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You’re describing our situation from a few months ago! We acquired a small pond and it was pretty grim. Daughter wanted some fish, which we were supportive of as animal care seems to help her develop empathy.
A couple of weeks back I drained the pond, counted nearly 200 newts and a few frogs as we scooped all the debris out!!
We’ve since refilled the pond, put lots of oxygenating plants in there, bought a pump, some fish and the redistributed the 200 newts and the water has been pretty clear since.
We do get quite a lot of algae but I think it’s due to direct sunlight but I tend to scoop the surface level stuff off when I see it.
Couple of points:
- Get a pump for your size pond
- Don’t put plants / animals etc straight into tap/hose water as the chlorine can be harmful - you can get a neutralising agent or wait 24 hours
- check out plants for different depths as these create great safety spots for fish/frogs/newts
- try not to remove all the sludge, I read that it’s important to leave some (can’t remember why!)
- It’s actually lovely watching fish and newts dart about a pond!
- Get a pump for your size pond
andos
andyp
In the forum that has a thread on everything I was surprised to find no thread dedicated to ponds, their care and upkeep. This seeks to address that - but if I've missed the thread I should be in - please point it out!
We've just come to own our own place, which is very exciting. It comes complete with it's own pond, which has been somewhat neglected. I pulled a random and very broken pump / light type thing out of it, but am now left with a very green coloured pond. There is also loads of silty crap at the bottom.
I want to make it more appealing to small creatures (frogs, dragonflys, water boatmen etc). How do I do that? Drain and refill? add some water treatment? Remove sludge or leave it? What plants?