# Questions about Ponds, Tapwater Topups, & Dying Frogs - Ranavirus



## shangman (22 Mar 2021)

Hi All,

I have a question from my dad today. My dad is a gardener at a park which has a large but shallow pond, where people are complaining that they are sometimes seeing dead frogs and missing frogspawn, and want my dad to magically fix this. My personal thoughts are that the frogs are being caught by birds, and frogsspawn taken by local children to raise at home as a project or eaten by newts, birds and other wildlife, but who knows!

Since I've been into aquariums and teaching him about them, he is wondering if there is a problem with the 'saltiness' of the water (as in, is there too much kH). The pond is not natural, and there is never enough rainwater in the summer, so it is often topped up with tap water (this is in London so water is hard). He's worried that each time he tops up the pond, the new water is just adding kH so it's built up to an extreme amount which could being harming the wildlife. We keep softwater fish in rainwater so I guess it's on the brain as something to avoid, but topping up with tap here is the only option. He always adds dechlorinator to the pond before/during filling it up.

I have no idea if this too-high kH pond is a thing, as it can be in aquariums? I assume lots of people topup their ponds this way, so it would be interesting to learn more.

There is also a problem with stagnation in the pond, I'm currently trying to convince my dad to start dosing EI ferts as I saw here how successful that can be! Any other suggestions are very welcome.


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## tam (22 Mar 2021)

I doubt it. You could test the water, but I imagine the rain the rest of the year resets it. Most people with ponds have to top up with tap in summer - we do with the same hardwater and no issue with frogs etc. I imagine  the frogspawn is hatching or being eaten. Tend to find the odd dead frog that didn't make it through hibernation or breeding season.


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## dean (22 Mar 2021)

Perhaps there needs to be more plants and hiding places for the tadpoles so whatever is catching them has a much harder job 
But only a very small % survive anyway to keep everything in balance 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## sparkyweasel (22 Mar 2021)

Could we have a pic of the pond?


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## ceg4048 (23 Mar 2021)

shangman said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I have a question from my dad today. My dad is a gardener at a park which has a large but shallow pond, where people are complaining that they are sometimes seeing dead frogs and missing frogspawn, and want my dad to magically fix this. My personal thoughts are that the frogs are being caught by birds, and frogsspawn taken by local children to raise at home as a project or eaten by newts, birds and other wildlife, but who knows!
> 
> ...



I agree with the above as rainwater reduces the GH/KH, which would matter much at all in any case. 
As sparkyweasel mentions we should always have a photo of the pond. If the water is stagnant some form of filtration and lots of plants, as mentioned will help oxygenate the water and provide cover for fish. Adding nutrients will help, but tell your dad not to buy "special pond nutrients" from the garden center as it's the same stuff we use at jacked up prices.

Cheers,


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## shangman (23 Mar 2021)

Hiya all, I think he is working there tomorrow so will get him to get a photo then, thanks for all the advice so far! I didn't think about how the rainwater would combat the problem the other parts of the year, that's a great point. 



ceg4048 said:


> I agree with the above as rainwater reduces the GH/KH, which would matter much at all in any case.
> As sparkyweasel mentions we should always have a photo of the pond. If the water is stagnant some form of filtration and lots of plants, as mentioned will help oxygenate the water and provide cover for fish. Adding nutrients will help, but tell your dad not to buy "special pond nutrients" from the garden center as it's the same stuff we use at jacked up prices.
> 
> Cheers,


It's a wildlife pond (ie. no fish *except for when people get rid of their goldfish by chucking them in which does happen occassionally), and I don't think they have the option of a filter, so I will encourage lots more plants. I actually was thinking of your post on adding EI ferts (of a lower dose) to see how that worked, def not buying things off the rack. I'm about to start a hightech tank, so I thought I could experiment with the extra ferts I buy for that (doing my first EI) to see if it makes a difference this summer to the pond. 

Will get back to you guys with a photo soon, thanks again!


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## Maf 2500 (24 Mar 2021)

Incidents of frog mortality and population decline are most likely to be associated with ranavirus, particularly in the south east (including London). Unfortunately, people releasing goldfish and kids pond-dipping and moving frog spawn are additional vectors of spread (although the main one is simply frogs moving to different ponds).

Images of reported cases from: Ranavirus Disease - Garden Wildlife Health


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## Maf 2500 (24 Mar 2021)




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## PARAGUAY (24 Mar 2021)

A few years back a work pal showed me his koi pond it was lovely right at the patio doors in his back garden The water was filtered and a pump serviced a waterfall higher up making its way through rocks. On my next visit l was surprised to see the pond paved over and another pond raised up further down the garden he ecplained it was to keep frogs away from the Koi as they spread disease. 
                   Its well known frogs spend a lot of time away from ponds at various times and not seeing them shouldnt be such a worry but when you think of how many due to development ,culverts replacing streams and general loss of habitat have disapeared? The idea that kids shouldnt take a bit of frog spawn seems a bit extreme but the video does ecplain why


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## shangman (24 Mar 2021)

Renamed the thread to include the word frog and ranavirus for anyone searching in the future, this is really interesting (and sad) info on frogs and ranavirus.

Thank you @Maf 2500 for that suggestion, I think you are definitely onto something with this, especially with that map. My dad took some photographs of the pond this morning and didn't even realise that at the bottom of one photo is a very engorged dead frog.  

I've sent my dad all the info about this virus, and he says thank you very much to you all for your help! 

This is the pond + a closeup of the water with the dead frog, though it looks a bit old so idk if we can tell anything from it.










The pond is not deep, maybe 40cm max (which is why it has to be topped up a lot during the summer). It usually has plants around the edges + floating plants and underwater plants, but they haven't woken up yet. I'm wondering if there are some things my dad can do to improve the pond to discourage the virus doing well. 

Hopefully we can change the pond up a bit or do something to limit the spread. I think maybe they should put a sign up to educate people about the virus and discourage them taking the frogspawn if it can spread the virus. My mum's work has a big wildlife pond about a mile away that thrives with no frog problems at all, so don't really want to encourage people spreading things around if it is the problem. I think as a park they might be able to get someone from a specialist frog or wildlife organisation in to see if it is the virus and what to do (if anything).


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## PARAGUAY (24 Mar 2021)

Not sure how you could go about this but there is all kinds of goverment and lottery funding for projects like the pond your Dad looks after As l understand it covid has just delayed these schemes not stopped them .If you access the local authority website they should have a wildlife officer or maybe a good syphathetic local councillor they welcome what you and Dad are trying to achieve with l would think


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## Maf 2500 (24 Mar 2021)

Hopefully natural immunity will eventually develop among the frog population and numbers can increase again. Not sure if there is anything we can do in practical terms apart from keep as many healthy wildlife ponds as possible - habitat loss is their other biggest threat.


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## Wookii (24 Mar 2021)

PARAGUAY said:


> The idea that kids shouldnt take a bit of frog spawn seems a bit extreme but the video does explain why



It is a bit of a double edged sword I guess.

Our local council dug some shallow nature ponds next to our local river a couple of years ago. We took a walk around there last year during the lock down, and there were literally thousands of tadpoles in these shallow pools. As son no1 was doing the lifecycle of frogs as part of his home schooling project, we returned later in the week and captured about 20 tadpoles. I felt some pangs of guilt at the time, for taking wild creatures from their natural (albeit human made) habitat.

The kids absolutely loved raising the tadpoles, which we housed in a  converted plastic sandpit with gravel and stone, and some pond plants. It was justification alone for the education of three kids on one of our naturally occurring species - the memory of which I am sure they will carry into adulthood.

To round off the anecdote, when the baby frogs tails had finally disappeared and they started climbing on rocks etc, we decided to release them. Because of the hot weather last year,  four of the six ponds had completely dried up, no doubt killing several thousand tadpoles, so I felt somewhat vindicated in taking our batch after all.

With our desire to help maintain the frog population, in the belief that the population must have been devastated by similar occurrences of drought, we took our brood to the local nature reserve instead (a massive network of gravel pits that the same river flows through). What we found was a veritable plague of baby frogs all over the paths between the lakes - literally there must have been thousands of them - it was a struggle to walk on the path and avoid treading on any.


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## martin-green (24 Mar 2021)

I might be wrong but  is that rotting  timber, dead roots and what ever in the middle of the "pond".  I can't help but wonder is the water stagnant?  Anything dead decays and gives off toxic gas which removes oxygen from the water.  Why not pump out all the water (Buckets at hand to keep anything that is alive) remove all the rubbish as well as any silt, then add some pond plants, refill it, and while cleaning it out, make it deeper. Even natural ponds need a bit of TLC


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## martin-green (24 Mar 2021)

Below just a random pond I found on the internet, it has living plants in and around the water. 







Below is the pond in question, it has no living plants in or around the water, it does have dead material in it.


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## shangman (24 Mar 2021)

PARAGUAY said:


> Not sure how you could go about this but there is all kinds of goverment and lottery funding for projects like the pond your Dad looks after As l understand it covid has just delayed these schemes not stopped them .If you access the local authority website they should have a wildlife officer or maybe a good syphathetic local councillor they welcome what you and Dad are trying to achieve with l would think


Definitely will look into extra funding for this, thanks for the suggestion. There's so little habitat for wildlife in London, every little helps and it would be great to make this perfect. 



Maf 2500 said:


> Hopefully natural immunity will eventually develop among the frog population and numbers can increase again. Not sure if there is anything we can do in practical terms apart from keep as many healthy wildlife ponds as possible - habitat loss is their other biggest threat.


Yes that's very true, there's so little places for them to live anyway! We'll go about trying to at least make this one a bit better for them while they are alive, and for everything else that lives in it.



Wookii said:


> It is a bit of a double edged sword I guess.
> 
> Our local council dug some shallow nature ponds next to our local river a couple of years ago. We took a walk around there last year during the lock down, and there were literally thousands of tadpoles in these shallow pools. As son no1 was doing the lifecycle of frogs as part of his home schooling project, we returned later in the week and captured about 20 tadpoles. I felt some pangs of guilt at the time, for taking wild creatures from their natural (albeit human made) habitat.
> 
> ...



I think/hope with the kids taking almost all the spawn this year is a specialty case - everybody's so bored, and raising some tadpoles is a great fun eduational thing to do with kids, I'm sure every parent that sees it knows they've struck entertaining educational gold. I myself remember fondly when as a child a frog spawned in a low half-filled  bucket in the garden and I got to help raise them to froglets. They probably will get better care, and less likely to be eaten (or dry up as you said) when someone raises them with kids, but then if these frogs have the virus and people are spreading them around different ponds that is rather worrisome. Bloody viruses spoiling our fun once again!



martin-green said:


> I might be wrong but  is that rotting  timber, dead roots and what ever in the middle of the "pond".  I can't help but wonder is the water stagnant?  Anything dead decays and gives off toxic gas which removes oxygen from the water.  Why not pump out all the water (Buckets at hand to keep anything that is alive) remove all the rubbish as well as any silt, then add some pond plants, refill it, and while cleaning it out, make it deeper. Even natural ponds need a bit of TLC


This was originally what I thought about the pond + dead frogs - my dad has said that it smelt a bit when he cleared it last year, it's why he tested the water to check for ammonia (though actually I don't know if stagmant water and ammonia have anything to do with eachother, I just guessed they might).  I don't think the pond can be made deeper which is a shame, but it's for the safety of children. Will ask him about clearing it and all of that again, but I think that clearing can only happen in autumn so not to disturb wildlife, so something for later in the year if shoving in loads of new plants doesn't help. 

There are already plants in it (you can see a few points of iris begin to return, and dad said there water soldiers and things like that) that have been dormant for winter and are just beginning to grow back (the other image is from summer, so it's not quite a right comparison, no pond in the UK looks like that atm), but I agree it definitely needs more, especially around the edges. It's probably another reason why the frogspawn's been taken, anything around the edge is easily accessible.


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## Maf 2500 (24 Mar 2021)

shangman said:


> This was originally what I thought about the pond + dead frogs - my dad has said that it smelt a bit when he cleared it last year, it's why he tested the water to check for ammonia (though actually I don't know if stagmant water and ammonia have anything to do with eachother, I just guessed they might).  I don't think the pond can be made deeper which is a shame, but it's for the safety of children. Will ask him about clearing it and all of that again, but I think that clearing can only happen in autumn so not to disturb wildlife, so something for later in the year if shoving in loads of new plants doesn't help.
> 
> There are already plants in it (you can see a few points of iris begin to return, and dad said there water soldiers and things like that) that have been dormant for winter and are just beginning to grow back (the other image is from summer, so it's not quite a right comparison, no pond in the UK looks like that atm), but I agree it definitely needs more, especially around the edges. It's probably another reason why the frogspawn's been taken, anything around the edge is easily accessible.


It did look a bit on the grim side in the photo but as you so rightly say most pond plants are only starting their growth cycle now. I think it is impossible to judge the healthiness or otherwise based on that image. A few bits of dead wood are not going to hurt (as long as there is not an excessive amount) and most ponds would have smelly silt at the bottom if you cleared them out. If you are looking for plant ideas check out bog bean, a UK native that does well in wildlife ponds, or any ponds for that matter, with a sprawling habit making a good contrast to upright reeds and irises.

Also, I'm not 100% convinced that the frog in the other photo is actually dead. It looks as if it is holding its head out of the water and its legs appear to be in natural positions for holding bottom in the shallow water. The bloated look may just be spawn. I could be wrong but I hope I am not!


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## shangman (24 Mar 2021)

Maf 2500 said:


> It did look a bit on the grim side in the photo but as you so rightly say most pond plants are only starting their growth cycle now. I think it is impossible to judge the healthiness or otherwise based on that image. A few bits of dead wood are not going to hurt (as long as there is not an excessive amount) and most ponds would have smelly silt at the bottom if you cleared them out. If you are looking for plant ideas check out bog bean, a UK native that does well in wildlife ponds, or any ponds for that matter, with a sprawling habit making a good contrast to upright reeds and irises.
> 
> Also, I'm not 100% convinced that the frog in the other photo is actually dead. It looks as if it is holding its head out of the water and its legs appear to be in natural positions for holding bottom in the shallow water. The bloated look may just be spawn. I could be wrong but I hope I am not!


Lol it does look very grim right now, I'll ty to remember to post a photo in a few months when it's looking better, apparently there's already some budget for extra new plants, thank you for the suggestion of bog bean. My dad especially loves Great Dixter so I think he's going to try to get a really beautiful glorious pond vibe for the summer!

Sadly the frog was definitely dead, I pointed it out to my dad (he didn't notice in the photo he took, I thought it might be alive) but he went back and took it, def dead so he froze it, in case some frog people he's contacting can check it for the virus. RIP ms frog.

-

Side note: I mentioned to my dad just now about the funds for redoing the pond, and he told me that ponds in parks are a usually minimum of £50,000 to dig and build, because people are so destructive, both on purpose and accidentally, that the pond base has to be 20cm thick with specialist materials and deep gravel & rocks to withstand the damage, or made of concrete. Very interesting how different public design is and what you have to consider! He's luckily got some funds together for new plants, and some volunteers willing to help so things should improve this year!


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## Kezzab (24 Mar 2021)

Maybe have a look here, see if there's any help available - Million Ponds Project - Freshwater Habitats Trust


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## mort (24 Mar 2021)

Is the pond fenced off from the general public (I'm guessing not if people are able to nab frogspawn)? We have a large pond in our local woodland and traditionally it is full of hundreds (probably thousands) of frogs at this time of year. When walking the dog we stumble on frogs several hundred yards from the pond on their migration there to mate and breed (I've written about it and posted photos on here before but i cant find it at the moment) but this year I've only seen one dead, squished frog, and there are none in the pond. I only found the first frogspawn in my pond last week so I don't know if they have been knocked back by the very cold winter or whether something else is going on.
When I was a kid the woodland pond was healthy, crystal clear, with plenty of plants but now it's just a muddy, stinky pool that I won't let my dog near. Unfortunately others do let their dogs and children run amok through it and it's churned it up into the foul smelling cess pool it's become. A few years ago it was full of newts but I think with all the dogs charging through, increased by lock down, has finally changed the balance for the worst. I wonder if this could be part of the problem in your dad's pond.


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## not called Bob (24 Mar 2021)

plenty of natural ponds are dry in summer, in many ways its beneficial for things like amphibians as multi year life cycle predators like dragon fly nymphs and fish can not survive the summer,


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## Maf 2500 (24 Mar 2021)

not called Bob said:


> plenty of natural ponds are dry in summer, in many ways its beneficial for things like amphibians as multi year life cycle predators like dragon fly nymphs and fish can not survive the summer,


Very true, and I would think it is beneficial for the health of the pond bed to be exposed to the air for a time in summer. Drainage "improvements" have removed quite large areas of seasonal wetlands in this country.


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