wildlife pond

[mimififi]

I have made a wild life pond in my garden to help with pest control etc and to attract more wildlife (not crows though) and have just filled it in. Let the water settle and acclimatise etc and have planted it up with a few marginal's and deep water plants last week. I used proper aquatic compost but the water has gone green.

It does not have a pump as I am still to find a good solar power pump and does not have any fish as I wanted to try and avoid fish as I plant to put frogspawn in their in the springtime.

Why is it going green? What can I do about it. I thought about using barley straw, but I wanted to tackle the cause.

Also, anyone recommend a good economical solar pump for a pond. The pond is quite small but about 4 feet deep.

[hammerman]

Personally, i'd forget the pump.....many wildlife aquatic species don't like too much water movement.

The green water is part of the maturing process of the pond. Just let nature take it's course and soon, the marginals and aquatic plants will out-compete the algea for nutriets....it's all about getting the balance right. A small water lilly would be benificial so it reduces the amount of sunlight entering the pond.

If you decide to have fish, have you thought about some little sticklebacks. They will help with keeping the balance right and are pretty small, although you'll hardly ever see them.

[steviep165]

hammers right.
give it time to settle, it should be fine.
for a pond of that depth a pump isnt really necessary, especially if your planning on frogs. young tadpoles will quite happily munch away on a lot of the small debris in the water. once there numbers have thinned out and the weather warms up, green algae may become a bit of a problem, as mine is right about now!! we,ve got an old toilet brush that we use to scoop the excess off the surface just to keep it looking respectable.
we have tadpoles now that are losing their tails, and turning into tiny frogs. also water boatmen and pond skaters. the birds love it and come for their daily baths!

[Thunderbird+]

Hi mimififi,
I think you will have endless hours of interest and fascination with your new wild life pond, I have a couple myself, one for fish and the other just for amphibians etc.
I also encountered the "pea soup" problem at first but now I've seem to achieved my ultimate aim and reached a natural balance, what I did to speed up this process was crumble up 1 or 2 handfuls of earth (clay soil is best) and cloud the water with your hands as you untill its murky, this will block out sunlight and also sink algae to the bottom as the fine particles settle.
Wow thats pretty deep for a small pond! I have a small solar pump in mine, which I picked up for a tenner, it just floats on the surfice and sends up a jet about 12"-16" high, but only in good sunlight. it has 4 differant fountain heads which occaisionally need cleaning. My golden rudd seem to enjoy the fountain.
I did try barley straw but found tadpoles munched through blanket weed quicker than anything! For surfice shading, I found the 'water fringe' ideal for a small pond, 3" max leaf size with yellow flowers and its native too.
Good Luck. T bird+

[WendyS]

I think it's the strong sunshine which is causing the algae mimififi. I only have a small pond too but use lots of oxygenatig plants for the tadpoles and newts, (no fish) and find that the barley straw method keeps it pretty clear. When I tried to buy a solar fountain my local acquatic centre refused to recommend one as they said they were all rather unreliable and disappointing in performance.

[n00dles]

Your posting brings back memories of the wildlife pond we used to have before moving to here.

When we moved the location of our very small pond, to another area (much bigger) we had quite a fight on our hands getting all the frogs out, so we could fill the area in!

I don't think that any of our neighbouring gardens had any water features, and we were inundated with the little darlin's. Plus some newts, and other little amphi's...

As hammerman states a surface plant will filter out the sunlight and the taddies and froglets love some cover, not forgetting the frogs liking to sit on the lily pads!

Also, like h says get our native sticklebacks, and make it a natural (to Britain) wildlife pond.......

Good luck, I do envy you........

[mimififi]

Thank to everyone for being so helpful, I am really very appreciative, and it's nice to know that it is not just me being a dunce that has turned the pond green!

I am quite taken by the whole stickleback idea. Where are they available? or do I have to go to the local river? Also, will sticklebacks eat frogspawn and taddies?

Thanks again for the lovely ideas and warm encouraging support not to mention the lashings of excellent advice.

love
mim
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