Starting a small pond.

Forgive me, but everything I've been told says you should never have still
water - down here at least (Australia) that equals MOZZIES; also eventually
no oxygen left in the water, everything dies. Have I been led astray?

Cheers
Matt


"MegaDaisy" wrote in message
...
Hi

We are in west london (not quite as lovely) but in spring this year we
built
this exact pond! 3' x 4' from a pre formed pond from the local garden
centre.... so here is my wisdom

Well for a start I wouldnt use a pre formed pond... use a liner off a
roll.
Getting the hole the right shape and size for the preformed thing was very
hard. Plus it could do with a slopey edge which we dont have, but we
provided the frogs with a concrete slab that looks like wood on an
upturned
flower pot for them to laze on in the sunshine.

After that we filled it with water straight from the tap - didnt seem a
problem. The frogs where in within about a day and we had frog spawn
within
about a week, although it all died - my guess was from the
chlorine/flouride
in the water.

Anyhow after a week or two we put a few plants in and bought a small 24
volt
punp and off it all went.

The water initially went quite murky (although the frogs didnt seem to
mind) - the plants grew like billyo and then the rest of the inhabitants
arrived. First it was the daphnia, then some snails, then a pond skater
arrived, which had a lot of babies so we now have millions of them (well
maybe 30-40 or so) and during the summer we have had mayflies,
dragonflies,
and so on.

I really wouldnt worry too much about the water as it will sort itself out
fairly quickly, and personally I wouldnt put a bucket of sludge in from
another pond as it could introduce unknown diseases and problems.

good luck anyhow.

heres some pics i took while doing ours - in fact I will update it now!

http://www.nige.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/pond.html


Nige




"Pip" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

We are wanting to have a pond in our garden, only a small pond say 3
foot
by
4 foot, if that. It is not for keeping fish in, but it would be nice to
have either toad or frog spawn and to grow some plants in etc etc.
There
will be no running water feature - just still water.

I realise that there is alot of advice to give on this subject so any
advice, or any website that you may know of that would help us, would be
much appreciated.

(We are in West Yorkshire just about on the Pennines, in Last of the
Summer
Wine area - lovely)

Thank you in advance

Mags




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