I have a fairly new (2 months) pond and bog. My plants started off great but now they are getting lots of yellow and dying back. I have 2 Lizard tails in the pond that still look great but everything in the bog looks like it's half dead. I have 4 small shubunkins. Pond is around 1000 gallons.
Plants are struggling
- Thread starter Crash78
- Start date
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2019
- Messages
- 1,477
- Reaction score
- 2,557
- Location
- Purlear, NC
- Hardiness Zone
- 7a
- Country
In my experience, it takes a season or two for plants to really settle in & do well. Especially in a new pond with only a few small fish, there aren't a whole lot of nutrients in the system for them to feed on. I tend to go with a 'tough love' philosophy & let the plants struggle - survival of the fittest & all - because I have too much garden to have to fuss over persnickety plants. You could shove a few aquatic fertilizer tablets down in the gravel near the plants, though, if you wanted to see if giving them a bit of a boost helps.
Mmathis
TurtleMommy
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2011
- Messages
- 13,928
- Reaction score
- 8,104
- Location
- NW Louisiana -- zone 8b
- Hardiness Zone
- 8b
- Country
I tend to agree with @BKHpondcritters. My plants (aquatic as well as the ones in soil) always struggle that first year or so, but when they come back, they come back nicely. Unless you are waiting for nature to take its course, you could add a few more goldfish. They will eventually multiply, but 1000 gal should be fine for you.
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2021
- Messages
- 142
- Reaction score
- 118
- Location
- Albuquerque, NM
- Showcase(s):
- 1
- Hardiness Zone
- 7a
- Country
Are you in an alkaline part of the country? This sounds like it could be iron chlorosis. There is usually plenty of iron available but in a high ph environment plants have a hard time using it. You can try adding some chelated iron or trying to lower the ph a bit. I added some chelated iron and it did wonders for my plants. You want it chelated with either EDTA or FeDDHA. Check out some aquaponics sites for info on dosage/types.
Like others have said, it's likely a lack of food for the plants. When I started my small 600 gallon pond, I added about 20 feeder goldfish to get things cycled. Surprisingly, all 20 of them lasted over a year with only a couple dying off a few months ago. More fish, plus plenty of fish food will get them producing more fuel for the plants.
@twoheadsbrewing hows the pond doing it's about a year old now is it not??
It's good to think ahead - you're in the minority on that one!
You can supplement new pond plants with some fertilizer too - I used Jobe's spikes on a number of my plants in the beginning. By year three everything started clicking and the plants became self-sufficient.
It's about a year and a half old at this point, and it's doing great. I added a bog filter, and that's made a huge difference. All the plants in there are doing incredible and it's done a great job of keeping the water crystal clear. I had some string algae issues earlier this year, but the bog and resulting plant growth have cleared that up.
Here's a recent pic:
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2021
- Messages
- 258
- Reaction score
- 182
- Location
- Carlsbad, CA
- Showcase(s):
- 1
- Hardiness Zone
- 10a/sunset zone 23
- Country
So, I have a relatively new pond as well and given that everyone's pond has different water parameters and different amounts of plants and fish, and not that many people here seemed to be in my climate zone, I went for the variety route and just planted lots and lots of different types of plants instead of just a few (I got most off of Etsy and a few from Amazon). This has paid off as it's allowed me to see what can tolerate my setup and what can't so now I can just pinch off suckers and replant or order more of the plants that are thriving and remove the ones that just aren't happy with my corner of the world.
Also, as I was cycling the pond and before I finished adding all my fish, I also used a liquid aquatic plant support designed for aquariums to help the plants through that initial period where there was there wasn't really any fish waste to support them and that seemed to help.
Last, I personally would avoid trying to mess with the Ph of the pond, from my own experience and from reading the experience of many here, that usually doesn't work and is traumatic for the fish. May be simpler and better to just learn to work with the Ph you have and keep it nice and stable.
Last edited: