Pond experts

[Count Steer]

Not exactly DIY or workshop but I know a few of you have ponds. I need to keep mine topped up through the summer (because the ledges round the edge are too shallow so when the level drops it strands the marginals ). I've got a rainwater gathering system but it hasn't rained for weeks. I've bought some 'Chlorine Klear' from Envii which is supposed to treat tap water to make it ok to use for top ups. Anyone used it or have any other solutions?

The water is a bit green (it has a pump for the stream/waterfall but no filter/UV). Eventually the plants should get that sorted (the pond was made a fair bit bigger a year or so ago so it's being started from scratch effectively). Bought some Envii stuff that you dilute and sprinkle on with a watering can - it's supposed to be bacteria or something that eats the green stuff. Anyone used anything like it? Any success?

(It's a 'natural' pond, so no fish but some newts are back and the water boatmen and dragonflies seem happy, no frogs or toads yet, but that's probably down to the new neighbours cat. I'd like to get it so I don't have to be doing stuff like checking pH, nitrate levels and faffing about with chemicals/bacteria etc).

[Mussels]

You don't need a filter in a natural pond, that's for people who stock a good amount of fish. The bacteria you want grows naturally on every surface so adding it from a bottle will probably do nothing, the most I'd do is have a little solar powered fountain to keep some circulation going.
I used to top up my goldfish pond with the hose but you could be in an area with high chlorine so I'd suggest something called Seachem Safe, it's a powder concentrate so works out much cheaper than any other water conditioner I've seen.

[Count Steer]

You don't need a filter in a natural pond, that's for people who stock a good amount of fish. The bacteria you want grows naturally on every surface so adding it from a bottle will probably do nothing, the most I'd do is have a little solar powered fountain to keep some circulation going.
I used to top up my goldfish pond with the hose but you could be in an area with high chlorine so I'd suggest something called Seachem Safe, it's a powder concentrate so works out much cheaper than any other water conditioner I've seen.

Thanks.

The pump and stream (it's a series of little waterfalls/pools down a rocky sort of valley - the stone isn't in keeping with the local geology but it's what I had for the rockery that this replaced) should keep the water aerated. The 'Chlorine Klear' seems to be an expensive way of buying ascorbic acid ).

The funny thing is that when we moved in the pond was minute but chocka with goldfish, snails and plants (probably Canadian pondweed) and perfectly clear - no pumps/fountains. I started to feed them, which the previous people didn't. Before that the fish had been pretty secretive but they started to mooch about in plain sight a bit more....so a local heron ate them. Then the newts and frogs etc moved in/survived. Had a similar pond at the previous house. Never did anything much to it and it was full of wildlife and crystal clear.

(My new cat loving neighbours filled in a pretty big, very old pond near our boundary. 'Because of the children' The previous occupants birthed and raised 3 in the same house without having to fish them out of it).

[David]

2 litre bottle of bleach twice a month will sort it.

[MingtheMerciless]

My pond is looking a bit green, unfortunately had to top it up from the tap today as we've not had any rain. I have a solar powered fountain and a foam filter for a bit or circulation. When the weather breaks I'll rig a pipe from the flatfoot gutters to the pond to give it a good flush out and top up.

[Rockburner]

We have a smallish pond, with fish (gold, koi, shibunkin), when it gets a little low, we just fill up a large plastic box with water from the tap (hose) and then leave it for day or two to off-gas the chlorine*, then add it to the pond. There's also a pump in there to keep the water circulating (with a small fountain). I'm not sure we do anything else to it at all. The Fish are obviously happy - they're breeding!



* As advised by the guys at the local Maidenhead Aquatics

[Count Steer]

My pond is looking a bit green, unfortunately had to top it up from the tap today as we've not had any rain. I have a solar powered fountain and a foam filter for a bit or circulation. When the weather breaks I'll rig a pipe from the flatfoot gutters to the pond to give it a good flush out and top up.

I've got a large water butt that fills off the conservatory and a chain of small butts that fill off the greenhouse and an Einhell butt pump to pump it into 3 × 200l+ storage butts but I didn't start harvesting early enough. Need to add a collect and store system to the cabin too. Pondering getting a couple of IBC tanks too. Might be a bit excessive but we're on a meter and will use it to water all the plants too. Apparently it's becoming a bit of a thing to have BIG underground storage tanks installed.

I'll give the Envii Natural Pond Klear a go but I can't help but think once you start on that sort of thing* you suddenly find you need their pH balance chemicals etc etc etc. More plants needed seems to be the wisdom from the internet, that and some more shade.

I'll treat a 250 litre butt with chlorine remover too and give that a go.

* tellingly it comes up on Amazon as a repeat, monthly order option.

[Count Steer]

We have a smallish pond, with fish (gold, koi, shibunkin), when it gets a little low, we just fill up a large plastic box with water from the tap (hose) and then leave it for day or two to off-gas the chlorine*, then add it to the pond. There's also a pump in there to keep the water circulating (with a small fountain). I'm not sure we do anything else to it at all. The Fish are obviously happy - they're breeding!



* As advised by the guys at the local Maidenhead Aquatics

Has it got much in the way of plants in?

I've been adding water in 50 - 100l doses. Maybe I need to do a little often although I suspect that the water in the 'stream' is above the liner somewhere....the plants alongside look suspiciously lush.

[Taff]

whenever our pond needs topping up it gets it straight from the hose pipe, it's about 14k ltr though so adding a hundred or two from the tap isn't going to make much difference. I used cloverleaf blanket clear every few years and that's enough to keep the blanket weed down, the UV and massive filter does the rest to keep the water crystal clear.

another much recommended plant is a bag of watercress from the supermarket, it grows pretty quickly and will soon mop up the unwanted nitrates and stuff

[Rockburner]

We have a smallish pond, with fish (gold, koi, shibunkin), when it gets a little low, we just fill up a large plastic box with water from the tap (hose) and then leave it for day or two to off-gas the chlorine*, then add it to the pond. There's also a pump in there to keep the water circulating (with a small fountain). I'm not sure we do anything else to it at all. The Fish are obviously happy - they're breeding!



* As advised by the guys at the local Maidenhead Aquatics

Has it got much in the way of plants in?

I've been adding water in 50 - 100l doses. Maybe I need to do a little often although I suspect that the water in the 'stream' is above the liner somewhere....the plants alongside look suspiciously lush.

Yes, some plants, lilies, oxygenators and a few other things, I'm not the expert!

[Ant]

I've been pondering over this also.

[Mussels]

My pond is looking a bit green, unfortunately had to top it up from the tap today as we've not had any rain. I have a solar powered fountain and a foam filter for a bit or circulation. When the weather breaks I'll rig a pipe from the flatfoot gutters to the pond to give it a good flush out and top up.

I've got a large water butt that fills off the conservatory and a chain of small butts that fill off the greenhouse and an Einhell butt pump to pump it into 3 × 200l+ storage butts but I didn't start harvesting early enough. Need to add a collect and store system to the cabin too. Pondering getting a couple of IBC tanks too. Might be a bit excessive but we're on a meter and will use it to water all the plants too. Apparently it's becoming a bit of a thing to have BIG underground storage tanks installed.

I'll give the Envii Natural Pond Klear a go but I can't help but think once you start on that sort of thing* you suddenly find you need their pH balance chemicals etc etc etc. More plants needed seems to be the wisdom from the internet, that and some more shade.

I'll treat a 250 litre butt with chlorine remover too and give that a go.

* tellingly it comes up on Amazon as a repeat, monthly order option.

Don't bother with extra chemicals, it's not a pool and will find its own balance. I'm into aquarium plants, I mix a variery of chemicals and have a bank of peristaltic pumps to feed the right doses. Even with that I draw the line at messing about with PH and hardness, just get a selection of plants and see what likes the water you have.
Nobody has mastered algae but it basically needs the same as plants, plants are more choosy but better at grabbing what they need so if you get the right plants then there's nothing left for the algae, I like giant water lettuce as it looks great and grows fast.
There's a fine line making water butts financially worth it, when I started looking at larger or specialist systems I'd never recoup the cost unless I could use it for toilet flushing as well but a gravity fed system in a bungalow won't be great. A couple of years ago I started with 100l, then boosted that to 300l and now I have a couple more 200l tubs that I'm adding this week. When we were without mains water for a few days last year being able to flush the bogs made them priceless.

[Count Steer]

Nobody has mastered algae but it basically needs the same as plants, plants are more choosy but better at grabbing what they need so if you get the right plants then there's nothing left for the algae, I like giant water lettuce as it looks great and grows fast.
There's a fine line making water butts financially worth it, when I started looking at larger or specialist systems I'd never recoup the cost unless I could use it for toilet flushing as well but a gravity fed system in a bungalow won't be great. A couple of years ago I started with 100l, then boosted that to 300l and now I have a couple more 200l tubs that I'm adding this week. When we were without mains water for a few days last year being able to flush the bogs made them priceless.

I'll have a trip to our local aquatic plants place and have a chat + check out the water lettuce. It seems to be the general guide; plants, plants and more plants. Just need to get the right ones.

Haven't really calculated the cost benefit of the butts before. They're about £50-60 for 210-250l. IBCs are much more if I buy new but there are lots of s/h ones. Tap water is ~0.1p/l. So a 250l butt full is a mere 25p! We do use a lot of water in the garden (lots of plants in containers...the rest gets what it gets so we've planted quite a few Mediterranean type things - hoping the winters aren't too severe). It just seems to use tap water when the stuff falls from the sky and would just go in the soakaways.

Also, as with you, when the water supply fails (as it has several times over the last 3 years - Thames Water bottled water pallets seem to have been a fixture in the local car park), having a stash has been marv.

[Mussels]

Are you adding your water waste bill to that, it's calculated from your supply?
My total is 0.38p per litre so that 250l butt would be 96p. It will still take a few years to pay for itself but at least it will get close.

[Count Steer]

Are you adding your water waste bill to that, it's calculated from your supply?
My total is 0.38p per litre so that 250l butt would be 96p. It will still take a few years to pay for itself but at least it will get close.

Good point. I hadn't taken waste into account (I thought it was just calculated on the supply diameter - but that was probably just for unmetered supplies). Must say, the water meter (which was fitted before we moved in) is saving us ££s and the rainwater use must help. I've now got about 1000l of collection/storage...but it's just about empty.

Oh, the other thing I did with the pond to help in the early stages was planted up some floating planters (they're like floating doughnuts) to a) reduce evaporation and b) pull out some of the stuff in the tap water that the pond people filled it with when they redeveloped it. You can link them up like floating bed for marginals or have them floating around at random. Works quite well - looked a bit odd at first but it's quite relaxing to watch them float around. The newts like to lurk under them too.

[Count Steer]

Oh well, I've gone the tap water top-up route. Dosed a 250l barrel of tap water with Envii Chlorine Klear and put half of it in via the 'stream'. The level is up about 1/2in. I'll feed the rest in gradually. Also given it a dose of their natural pond bacteria stuff that's supposed to reduce the greenness. Used way less than they say, based on my estimate of the pond volume, just to see if it makes any difference at all. Prefer the 'a bit at a time' approach. Also dropped in 3 more little baskets/pots of green things (you can just weight them and lob them in but I don't want them colonising the pump and easier to hoik out if they get a bit vigorous).

One thing that's happy in there is the water boatman population, they're breeding like rabbits! Spotted a few more newts too. There are some water beetles too.

Learned a few things with this pond redesign too. a) make sure that you have easy access and a firm place to stand/kneel all the way around the around the edge b) if you're putting ledges around the edge for marginals make sure they're flat and deep enough not to be dry in summer c) if the winter overflow is into a (lined) bog garden perforate the lining if you don't want another winter pond and be prepared to add water to the bog garden in summer d) think about where the seat is going to go if you like just sitting and watching life go on in your pond e) a decent sized pump running 24/7/365 consumes a not insignificant amount of electricity/££s f) next house move buy a house with a healthy, existing 'natural' pond, the bigger the better.

[Dodgy69]

I've always use tap water, no problems with fish. You can get stuff for Green water, mix with pond water and the algae floats to the top in clumps and water clears.

For blanket weed I've used a powder, sprinkle directly onto pond. It's supposed to rid the pond of what the weed feeds on. Summot like that.

[Count Steer]

I've always use tap water, no problems with fish. You can get stuff for Green water, mix with pond water and the algae floats to the top in clumps and water clears.

For blanket weed I've used a powder, sprinkle directly onto pond. It's supposed to rid the pond of what the weed feeds on. Summot like that.

I put the green water treatment in yesterday. As you say it's mixed with a watering can full of pond water (left for 2 hrs then sprinkled across the pond). I didn't use as much as they said, but they say dose it then wait 14 days and do it again if needed. I plan to feed it in each time I do a pond top up over the next month or so and add more plants too.

Good to know that the algae clumps...it doesn't tell you that on the packet. I'd have been going if it happened.

The thing that did clear it was a cold weather snap but, as soon as things warmed up it went bright green. So far, no problems with blanket weed (touch wood!).

[Dodgy69]

The green water stuff works almost straight away if you've put enough in. Then scoop it off the surface and top up. Works great in my little pond.

[Taff]

Our pump has a variable control and I have it set at 35 or 40w, when it was switched off for a few days there was very little difference according to the smart meter.

At 40w it consumes less than 1kw in 24 hrs