Hi from UK

[OllieOtter1994]

Hi all

New poster here, have a quarter acre pond in our front garden which was originally built for drinking water for cows (we live on a farmhouse). The pond is probably over 300 years old, and has been in the family for over 60 years. It is clay lined, but now very silty as you would expect, and usually crystal clear with lots of weed and runs down to nearly 5ft deep in the centre (but only around 2ft on the outskirts).

We originally had hundreds of goldfish (up till around 20 years ago) but this had depleted to nothing due to herons and other bastard birds. In the last 10 years we have stocked with roach, bream and such silverfish (there are now hundreds of roach!!).

Last year we also branched out with some albino grass carp, tench, goldfish, shubunkins and 3 koi carp. The koi carp were a fairly decent size – probably 12-16 inches.

We have lost sight of most of these fish which we presume were made heron food since last seeing them in the warmer months of last year. The koi have never been seen since putting them in in October of last year - however this is for another thread...

My dad and I are hoping to add more fish and hopefully get a more diverse pond (not just roach...), so will aim to keep updates going over our progress in the coming years..

Hello all! Here are some pics...

 

[addy1]

Welcome to our forum!

Beautiful old pond.

 

[Becky]

Hello and welcome to the forum! Great to have you here

 

[Lisak1]

Oh my gosh! That is simply a beautiful setting! Thanks for joining us!

 

[j.w]

@OllieOtter1994 Very nice looking huge pond!

 

[OllieOtter1994]

Thanks very much all for the nice messages, I think we maybe take it for granted so its nice/surprising to hear! A shame I don't have any old photos to hand of when it was teeming with goldfish - I will try to have a dig round for some!

 

[poconojoe]

Beautiful!
What are silverfish and roach? A type of fish? Here in the states those are nasty bugs! I'm sure your not talking about bugs!

 

[JamieB]

You could try adding more plants for the fish to hide in, such as Waterlilly and other submersible plants. It would give the fish places to hide, plants to spawn on, space for fry to hide, etc.

 

[OllieOtter1994]

Beautiful!
What are silverfish and roach? A type of fish? Here in the states those are nasty bugs! I'm sure your not talking about bugs!

Ah, no definitely not, though if you are familiar with roach you will agree they are pretty much the fish equivalent! They've completely taken over our pond now, there's thousands of them! They look like this...

There are some quite big ones in our pond, maybe 8/9 inches, but they don't really get bigger than a couple of pounds.

By silverfish it was more a generic wording for other types of similar coarse fish, i.e. bream and rudd. We put some of these in around the same time as the roach but it appears only the roach have thrived since!

 

[OllieOtter1994]

You could try adding more plants for the fish to hide in, such as Waterlilly and other submersible plants. It would give the fish places to hide, plants to spawn on, space for fry to hide, etc.

Hi Jamie, thanks for that, probably not the best photographs but we do have a couple of patches of lilies on the pond although they are really small in relation to the pond really. Perhaps some more would give the fish some extra cover!

Also normally the pond is completely filled with weed - we had a clear out last year and got most of it out as it was getting very thick and was almost pooling off different sections of the pond. There is still quite a large amount in the centre for the fish to hide in and we are conscious of how fast the stuff grows back! I think in a year or so it'll be back to its normal thickness and need clearing out again...

 

[BarbO]

Your pond is beautiful! Do you ever take a little rowboat out into it?

 

[poconojoe]

A remote controlled model boat would be cool too.

 

[JamieB]

Hi Jamie, thanks for that, probably not the best photographs but we do have a couple of patches of lilies on the pond although they are really small in relation to the pond really. Perhaps some more would give the fish some extra cover!

Also normally the pond is completely filled with weed - we had a clear out last year and got most of it out as it was getting very thick and was almost pooling off different sections of the pond. There is still quite a large amount in the centre for the fish to hide in and we are conscious of how fast the stuff grows back! I think in a year or so it'll be back to its normal thickness and need clearing out again...

Your koi could be hiding in there. I’m wondering if your various silver fish/ roaches are eating the other fish, or just out competing them for food. Try getting some pond fish food and tossing some out daily. Same spot, same time, every day, they’ll Lear to associate that with free food, and eventually you’ll see all of you surviving fish.

 

[OllieOtter1994]

Your pond is beautiful! Do you ever take a little rowboat out into it?

I haven't personally but Dad used to take a tin bath / makeshift boat out on to it with his siblings when he was growing up!

We've also got a canoe which he's used on it in the last 5 years, I'm not sure the pond is quite big enough to facilitate this properly. I am thinking of taking the canoe out to the middle to see if I can flush out any koi that might be amongst the weed!

 

[OllieOtter1994]

A remote controlled model boat would be cool too.

Definitely! I have taken my old fishing bait boat out there a few times but that is long broken now..

How about a jetski, now that would be interesting!