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Free pond, then real work starts...

GlassWalker

GlassWalker

Member
Joined
30 Jun 2014
Messages
205
Location
Swindon
pondborder.jpg


This pond started about a couple months ago... I saw a free pond going in local facebook group, and grabbed it. It is about 6ft long, 3ft wide kidney shape. Estimated volume around 300L, so pretty small. It is dug about 6in into the ground in the hopes of giving it a little winter resistance. It is still very much a work in progress. I saw a tacky squirting koi ornament I rather like too much, and I've also bought a cheap filter box with the idea of putting more aquatic plants outside the pond.

I had in the past wanted a koi pond, but by the time I priced it up to do a proper job, I knew my house was inappropriate. I don't intend to stay here that long to make it worth while. With this smaller pond, koi were out, but I did add a bunch of shubunkin.

Back a bit, since this is a plant forum, I thought I'd add plants to help with the filtration. I have an internal filter in the pond, which has a depressingly small sponge and biomedia, even adding more I feared it wasn't much. The aquaria I have at home have more filtration than this. It is rated for a pond 10x the volume, but I find that hard to believe. So plant wise, I picked 6 types that apparently don't care much about water level, and stuck them in shallow baskets on each end.

According to the plant labels, I have:
Brasilian micro sword - Lilaeopsis brasilensis
Slender club rush - Scirpus cernuus
Slender reedmac - Typha laxmanii
Great spearwort - Ranunculus lingua grandiflora
Water mint - Mentha aquatica
Yellow water iris - Iris pseudacorus

I do note when I tried searching for these, the spelling was different. I also got some elodera thrown in for good measure.

Anyway, less than a week after adding the plants, I was looking to add fish. As a precaution I did a water test and found a ton of ammonia and nitrite. Where did it come from? The plants I repotted into aquatic soil. Did it come from that? Regardless, no fish until that goes away. The filter was on and as I had some bottled bacteria product free with media, I might as well use that. Now, I don't know if it was the filter or the plants, but the ammonia and nitrite disappeared in a matter of days. Far faster than my distant attempts at ammonia cycling way back when I started. Fish went in the next weekend and I didn't think more about it.

Fast forward to last weekend. Plants are mostly looking good, but the mint has some holes in leaves. Presumably from a pest than a deficiency. I know water tests aren't popular around here, but I will say, nitrate came back as zero over repeated tests. PO4, K, Mg were non-zero. That's when I started wondering, should I fertilise the pond? I have 10 small fish in at the moment and they don't seem to be feeding much, as they don't seem to be settling yet.

I still have my EI kit from my earlier high tech attempts, so I have been throwing in small amounts of that. The dose will be too small for conventional EI. I have just seen the Little Shop of Horrors thread, so it seems maybe I could/should go higher.

At this point, I should add the pond position isn't significantly shaded. I am debating building some kind of structure over it for multiple reasons.
 
Nice little pond.. :) The amonia and nitrite most like is from the soil if you used an organic pond soil leaching into the water. Pretty normal for a newly setup pond with organic soil.. That yellow water Iris is one of the best helophytes around, they are very fast growing and already start very early in the year can easily triple in size with in 2 months, mine always do and are already flowering like mad and it's a pitty they are done so very soon as well. But that fast early growth is what makes it a good pond filter and dropping your values that fast, it also grows an enormous rootsystem. This you will find out once you take it out. I once did after 2 seasons and it's rootsytem had grown like 25 liter in volume without adding ferts and it started out with a few plants in a 5 liter basket. Could well be this plant exhausting the pond from nutrients and even out competing the thypa which also is a relative heavy feeder.

You can fertilize with adding clay balls to the plant baskets or via water collum. Via water collum is always tricky and readily available also for algae, clay balls heve less effect on the water.. Also consider in an outdoor pond lots of stuff will fall in. like leaves, bird poop, bugs, fish poop if you have, this also will provide a load of nutrients over time while the pond is maturing.. That's what makes water collum feeding a bit tricky, in a pond it's not realy obvious what's laying on the bottom composting. Especialy of you have a dark colored bottom, you wont see it all.

If you want to filter cheaply and sufficiently add an extra 50 or 100 liter bucket next to the pond, screw in a bulkhead, inside put a such a little round plant basket over the bulk head and at the outside a pipe a few inch above the water level of the pond. Fill the bucket with an innert pond substrate or smaller grained lava rock and put the yellow iris and or more in there. Take a cheap powerhead to which you can connect hoses. Put this on the inlet and roll a piece of filter mat over it and fasten with some zip ties, not to tight so you can take it off for cleaning if it ever clogs. Lead the outlet with a hose to the bucket and pump it in, the water will drain down and come out again via the bulkhead to the pond.

This will make the Iris and you extremely happy, for 300 liter that's all filtering you need for years to come and nothing more sufficient. Pond will be cristal clear in days.
 
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I forgot to say, I also got a pack of 3 floating plants which I've also added. I have yet to identify what they are. One has a large round structure at its core, another is leafy which sticks out of water, and the last one is fairly small (1cm) leafed. I need to take a picture of them some time.

I will look at root fertilisation. Do they provide macro or are they trace?

Before adding fish, the pond was mozzie central, and there was also some small worm like larvae on surfaces. Both are pretty much gone now fish are in.

As said I did get an old pond filter box. It is small though, probably nearer 10-20L, I was debating running open topped with some tall plants in. It came with some sponges and what I assume is alfagrog. The internal pond filter has a fountain/waterfall connector so it shouldn't be too hard to connect up once I decide exactly what to do with it.
 
As in the aquarium keeping ponds are alike when it comes to fertilization. Mainly it is presumed that fish waste and other organic waste will be the nitrogene and phospor providers, that's why most off the shelf pond and aquarium fertilizers do not contain these elements in high levels. They are more aimed to micro fertilization. So if you need or want to add macro you should look for a fertilization product containing these elements. Or mix it yourself.

Regular plant ferts are not designed for use in aquarium and pond with livestock, not because of the plants but because the nitrogene in there usualy are urea or amonia source, which the plants don't mind but is poissones at certain levels for fish etc. Skip to the fertilization section of this forum and you'll find loads of info about this. :)
 
As said, I have ferts left over from when I did EI, and even more potential sources from marine keeping. What I don't know is, do I really need to use it? I think there is some kind of algae growth particularly around the filter exit, but my hope was more that surface plants will help restrict light lower down. I believe one of the floating plants is some kind of water hyacinth. Haven't identified the others yet, and forgot to take my camera out with me when feeding earlier.

Unlike the indoor tanks, I wouldn't mind if growth in the pond was faster so I could have a more easy source of plants to put back in a tank with a blue crayfish that loves eating plant roots...
 
GlassWalker said:
What I don't know is, do I really need to use it?
Click to expand...

The answer is difficult to say, it depends on several things, what soil are you using, what and how many livestock is in there, what kinda plant do you want to grow and a few more thing like how's the weather this year.. I had my small ponds setup for many years with inert pond substrate only and using clay balls as fert source and it does the job very well, some plant spieces do not like it and will not do well others still grow like mad.

There is no straight answer of yes and no, watch your plants and if you're satisfied with how it all grows and looks then the answer is no, obviously. If you see deficiencies the answer obviously is yes. When it comes to plant choices it's a matter of trail and error. Plants need food (ferts) ofcourse and or different parameters of soil and water chemistry. For example i never managed to grow a healthy stock of pontederia and hippuris or thypa on inert substrate, while Iris, mimulus, myositis and lobelia goes mental even without adding extra macros. Even the parrot feather which feeds over the water collum did very good in this setup.

Anyway if you did EI in the past and still have micro and macro in powder form available, go and get a bag loam or clay and create your own clay balls.. The advantage of this is you can addres insufficiencies localy at the root base of the plant without affecting the water collum to much. Or give it a go via the water collum and see what happens.. Why not you can address a pond the same way as a low tech aquarium, the difference is the pond gets natural light. Know your plants and their needs and make the rights choices is the road to succes. :)
 
I'm seeing patches of hair algae form now. Haven't bought any fert tabs, think I'll just add trace and allow plants to be fed by fish/food and see how that goes.

pplant1.jpg

This is the plant with bulb like things which is suspect is a water hyacinth.

pplant2.jpg

No idea what this plant is.

pplant3.jpg

This is a much smaller leafed plant. It doesn't seem to be doing so well. They were green when I got them but they're yellowing.

Any confirmation of the ID of these three plants would be welcome.
 
Thanks. So lookung them up further, all like lots of light and heat. I'm moved some salvinia into one of my tanks also. This is the problem tank with a crayfish that loves plants so let's see if they survive in there.
 
Nice little pond glass walker . I like the plants and could you take some photos of the fish,
Keep up the good work mate. Nice. All the best Fred
 
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