

Hello and welcome. What is a water butt?

Hi mmathis.
A water collector attached to a down pipehttps://www.waterbuttsdirect.co.uk/all-water-butts.html

 

[Paul@Thetford]

Nice! I like the sculpture you built! Very creative! I think I see water shooting out of top of it. It looks like you drilled a hole in the middle of a bunch of flat stones, stacked them up and ran your water line up through them. Great idea!

 

[Paul@Thetford]

Hi poconojoe,
I bought the stacked slate fountain online. It looks pretty simple though. Slate with 20mm hole in middle and steel rod through the middle. I put 10mm hose through and connected to pump with an adapter. You can get some amazing water features if you want a link I can post.

 

[poconojoe]

Hi mmathis.
A water collector attached to a down pipehttps://www.waterbuttsdirect.co.uk/all-water-butts.html

Nice!
That's what we call a rain barrel here in Pennsylvania. Now I have a new word to add to my vocabulary!
I have one that I made out of a big white food grade barrel. I added a diverter into one of my leaders (downspout) from my house gutters. The diverter has a lever to switch it back a forth between normal and rain barrel, otherwise the barrel could overflow.
We use it to water our many plants.

 

[JamieB]

Riverwater will have algae, bugs, and daphnea, which won't be a problem so long as you have no problem with water going green from algae, and watch out for predatory bugs like dragon fly larva. The frogs and newts may spawn in your water feature, and the Daphne and algae provide good for them.

 

[Paul@Thetford]

Riverwater will have algae, bugs, and daphnea, which won't be a problem so long as you have no problem with water going green from algae, and watch out for predatory bugs like dragon fly larva. The frogs and newts may spawn in your water feature, and the Daphne and algae provide good for them.

Thanks Jamie.
That's what I needed to know. I don't mind having this as I want to have proper wildlife pond. I'm a little concerned about algea but I've been told I can get snails and mussels to help control this

 

[JamieB]

With proper flow, the muscles will help, but you'll still have green water. I haven't seen snails do much good.