New Wildlife Pond - Questions

[DbitMichigan]

We recently (1 week ago) started our second wildlife pond, this time in our own yard. Below is a picture of our pond on day 4. We followed some advice from the "Wild your garden" gentlemen, (Jim Ashton I think?) who my wife Nathalie follows and watches. We removed all the top soil from our dig until it changed color. Nathalie had done our local county wildlife certification program and the soil survey for our plot read 1) sand 2) sand and 3) sand, so once past our crappy top soil we sifted and preserved the sand layers. We do not think we have anything remotely clay like, but the water has failed to clarify within a few days as some have suggested it should. Then we went online and read many people warning against it, but still have heard from many proponents, although now we've heard things like 'weeks' to 'months' to even 'years' as far as things clarifying.

We're kind of doing a mashup of a wildlife pond and a watergarden because we will have a small population of fish, snails and frogs to deal with insects and the like, but will still have beaches (still working on the slopes and rockworks), fallen logs and other entry points around for local wildlife. Our first pond was at her parents house, we used a preformed liner and no soil, but over time (less than a year) a beautiful muck layer formed and it really seems healthy. We too are looking at our water and wondering if we made the wrong choice. We also used a type of inert hardware cloth rather than fleece as an overlayment, but we're regretting using pieces instead of a whole single sheet as it's been a challenge keeping things in place. We're on the fence about whether or not to drain it and start again, we're just not sure...

If anyone has some thoughts or feedback on our approach we'd love to hear it!

 

[DbitMichigan]

UPDATE:

Being somewhat concerned and impatient about seeing some water clarity develop in our new wildlife pond situated with sub-surface sand, we added RapiClear Liquid Flocculent, which we were told by our local pond specialists would be fine for fish.

The past day our skeeter eaters we added seemed extremely happy, swimming and eating lots of larvae etc, however after adding the Flocculent and running our small spillway for several hours most of our small fish have died.

Has anyone else had this experience? We are kind of doing a bit of a mashup of several techniques, but every source we consulted said that Flocculent's were perfectly safe for fish, and ours have mostly died and/or exhibited extreme stress in just several hours.

 

[brokensword]

You've got a lot going on and it looks very promising!

Okay, the issues;

many 'experts' will advise chems into the pond--except for a dechlor, most here will tell you to eschew the chems altogether. I'm assuming you don't have a liner, correct? You're using the earth to hold water, right? Most of the time, you're going to need a clay base and even then, maybe some bentonite to help solidify everything. Were it mine, I'd just put in a liner--many problems will go away, especially any sand being suspended in the water column as now, you'll separate the two. From there, everything you want can happen more easily.

The fish no doubt died due to the chems, if I wasn't clear above. Typically we recommend a liner, underlayment, a pump for circulation toward a filter (upflow wetland filter = bog filtration), some sort of waterfall back into the pond, and an optional aerator. Skimmers and negative edges are all optional but useful for certain ponds. Then, and along with the pea gravel in the bog filter, LOTS of plants to keep the system both clear and healthy. After that, it's all a matter of balancing your wildlife visitors with the debris/mess they leave behind. That's where sizing your bog filter correctly will really help.

 

[addy1]

Welcome to the forum!

I would do a liner. Agree with above chemicals are the worse thing to turn to.
I would also dig a shallow shelf around the pond, stack rocks up and out of the pond, hides the liner beautifully.

 

[GBBUDD]

FIRST note is all sands are not alike there is fine sand, beach sand and course sand usually the first two are bad choices for a man made pond as they easily are stirred up and stay suspended in the water column. i would suggest while your mini eco system is a dream at this point to drain the pond. Learn what works and what does not before you jump in. such as if your thinking or putting rocks in the pond , then you want to know how to make your shelves. As @addy1 showed you there is some techniques that work well that both hide the liner underlayment and ponds edge it is a very fine line. do it wrong and it's a nightmare for ever. constantly having to pull rock back up or wait for the pond to clear . A beach area is hardly the easiest thing to build as hard as it maybe to believe. remove the soils/ sand install a solid underlayment.

 

[DbitMichigan]

Thank you all for the feedback!

So a bit more info. This is our second pond, the first is doing great, but was done with a preformed liner and only rocks and plants (70% coverage), a few fish, a few tadpoles and a decent muck layer that formed on it's own from falling leaves we failed to get out, algae grew in the fall as the plants receded, and receded in the spring as the plants matured.

This is a first time with underlayment, a heavy duty flexible liner, and a geotextile overlayment (in strips, now we wished we'd used a solid piece). The pond is approximately 9x10 and 2.5 depth average with a target of around 33 inches and quite a bit of shelves and shallows. The shelves were built slightly angled back towards the shore to avoid too much sediment collecting in the middle. The sand was added back on the floor and the shelves, rocks and pebbles were added, there is a small pump and a spillway waterfall we're still working on but have ran off and on a bit.

Unfortunately I think the sand from our soil (about below the 18 inch line) may have been too fine.

I wish I would've asked here first about the chems. The whole ecosystem was starting to look happy 'life' wise, and after the chems seems kind of blah. :/

Aside from the previous issues, have the chems killed us? Now that the chems have settled several fish survived and seem to be reviving. Did we screw ourselves by adding them, or was it just the actual process they caused that was the problem?

 

[j.w]

@DbitMichigan
It is what it is now after the chems so just sit back and see what happens w/the fish. Hope they survive. Don't add any more chems.

 

[DbitMichigan]

View attachment 141003@DbitMichigan
It is what it is now after the chems so just sit back and see what happens w/the fish. Hope they survive. Don't add any more chems.

Thank you, I appreciate that. We're on the fence for several reasons about draining and restarting with either no overlyament, or a single piece of overlayment rather than the strips causing us problems. I just wasn't sure if I should trust the document I read that said that that chemical devolves into two inert ions found naturally or not. Here's the doc, in case anyone wants a deep dive:

https://www.santos.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Dialuminiumchloridepentahydroxide_Tier3.pdf

The pond shop that sold it to us told us it was 'all natural and bacterial' lol. So we're kind of frustrated by that...