smelly pond water

I did consider this . Also, thought about raising the edges of the pond by banking it up with soil, which might work. There is the soil that came out of the hole, so I could use that, although it probably won't be enough. I would need 18 inches or so banked up and then some extra soil for planting. Would have to buy the soil as no spare in the garden.

 

@Gizmo would a mini digger fit into your space maybe? My pond is full of life, most of which I have no idea what it is . Diving beetles, Pond Skaters I recognise. There are water snails, including the pretty Ramshorn variety ( they arrived with the pond plants I bought, I think ). There were Newts in the pond last year and they had babies, but I haven't seen any evidence of them for awhile. Which doesn't mean that evidence is lacking, of course. I have seen Damsel Flies around the pond and a year before last I found a huge green Dragonfly in the back garden, which is not far from the pond. There were already Toads in my garden before the pond and I've seen them near the pond but they haven't used it yet. We put some frog spawn in the pond last year. There is a lot of debate as to whether you should or shouldn't do it but some people do. With hindsight I wish I hadn't as the Newts arrived and ate all but three of the Tadpoles. I rescued those and they eventually became frogs and left the mini pond they were living in. My pond will freeze but if a heavy frost is expected I put a couple of plastic bottles in the pond. You could also add a heater to your pond. I had one for my goldfish, they were always around it.

 

thanks for your reply , we dont have enough space even for a mini digger to come into garden , it would be wonderfull to see all the creepy crawlies , insect , frogs , fish , enjoying a pond , when we had our raised pond and it was frosty as it was netted it looked like there was a large hole in the netting but it was only frost and ice the pond water did not get iced up i think due to the water fall and pump on 24 / 7 .
may i ask why put plastic bottles into a pond ?.
with pond heater would that not need electric as we only have 1 line going out to the pond for the electric pump we have not got a electric socket as such many thanks for your help and advice

 

@Gizmo ...it's to keep an air hole open , my Dad kept a couple of big balls floating on his in Winter.

 

I might be wrong
But I think the floating ball or plastic container goes back to the days of concrete ponds, and the idea was it gave the expanding ice somewhere to go instead of cracking the pond.

On the occasions mine has iced over for more than a couple of days I've made a hole by putting a pan of boiling water on top and allowing it to melt through.

In a couple of the extreme winters, where it was iced up for more than a week, I've used one of those polystyrene boxes that vegetables are transported to shops in, to place over the hole and stop it refreezing.
The hole allows gasses to escape that could otherwise kill the fish or frogs, maybe.

 

many thanks for your reply at the moment old pond etc is in skip i have managed to measure the area for new pond now the aera is 9 foot from front path to back fence 7 foot from shed to side fence now taking into consideration that you have to walk around pond what size would you recommend apart from a thimble thanks for your advice and help

 

I think its best if we let you work that one out Gizo, afterall you have it all there in front of you.

 

All seems rather academic as to the size etc etc, if your ground is solid ?

You need to roll back the grass to the middle of that anticipated area and then dig a small hole with a spade and trowel, only needs to be a spades width and go down for the 18" you need.

Just dig carefully as you probably have no idea if there are any drains etc under there as well.

Once you know it is diggable then you can decide on size and shape, though before ordering any expensive pond or liner, it would be best to dig the full size hole as you may find other obstacles that the test hole did not show up. ( though you could do extra test holes to help avert that )

 

I thought it was going to be a preformed one

I've lost the plot.

 

Just to add to this thread about this moulded small pond with Lonesome the sole
fish occupant. It is approximately 1 and half metres in Length by 1 metre Width and the
the depth is one third of a metre. Lonesome is about 20 cm. He has lived in this pond for 5 years and was a tiddler when we purchased him as a young gold fish.
We have a pump that we can't get access to so never been able to clean the filter. It runs through and down a waterfall and there are plenty of oxygenating plants in the pond as well as a couple of Water Lillie's. This pond is in full Sun when its out..It has never suffered any green algae problems unlike the wooden one that has numerous smaller gold fish in it..a very common cause of algae is having too many fish in the Pond...So that would likely be the cause of the wooden one's algae.. even though it benefits from some shade.

 

pete said...On the occasions mine has iced over for more than a couple of days I've made a hole by putting a pan of boiling water on top and allowing it to melt through.
So do you do chips with that boiled fish or spuds..interesting..boiling water to melt ice, that could get you an award, Pete......

 

I tried to make a hole in the ice once with a blowlamp.
Thought it would do it easily.

Made a small dent and that was about it.

 

Thankyou for your replys
With any garden that you want a wildlife pond in you have to decide on the size of pond. We have taken advice about depth of pond due to various reasons. How many critters you can have etc
Preformed ponds has shelves but some are tiny small and large with the area we have it's hard to say what would be best and ponds in gereral has there pros and cons there must be a in between not perfect but to say OK that be nice
We would like all critters to enjoy our pond but deceideing on what is a problem. Some users have large ponds some has small ponds some users say if small you could have issues with weather etc.
At some point I expect to mark out the area and shape of the pond and hopefully I won't hit and pipes etc