Two bits of advice...

don't clean the pond in the middle of winter, shouldn't be necessary if you prepare for winter...

gravity fed filters don't require as much effort, especially when it comes to cleaning the pump (this is the main reason I learned how to have a proper setup).

and 3 seriously, why were you ponding when it was -2, thats just asking for trouble.

Natural pond with fish (other than stickelbacks), or without?

Mind you, you must keep the neighbours entertained...

I have no pumps, filters etc and apart from some blanketweed this spring, which I removed with the assistance of a large stick, pond has been extremely clear all year. Pond was new last autumn, so will be interesting to see whether the blanketweed returns or not next year, now it's matured.

I have plenty of marginals and a waterlily for surface coverage and also plenty of oxegenators (although need to thin these out now & again) and nature seems to sort things out herself.

I have 6 shubunkins who seem to be thriving. As there are plenty of plants, they seem to sort out the pollutants.

Pond also gets the sun for most of the day (don't know if this is relevant).

I'd like to make a natural clay pond which will hold water without a liner, so I can raise some fry in. Anyone know how I can make a clay pond naturally hold water?

hi
all.
mark when i went for my winter bath i wasn,t cleaning out the pond nor the pump i was repairing the shelter where the fish can go and mellow out away from the cold winter winds and the baking sun.
my setup is fine but the koi love to pull up weed and sometimes it can clog the filter bore but the reduction is normally 10% which i like to run at a 100% so the uvc and filter is running at its best.

im see ponds on tv with no filtration system or uv and wondered how these people maintain it.

chippewacat lucky this bathing session was during the day and most where @ work anyway the wife took a picture of the after mouth and the cctv caught it all youv,e been framed,o yer.

paula how bigs your pond?.

aaron don,t no anything about clay ponds but where i live our ground has clay about a foot down,i know when i built my pond what a bi*** that was.

---------David-----------fishmaduk-------------------

My wildlife pond has a soil bottom inside a plastic liner, an Oase quamax 5500 sucks water, for a stream, no filter, through a box screen made from two of those B&Q square aquatic plant pots that their plant kits come in, those pots are very well moulded with little flashing. Last year I was cleaning the screen frequently because of blanket weed, this year with no blanket weed I havent cleaned the screen.

Aaron
Parts of my garden is VERY heavy clay (you could make pots from it!) Varies in colour from brown (at the top) to gray and yellow.
I looked into having a clay pond many years ago and found a special clay is needed (Bentonite)which should be 'sandwiched' between normal clay/soil. Even with this there is a possibility of it leaking if it's not done correctly.
The costs and 'hassle' of doing this are not worth it on a small scale.
In the end I installed a liner and 'lined' this with clay. Worked well as a 'naturalistic' pond and required very little maintenance. However this pond is 'long gone' and replaced by larger 'bare liner' ones with filtration.
I still have a smaller 'naturalistic' pond but this is also 'bare liner' with no pumps or filters (lots of plants)and requires just as little maintenance as the original one (full of Stickleback fry at the moment)
The link below may help

Here is a link that might be useful: Building a clay pond

Some people make natural clay ponds and add chicken poop. What this apparently does is make the pond more bio-active which causes things like algae to grow and when it dies it kind of clogs the pond up therefore sealing it. But you have to keep topping the pond up untill it holds water well.

Pond's approx 2.5m by 2m and has a 1m deep channel in the middle. Not sure what that is in gallons. Am about to extend it and also build another, much larger one at the other end of the garden. Will also have full sun for most of day and I'm not intending to use filters etc in that one either, so will see if same principles work on a larger scale.

Cheers,

Paula

I have two completely natural ponds with just liners. No filter, no pump, no waterfalls, etc. I've had these ponds for five years. They have several water lilies and oxygenators, and seem to look after themselves. I started out with six goldfish and now have more than a hundred. The ponds, plants, fish and wildlife seem to have set up a natural balance. In early summer I do have some blanket weed which I remove with a long stick. I also thin out the oxygenators every year. I've seen several frogs in them but no tadpoles as yet. Maybe the fish eat the frog spawn?

hi
all.
scotty thanx for the web site very intresting.

ionads how big r these ponds ?.
did u make these yourself?.

thanx all 4 your advice.

---------David------------fishmaduk-----------------

Paula
Did you line all your pond with topsoil? Has it got very sloping sides? I've been told by a man at Stapeley Water Gardens that I will never get a clay pond to be clear. I dug a steep sided hole with the intention of lining it but it filled up with water so I'm trying to keep it as a clay pond but getting problems with clay particles floating to the surface and steep sides mean I can't cover all the clay. I'm now thinking of re-shaping it and possibly extending it as bigger is apparently better for a clay pond. Also has anyone got any advice re.good plants for clay- somethings evergreen and with some structure for the winter ideally as it's near the house.

Hi David,

One pond is 3m long, 1.5m wide and 3/4m deep. The other is 5m long, 2m wide and 1.5m deep. My husband and son dug them for me, then we lined the bottom and sides first with builder's sand and then with old carpets and rugs, and put the liner on top. Filled them with water, then tucked the edges over, I placed some stones over the edges to hide them, and grew hostas, astilbes, ferns, houttuynia, zantedeschias, mace and other reeds around the ponds.

By the 2nd year the hostas, zantedeschias and astilbes had grown quite large and were bending over the stones, which make the ponds look really nice.

I put in the gold fish almost immediately and I guess that they and the plants grew together and gave the ponds a good balance.

Like I said earlier on, the ponds do get some blanketweed in early summer, which I faithfully remove and by mid summer it has disappeared.

In winter I cover the smaller pond with glass panes as the water does freeze because it is not very deep. But the larger pond does not need covering as the water is much deeper and hasn't yet frozen even once.

By now the ponds have well over 100 goldfish, and they seem to look after themselves too as I do not feed them. I have even given several away to friends and neighbours, when we have been able to catch them.

Best of luck with your pond,
Iona

hi
all.
very interesting info iona.
my pond is now 3 years old it has many kio inside the biggest is 21 inches.
it is designed to look like a japanese pond i must get some one to take a picture of it and i will send it in.
it is 3 1/2 feet deep with a filter and uvc.

the question arise when i was planting some palms also when i build the pond,s.

also i,m an anglia (no not a very old car)and the fishery i fish @ all the ponds where manmade from useing clay.

-----------david--------------fishmaduk---------------

I was advised to put quite a lot of soil into the pond (poor quality), which ended up being the soil I dug out just under the topsoil. Like Paula, there are a lot of bugs and a balance. It is rarely 'crystal clear', but clear enough to see about 18 inches down, and sometimes can see athe deepest bit which is about 3 feet (not often, but if the sun is in the right postion.

Would love to see pictures of your pond Paula--any chance?

I have no filter - relying on the plants. Watercress does really well and I'm told it is an excellent filter. Lots of others reeds, iris, waterlilies
We do have a small solar pump run from a panel nearby. That ads some oxygen altho it depends on how grey the day is. It doesn't need sunshine but it has to be reasonably bright.
My six goldfis are now 13 and there are two more babies in there which look like they have got big enough to survive
AnnieO

Will try taking photos & posting over weekend - but can't promise success, as am not very teckie!!

New pond is now planted and had 2 waterboatmen dive in as I was filling it. Now have 4 and several pond skaters.

Can anybody advise please? - Have created new. very tiny pond for fry rescued from original, established pond and, with winter approaching, am not sure whether to leave them in this or whether to transfer them to the new,large pond. Don't want to put them back in original pond incase they get eaten & it's smaller than new pond. (Hope this makes sense. have had several glasses of wine due to crap day at work.)

Please create natural pond, you will be blessed with many things other than plants and fish - with the changing shape of the British countryside, natural ponds are crutial for ALL wildlife!

Cheers,

Paula

p.s. Badger is now feeding every night, 3 feet from my patio doors & even one of my cats is sitting with her. Am convinced this is because garden is as natural & wildlife friendly as possible. Have named her Betty.

Hello all, My partner and I hired a digger in February and dug a pond in the garden.. The ground is pure clay from about 3" below the surface, not a pebble or stone or bit of grit.. just light grey pure clay. We'd dug a hole about 3foot deep last summer to see how high the ground water is around here, and it rose to 1.5ft in the worst heat we had and stayed.. so we decided on a linerless pond, completely natural, no pump, filter etc. (no fish either) Digging the clay and shifting it is unbelievably messy and heavy hard work.. fun though as trying to stay upright on the slippery mess is a bit of a balancing act.. So far the pond has been full to the brim, due to rain and an unusually high water table.. We hope not to have to top up too much in summer but my main concern is for the marginals, any ideas out there? the water level is bound to drop and the clay bakes to rock in the sun, we've laid the grass turf right into and below the water level on one side, but its the other sides i could do with some ideas for.. did a The pond isnt finished, I've a load of plants on order (oxyginators lilies marginals etc..)I've got some pics of the construction ect. the they should prepare anyone who is planning it for the unholy mess of digging a clay pond...how do I get them on here? Tina

Your pond sounds so exciting, love to see and hear how it develops.

Really glad I put rockeries around my pond, with lots of crevices into the centre for places for creatures to hide in without haivng to stray across open areas. Also, have a big woodpile that has been covered with ivy which I know houses quite a few different critters. I am sure that has helped keep the amphibians about once they find the pond. Would that help with your what do you do with other side problem?

As for posting piccies, I will have to let one of the other more technically literate ponders explain how!

Hi, what an exciting project!
Go back to the list of messages, and at the top message you will see the word "gallery". Click on that, and start a new thread- you will need a new thread for each photo. Photos have to be quite small, and need to be jpegs.
The other way is to upload them to another site eg your homepage with your ISP, or somewhere like photo bucket. You can then put in a link to that site.
I would definitely put a little rockpile and/ or logpile.

Right.. ok then tonights mission is to get some pics on here somehow, I spent months looking for a forum like this - failed miserably till now, chuffed to beans to have found 'you lot'.. at last others who get exited about mud, wiggly things and water..(in the nicest possible way of course!)
My sister has a raised pond which was overloaded with frogspawn she brought a large bucket full down a couple of weeks back - I've just phoned my partner to tell him he's a dad hundreds of times over! I've spent about an hour this afternoon rescuing tiny tadpoles which have been washed onto the grass due to the severely flooded pond..
We've got four tons of topsoil being delivered tomorrow - oh joy, so I'll be able to sort out the bank around the pond and get some decent beds going. pure clay isnt the best to work with when it comes to planting, its hell trying to mix anything into it to get a decent soil and if you dont it just bakes to - well clay I suppose - in summer.. We've taken down a conifer hedge, I'm thinking of using the trunks for a log pile, thanks for the idea..at the moment the beesties are going to need all the help they can get in the way of hiding places. Rockpile is already in situe (situ?) well its there anyway..
Thanks for your ideas, any further advice will be most welcome.
Tina

Hello all again..
I think this works, did a minute ago anyway.. The pics aren't quite up to date, I'll post some more in the next couple of days..
Tina

Third time lucky... lets try pasting the link in a different box...

Here is a link that might be useful: http://photos.yahoo.com/willowmoon_01

Wow, I am impressed by your photo album, and your ambition!! I have only managed the single photo at a time method....

The deep water will keep your critters happy in the winter. I am a bit concerned about the sides though, as I couldn't really tell from the photos, but they looked a bit steep. My understanding is that frogs like to lay spawn in shallow water and a few mariginals help hold it all up. Most of the activity I see in my pond, is in the shallows.

If there is not a lot of shallowledge, having a natural pond does make it a bit easier to reshape than having a liner! I have a rather large bit of beach using cobbles collected from a quarry, and that shelters a lot of bugs, and tadpoles. Also, the shallow water does warm up much more quickly, which algae likes, which provides food. Good size ledges also means you can have interesting and colourful plants like iris.

Be prepared to have very long grass in the summer, as when the froglets start hopping about you won't want to mow the lawn!! (That is my excuse for a neglected garden anyway). You may want to put some stepping stones up to the pond so you can make sure you don't step on anything--especially at night when it is great fun to sit out there with a torch.

Best wishes, that pond will give you a lot of pleasure.

Hi.. The sides were too steep,to be honest with you the first weeks of pond digging were so shattering that we couldnt face digging yet more clay! but I have now attacked one side of the pond and am hopefully going to create a sort of beach effect with pebbles etc... Its a bit difficult at the moment because the pond is overflowing, but as soon as its reached a sensible level I'll be able to see what needs doing.
I haven't seen any frogs in the pond as yet, the spawn came from my sisters raised pond (no shallow areas, but pots with marginals)no idea how the frogs found or got into her pond but she had multitudes of them every year..
Tina

Hi again, just another thought about the frogs and tadpoles. Given your pond is very new, there might not be much for you little tadpoles to eat when they hatch. Algae and decaying plant matter after they finish with the spawn jelly, and after they get legs they get look for meat, and your bug and microorganism population won't be that terrific yet so it is more likely they would look to one another for breakfast. (They do that anyway, but less if there is a variety of options).

So two options--give the spawn back to your sister for this year, or take it indoors to rear until they get legs and hope the pond has matured enough by then. Boiled iceberg lettuce works to keep them going as food source indoors when they are big and active, and keeps in the freezer.

The wildlife will come and thrive when the conditions are right and that won't take long, and you are on the road to have the most fantastic wildlife site. I dug my pond the same time of year as you, and as a frog fantatic, was desperate for frogs. The day after fillling, there was a pondskater already trying it out from somewhere. By spring after the planting had taken off, the bug population took off, and so did the blanket weed. Stuck a few stickelback in (4) and they provided some wildlife interest for the first summer, and by June there were visiting frogs and toads. In fact, I am sure I saw a newt by the end of the first summer, but convinced myself it was a big stickelback. When spawning season came a year later, there were 30 out there and 6 clumps of spawn--and we have not looked back. Put a birdfeeder up and the variety of birds that come to the pond is incredible. And of course there are the dragonflies which will find your pond this summer, and you will gradually see the results of that next spring for the damselflies, and over the next 3 years for the big guys. And by that time, the newts, frogs and toads have shown they are here to stay.

Must admit, I am a stickelback fan as they are a native species, too small to attract heron, but provide fry for everyone else and only eat a few of the tadpoles. They also provide food for a kingfisher who comes from the river a mile away (see thread of unexpected visitor). I think having a branch or something to perch on helps. Stickelback are also fun to watch during breeding season, as the males do all the work making nests, attracting females, guarding the eggs--dab hand at multi-tasking!

The plant pots and marginals in your sisters pond provide that shallow area and help with with food chain. Clever little guys to find eeny weeny ladders too!

Have fun--

Hi again...
Thanks for your comments, I've absolutely refused to take some of my sisters fish population (Gold fish, Koy etc.)as I realy didnt want fish to upset the balance or stop newts etc from populating the pond.. Your comments about sticklebacks are realy interesting though and as they are small and native I must admit I'm tempted!! the pond is roughly 20 ft by about 8ft +, how many sticklebacks would I introduce and where would I get them from?
Since the pond was dug its had several 'algae blooms' and what is visible of the internal sides of the pond is covered in algae.. A large mature clump of Iris from sisters pond helped in introducing the first 'bugs'as soon as the pond was full and pond skaters and wiggly beasties are present, although as you pointed out probably not in huge amounts as yet.
I deliberately left all veggy matter blown in and introduced / broken off etc to decay in the pond.. (I really dont care if the pond is crystal clear or not, wildlife doesnt mind so its fine by me..) I've got a load of 'oxyginators' also three lilies (not visible yet)and several water hawthorn one of which is flowering.. I'm waiting for a delivery of a stack of pond plants due at any time now.
Removing frogspawn is not an option, its all hatched and there is no way I'd be able to catch the little blighters.. if they dont grow at a normal pace without help, I'll use small amounts of fish food. (I raised no end of frogs as a teenager, from veg to flakes and then the odd bit of meat were on the menu...they all matured to healthy adults.)
I dont want to start lobbing sides of beef into the pond so I recon fish food will have to do if needs be.
The dogs (two rspca specials) frightened a duck off the pond today, the first we've seen there..We have daily visits from a couple of herons - mind you they were there before the pond was dug so they probably think it was created for them..
My 4 ton of top soil arrived today and was promptly sent back, even the driver said it was 'rubbish'.. more stone than soil, I was fuming - was looking forward to getting so much done this weekend, oh well I'll attack the logpile idea, and need to plant a rather nice fatsia and ground cover plants on the raised banks..
I read in one here somewhere that some watercress found in a salad bag was thrown into the pond and grew.. do you have watercress and is it invasive?
,

Oooh, sticklebacks are fascinating but beware! They aren't sweet and cuddly they are vicious carnivores! If you drop a tiny worm in you will soon see why!
Apparently newt experts recommend that if you want to attract newts it's best to avoid any sort of fish.....although as you can see from other threads, some people here who have newts also have fish.
Great Crested newts prefer large fishless ponds (a bit like yours!)
I just put in a very few (resulting from a pond dipping trip with my son). By the following summer the pond was full, and this was why I built my second fishless pond.
I think your tads should be ok- as the water warms, pondlife will arrive. If you put in lots of oxygenators, you usually get a certain amount of creatures like hog lice with it.
Sad as it may seem, if there isn't enough food when they get bigger, some will die and the others will use them as meat rations, so problem solved....a self limiting population!
You can, later in the season boost live food (but you shouldn't need to) by buying bags of daphnia, brine shrimps and blood worms from aquarium shops.
I'm glad you were firm about the soil. They probably thought that as a member of the public you wouldn't know better. It's going to rain this weekend anyway, so never mind. I've also heard it's going to get cold again next Monday. :o(

Sounds like your taddies will be well fed in one way or the other, and your planting sounds great. This is the first time I've tried watercress, but I understand it is much easier to remove than duckweed! Your pond is obviously further along than I thought.

I think dampflippers is right about stickelbacks--think carefully beforehand and decide what you really want. I had one male and 3 females, and 6 months later had 1000 stickelbacks that found new homes thanks to a kindly ranger. The following years the population stabilised due to the males competing with one another and eating each others fry and laterly the attentions of Queenie. I gave a friend of mine about 3 large stickelbacks and about 20 smaller ones in a bottle for her pond, and when she got home there were only the big ones left! Also, it is easy to add them, but not so easy to take them out.

I have heard that heron do not like snakes, and rubber snakes in the pond can keep herons at bay--and herons love frogs! Could also be an amusing conversation piece.....if it works! I don't think even if you wanted the big fish, that they would last long with the heron.

They must be lovely to watch though!

Me again... Took some photos today and have added them to the photo album if you'd like a peek... the pond is coming along nicely.. water is very murkey due to the huge amount of rain we've been having though. Taddies seem fine and have started looking more 'tadpole like..' I sawed a pile of logs with the help of son no. 2 and made a logpile.. think I need a large sign for the newts now with an arrow pointing to ideal homestead!..
Hope everyone is ok out there..
Tina

Here is a link that might be useful: http://photos.yahoo.com/willowmoon_01

Wow, it looks so mature already! Well done!

Looks great!! (I am green with envy!!)

Thanks both.. Thought we'd lost all the taddies yesterday, loads of empty spawn jelly but only a few tiddlers to be seen... today I had a look and they're all over the place, phew! How long before or when should I be seeing signs of waterlily leaves? cant see them or the pots at the moment, they are in the correct depth of water.. just dont know when to expect signs of life. (and should I be starting a new thread with each new question?)
Tina