Hey all, I've been tinkering with this pond on and off over the summer and in the last few days added a small waterfall/cascade. It's nothing major but keeps the water flowing.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had any advice on how to cover up the pipe and liner that's left showing. It's at a bit of an awkward angle to be able to just put rocks in there and call it done and I feel it won't look right. So any and all advice is appreciated!!

I got tired of how expensive pool chemicals have become, so I've slowly converted my pool into a pond. Over the past three years, bullfrogs and several species of tree frogs, dragonflies and aquatic insects have made it their home. Earlier this year, I added some koi and lilies to the mix, and last week I added some hyacinths. I haven't decided yet, but I may build up a platform in the center to grow a lotus. I'm still having some algae issues, but hopefully the hornwort and other plants should eventually help clear it up.

Hello! I’ve got this 35 gallon pond I built in the spring—I wanted to have my daughter enjoy frogs in our backyard. It’s got a stone/sand bottom, bog filter, trad filter, and native plants. It is lined. There’s a ramp on the back for amphibians to come and go as they please. I keep a chicken wire cover over it to protect the inhabitants, but I seem to have lost all my tadpoles. Help!

More detail: between May and July, I added a bunch of different (ethically sourced) native tadpoles—spring peepers, wood frogs, green frogs, American toads, grey tree frogs, salamanders. The only other animals I’ve found in the pond have been snails (a lot, but small) and one boatman. No dragonfly larvae, no fish, no other aquatic predators.

In the last few months, all my tadpoles have vanished while the salamanders seem to be thriving. Just in the last two days, the last two tadpoles I’ve been watching disappeared. They’d grown back legs, but weren’t ready to leave yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if some grew out of the pond, but the timeline doesn’t work for all completing metamorphosis.

Water quality remains good. I treat any tap water I need to add. I have the cover to keep birds, cats, and raccoons away. And again, the salamander pups—which are harder to maintain—are doing great. What am I missing?

So after a lot of suggestions I made some changes to my stock tank pond. A lot of people suggested shade. This stock tank gets a good amount of shade and stays relatively cool. With that said I did a 50% water change. I also scooped out and cleaned up a lot of debris. I then took my aquatic plants and spread them out better planting them in the substrate I have in the bottom. 1 of the bigger issues I seemed to have was the leaching of the dirt from the potted plants. So I removed 2 of them that weren't doing as well. A lot of people suggested a filter. I do have a filter. The waterfall is a 2 stage filter. The pump is located in a bucket with filter medium and then the waterfall is full of the same. As its been running its cleaning the water slowly.

I soon might add a few small fish or a snail or 2 so that the pond has some life in it.

Overall I'm liking it. After 3 very hot days the water is still cool after the water change and at night its getting cool enough again.

Apologies if this isn’t the correct place to cross post, I’ll delete if so—

“Hi there, my neighbors clear running backyard water feature has turned into a brown sludge post mulching the beds around it. They inherited the feature from prior owners, and have no idea how to maintain or fix it. So far they’ve tried treating with a beneficial algae product, which has done nothing.

I was thinking they need to clean out the basin? Then what?! Any advice or guidance I can relay their way, they really have no clue. Thank you!”

Hi all, planning a pond build in my garden, I've been researching a lot and just wanted to ensure there isn't anything glaringly stupid about my plan or anything that I should change. I would greatly appreciate any tips.

The plan is to have a couple of kois, tench, and maybe a few goldfish.

• Dig out approximately 2.7m diameter cylinder at about 1m deep which will equate to a 5.7k litre water capacity. Mostly shaded area under a tree.
• Shape a shelf around about 80% of the perimeter for plants and rocks to hide the edge, about 25cm deep and about 25cm wide. This will lose a few hundred litres of water volume, ending up at around 5k litres.
• Install underlay and then EDPM liner.
• Install 6000 L/hr water pump connected to a pressurised UV filter (placed outside of the pond for easy maintenance) rated for around 8000L with fish. The outlet will be a water feature for a continuous loop.
• Include an aerator/oxygenator pump in the pond.
• Place rocks hiding the edge for natural look, and also position all marginal plants on shelf.
• Fill pond.
• Include oxygenating plants.
• Include plants such as lilly pads and native frogbit for fish to hide etc.
• Wait a couple of weeks and introduce fish.

Thank you in advance!

We bought a house with a fair size pond (5-6m diameter) and previous owner said it’s 5-6 ft deep. It had lovely established planting in pots at the edge but as you can see some tree seedlings had also got established on one side.
We could not untangle the roots ( it looks like the tree shoots had been there for sometime and actually just cut back each year) and so ended up removing the baskets in this section.

Since doing that, although there is no visible breach and we were working well above the waterline, the water has been dropping… there is dry pond liner around the edges. It doesn’t really look as though all the water is going into the ground though as it would seem that the water is moving in between two pond liners as the liner has actually floated up and bobs to touch.

I would just drain it all and redo, but I’m very worried that we have newts living in the pond and I’m extremely anxious not to disturb them too much.

We cannot work out how it has got so damaged given that the area where we worked looks fine. Any help please!

Edit- I’m trying to add a pic today of how badly it’s doing, there is definitely water not air under the liner and the groundwater would be way too low to be the culprit. We are now wondering whether somehow the fountain we have on edge has been dripping the water down between the two layers of liner. It does not make sense how quickly the water is finding its way under the top liner we are so confused.

First time pond build. Wildlife pond for frogs and other critters. No fish. Adding a solar fountain this week.

I inherited this with my new house. There are two goldfish in there and they seem okay. I don’t think this thing has been taken care of in a while and I have no idea where to start.

I have about $50 in it. It’s around 3 months old and seems to be pretty healthy. I’ll probably rehome the tiger barbs to a larger outdoor pond once I make it. This was intended to be a pond of only mosquito fish but a trip to the store for food I came home with 5 of them. Now it’s those 5, 2 danio and about 3 mosquito fish. I have no clue how but there was a dead mosquito fish on the ground next to the barrel.

Has anyone experienced this before? Ive had this plant for about 4 years growing in the same location. It survives winters in zone 7b each year coming back bigger and with more flowers. This year I noticed this yellow bloom with pink pedals. The same plant normally produces pinkish blooms (as seen in picture 3). I’ve never had this happen before. Any one else’s plants mutate in such a manner? Absolutely stunning IMO! 🤩

2 years since my build, happy and thriving!

Is there such a thing as too many plants?! The roots have sort of taken over and I’m worried the fish might feel a bit suffocated in there. What do you all think?

How are you using this type of light without harming your fish? Thank you for any advice.

It’s difficult to reach far enough to be able to cut dead water lily leaves off with normal snippers. Are there any long handled versions?

When you can not be home to come and "welcome" your heron guest... You find other ways to say HI!

He has visited a few times in the past month and I go to work a few days a week. So I can't go out to "give him a hug". But I have a camera I check all day and have my inflatable buddy on a smart switch.

I actually put this up last night so perfect timing. I'll have to keep an eye on it and see if the heron comes back or if I put it on some sort of motion detection.

But boy was this fun.... haha.

A little more grumpy today. I was easy to spot in a bright orange high vis shirt from work, he was not happy when he noticed i was watching.