Looking to create a garden pond but not sure yet whether we want fish and wildlife or just ornamental, although that doesn't matter here.
What's the best (or preferred) pump and/or filter to go for power-wise, mains voltage or 12V?
Much depends on the size and scale of the project. A small ornamental fountain can run from a submerged 12V pump. A large water clarification system will probably need a mains powered circulation pump somewhere outside of the pond along with the filtration / sterilisation.
Thanks John. Only a small project, say 10ft long x 5ft wide and about
2ft 6in deep with a cascade at one end maybe. Roughly. Nothing in tablets of stone yet but certainly not "large".
If you want wildlife, don't have fish! When we first established a pond, we were fascinated by all the wildlife that just appeared from nowhere (dragonflies and their nymphs; damsel flies and their nymphs; water boatmen; water skeeters; toads, toadspawn and toadpoles (only one year did we have frogspawn); the occasional newt). Spent many happy hours watching it all. But then a neighbour gave us some goldfish fry from their pond, and we hardly had any wildlife from that day on. The goldfish ate all the eggs of whatever wildlife dared lay them, so nothing to hatch, and the dragonflies just stopped appearing, as if they could see the fish and went somewhere else.
and then the heron came for lunch and the fish weren't there any more.
No such luck, although we did see a heron eyeing up the pond before we had fish, and there were a lot of water lily leaves for the fish to hide under.
Yes and ignore all those things that say maintenance free, Nature is often much cleverer than the designers of pond filters and pumps! No I don't have a pond, but my neighbours used to. ahem. Brian
Yes indeed, fish are also hard to keep if they are imported ones. No just a pond with some way to make sure the water flows and oxygenates is good for wildlife. After all if you make a big pond and put even slightly valuable fish in it, Mr Heron will soon remove them for you. Brian
I've been told that a few Golden Orfe are good for wildlife ponds, they don't churn up the vegetation, but they munch the mosquito larvae
Mesh cover does seem to be the only effective answer to that one
I would say 12V.
That would be isolated so won't trip the RCD as easily as a mains installation could.
If the filter trips you could lose the fish.
If its just ornamental it doesn't matter.
A friend of mine lost most of their large, expensive Koi to otters. If I had been them, I would have set up camera traps and tried baiting with mackerel, but they filled the pond in.
We've got no fish and no mozzies.
What with the dragonfly larvae, the water boatmen and the newts the mozzies don't really stand a chance.
The frogs and toads help with the garden too - we have hostas, and almost no slug damage.
This winter it's getting its first real maintenance in 5 years. They gradually silt up, and it's nowhere near deep enough.
Andy
I've been provided with a planting plan that includes hostas and was worried about slugs
What size/depth is it?
About 5mx10, across the axes of what is roughly elliptical.
And nowhere more than a metre deep. I'd prefer to be needing drysuit to clean it out, nor knee length waders. I gather the great crested newts prefer more depth too.
Andy
Thanks, I'm looking at building one about 10x8m that's "fat 8" shaped, the conventional wisdom seems to be under 1m at deepest part.
Remember to leave plenty of shallow margins for water plants. Worth thinking about what you want to grow in it and researching the water depths they like to grow in. Some just like boggy soil, others grow in about 6" of water, others as deep as 3ft.
Remember also that the volume of soil excavated will be paradoxically roughly twice the volume of the hole you dig, due to it being fairly compacted where it is now, but loose and voluminous when piled into a heap.
Yes, a local nursery has an impressive, well established, wildlife pond and his advice is make it much shallower than you think it needs to be.
Me thinking about plants? Ha!
The excavated soil will help towards filling in an area that a previous owner had dug-out for a workshop he never built, that's why I'm thinking get the pond roughed-out now, rather than have to dispose of the topsoil later, actually it's quite gravelly so probably won't be all that compacted.
Chris Hogg snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net wrote:
We took advantage of that by not digging the hole as deep and using the spoil to raise the level of the ground around the hole to give the required depth . Conveniently that kept the digging in the easy to dig soil area about 2 ft deep below which it varies from chalk and flint and some clay . The garden is on a slight slope any way as the ground slopes to a chalk stream about 50m away so some levelling of the ground was going to be needed around the pond anyway.
Pond which is just for wildlife is about 6mx4m and has shelved side steps at 6? and 1ft depths for various plants and a deep sump which is about 1m depth and which it is fairly easy to remove debris from using an extra long litter picker and a coarse net. Some people use a pond vac but I find that too brutal and prefer to scoop it out and go through the muck and return dragon fly larvae,pond snails etc back . One end is a gentle slope to a beach so things like hedgehogs can easily drink or get out if they enter the water elsewhere and birds like to bathe in that area as well. The pond liner is covered fairly thickly at that end with small stones which I was glad we did as we have also had heavier animals like deer and badgers standing there to drink, fortunately the liner was not damaged . By having the pond raised above the level of the surrounding garden means an intermediate level about 2mx3m is lined but filled with soil and is a bog garden fed by overflow from the pond and that in turn overflows on to a vegetable patch. The main pond gets topped up by rainfall piped from the overflows of various waterbutts from the house roof and other buildings. A 1000l IBC gets fed from the neighbours garage roof,that is the reserve top up for the pond if it threatens to get seriously low in prolonged dry spells when the butts which between them hold about 2000l get too depleted. Even if emptied a good thunderstorm soon fills them .
GH
For the newts _at least_ 2 metres is good.
But only in one bit. You want a lot of shallow.
Andy
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