Natural Pond

[sissy]

Not sure but do you have lake and pond management there .I know here where I live they give you all the info on what plants you can use and even help with plants in the clean water act here .They also manage fish and what is allowed in a pond and also manage runoff .

 

[Somethin' Fishy]

That's such a lovely setting you have! I hope you will post more pictures after it is cleaned up.

I'm in agreement with others as to clearing the excess vegetation. Leaving the lilies and plant specimens you'd like to keep. If you are able to drudge up some of the muck, even by scooping, it is a start. Then see how things go. Obviously this pond spent a great many years where it's at without the benefit of modern equipment. But adding a pump to get the water moving, even just an attractive fountain, would probably help. Then later on maybe work at adding filtration at the inlet point, (based on the water source and run-off factors to choose the best type).

Best of luck with it.

 

[Hygge]

Okay, so I have spent the morning clearing the algae and weed from the surface of the pond. Due to the unusually hot weather in the UK at the moment the pond is very low and therefore I pulled up some leaf matter and sticks from the bottom at the same time. Hopefully you can see some difference even though duck weed is still covering a lot of the surface. The great news is that the pond is heaving with frogs and snails so hopefully we have prevented complete suffocation of wildlife by cleaning the surface - what do you think Carolinaguy?

Thanks for all your great ideas, there are some good ideas for long-term management. Realistically we won't get round to pumping it out or creating the bog filters for a couple of years as we are renovating the house and it's a big job.

Now that the surface is clearer, any tips on helping to keep it this way (other than routine clearing)? I am assuming that we are against Barley Straw? Would more lilies help? What about having a bit of a chop of the willow branches so they don't touch the water and try to let a little more sunlight in?

We could do with more rain to get the whole thing moving again - hasn't rained here for nearly 8 weeks! But more rain means more fertilisers running off the fields I guess!

Thanks for all your help, I really appreciate it.

 

[Jhn]

If you have snails in the pond then the pond is not eutrophied.

Adding some type of water movement at the surface would help keep it clear. You could get an aerator, the diffusers would sit on the bottom of the pond and send air up to the top helping circulate the water and at the least keep an area clear. Also, would help with the overall health of the pond.

Additional sunlight isn’t the problem it is the excess nutrients. Adding sunlight would just speed up the spread of the duckweed and algae. That being said it wouldn’t hurt to trim the willow branches that are actually hanging into the pond. I would improve the pond health(circulation, manual removal of as much algae and duckweed as possible, possibly cleaning the muck out of pond bottom as best you can ) before thinning out the trees for more sunlight.

 

[MitchM]

Actually, barley straw contributes humic substances to the water column, which have anti algal and antibiotic properties - but I don't think adding more organic matter to the pond is a good idea.
In addition, willows have anti algal effects on the water.
It looks like your pond is a repository for all the ground runoff nutrients from the surrounding landscape, so your only real task is vegetation removal and management.

 

[Lisak1]

One thing I would recommend that you can easily do it to add aeration. Get an aerator designed for a big pond and drop a few diffusers in there. Simple and fast and will really get things moving in the right direction!

More plants will help - marginals more so than lilies though.

Bravo for all your hard work! It looks a ton better already!