Pond water test

Hi we are loosing plants and I done a water test but unsure of the result any advice would be appreciated thanks

 

Hi,

First, what plants are dying off , most of them or just few.
Also in what way are they dying, changing colour from a healthy green , breaking apart or just turning to mush ?

Does the water smell or look cloudy or discoloured ?

Is the plant die off related to area of higher water flow ?

What about the fish, all looking healthy and swimming about and eating ok ?

What about water changes to the pond, do you do any or just top up, if so do you add a dechlorinator to the water first ?

Re the test strip, they are only very general and normally you have to read the colours after a set time, before and after that set time the colour can change.

In your pics above, it looks like you have the test strip the reverse way round to the containers chart ?
If so, then the PH seems a little high in the red zone, but if things have been growing ok before then doubt that is the real problem as fish and plants will adapt to the regular ph.
The rest of the readings seem ok.

Be interesting to hear what you say about the above questions and if you can get some close up pics of the problem plants.

 

Hi,

Forgot to add , has anyone been using any type of weedkillers or bug killers in the garden ?
With the winds we have been having lately its so easy for spray to contaminate things,

 

Hi the plants seem to go to mush we lost. Approx 6 in total so far.. The fish are swimming about eating etc... The plants that we have lost are around the edge of the pond. The only thing we have is pump and water fall feature. Some plants change color but not many the plants we lost totally mushed. So nothing in pot apart from root.. The water looks clear little weed.. No chemicals used. Near pond. The pond is refilled only with rain water..

 

Hi,

Without knowing and seeing the plants that have died off is almost impossible to say what the cause is from afar.

It could be the plants that failed are just a difficult to grow types like many garden plants ?
The odd one or two plants failing is not unusual, but 6 , are they the same variety or different ?

For now do not throw the pots with roots in away, they may regrow, try taking them out of the pond but placing them in something like a shallow tray with some water and a semi shaded area.

Do you have the name of the ones that died and were they growing well before they failed ?

No idea how long those plants were in the pond, but could the fish or even birds etc have been nibbling on them ?

If you are only filling your pond with rain water, then that test strip PH reading, with it being Red and a high PH, seem wrong as rainwater typically is more acid / low PH ?
Try testing it again and also test it on your tap water as a comparision.
Tap water is often around ph 7.5 -8.0 so if your pond indicates a higher ph than tap water you have a problem somewhere.

 

When I first built a pond I used to spend hours and lots of money on getting the ph correct.

In my case it was always reading high ph and I'd buy the ph balance stuff.

I stopped bothering about 25 yrs ago and just let it get on with it.

I even top up with tap water and never noticed a problem, there are a lot of things out there designed to make you spend money.

The water has stayed greener longer this year, but its been a strange year for most things.

I only have goldfish and they breed and seem happy enough whatever the ph of the water shows up on those test things.

As to plants, yeah not easy to say why they would all die like that, I'm guessing they were all pond marginal plants?
Must admit its a mystery, unless you have used some kind of algaecide.

 

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately unsure of what plants there where as no label and put in bin but found them in bottom of pond on there side.. Not seen birds around pond only bugs critters.. I done another test of water before and after the water. Looks clear in picture of glass..
We are only using products from pond expert to control blanket weed but plants where dieing of before using it..

 

I think you are worrying too much Gismo, you wanted a wildlife pond, so let wild life get on with it.
I'd not add anything to the water, just as long as you have a biological filter.

Manually remove blanket weed and put some more marginal plants in. If they were on the bottom and totally submerged then that would be why they died.

 

We had alot of problems with blanket weed going around plants like lillys etc and trying to remove weed away from these plants was hard so took advice about pond expert..
Yes your right I do worry about anything really but all I can do is ask questions and try my best to understand

 

The rest of the pond plants look ok, it might just be that the ones that died off were too deep in the water, some only like just the roots in water. but as you have not saved their labels , impossible to know.

Never used a TDS meter on any pond, though out of interest will take a ph reading on our current little one which just has aged tap water added.

As @pete says, just let things get on with it, some things will survive others not, plus it can be a year or so until things settle down to a natural cycle.

 

I think, from the point of us amateur gardeners, there is often not one definitive answer to most questions.

The same goes for ponds, mine actually varies from year to year this year mine has stayed fairly green looking, it's usually clear by now.

But apart from doing the really necessary things I just let it do its own thing.

 

Thanks for the reply out of interest why should you not use a tds meter on pond water all though meter not in pond but in pond water in a glass...

Out of advice I went to pond expert and spent £80 on trying to get weed down as it was going around fragile plants and impossible to remove by hand or stick etc.. And looked like a mess..
Yes we wanted. A wildlife pond with critters fish but we didnt get huge amount of blanket weed in old pond just went green over the wood and again looked horrible..

It's like our veg patch our veg have been attacked by caterpillars. Butterflys. Snails. Slugs. The veg patch is netted with slug snail traps all so pellets but still veg is been eaten by critters.. Same with some flowers which are netted etc but can't seem anything really..

 

Gizmo, the perfect world does not exist ,some things you just have to live with.

 

I know there is nothing like a perfect world and you have to get on with life the best you can but some times you just can't carry on the way you live

 

Nothing wrong with using a TDS meter but its use in a more wildlife type of pond is unusual, more something we associate with Koi or aquarium keepers.
In a garden pond you can get all sorts of organic debris falling into it which which will raise the TDS level, though ours gets lots of leaves and blackberries dropping into it, but it does not seem to bother things. As said, out of interest will have to measure our ponds ph and tds, though never have before.

You seem to be spending vast amounts of money on the pond, not sure who your 'experts' are but for blanket weed there are so many good modern and low cost solutions on the market.

Bugs eating the plants are always a problem for any gardener, but you can get a balance.
Our Dahlias often get lots of blackfly and in the past we either wiped them off or use a spray, but this year we just left them, the odd plant did look a bit sickly but soon the ladybirds etc arrived and naturally cleared them and continue to do so.
Same on the veg plot, have not used any slug pellets etc at all, let everything grow up which gives loads of cover for the ponds froglets to forage around , so seen very little slug damage.

As you are using raised beds have you tried using copper tape all around to stop the snails climbing up?