My Large pond

[razor]

I have a rather large pond. Its a lot larger than your garden variety pond as I have lots of ducks. What can I do to make the water clearer all the books recommend a fountain but this is a bit impractical as I have such a large pond.

Also what plants are good to plant in and around it.

And last of all i want to put some fish in it but am a bit hesitant to put goldfish in it. Any ideas!! Many thanks......

[coasty]

How big is the pond and how deep is it? Does it have weed / oxygenating plants etc,,, More info required please, Oh yes and welcome to the site,,,,Ducks can really stir a pond up. and their toilet habits produce lots of nutrients for algae etc,,,,

[Kayleigh]

How old is your pond?
You need lots of oxygenating plants (look on google)

Some people use barley straw..
Yellow flag iris have a filtering affect so clean the water. Native water lilies are also good..
I personally wouldn't put fish in it, but its your pond.

[Stewy]

Some pics would be nice too.

[razor]

I have just dug my pond 6 weeks ago. My pond is about 25m round. Its about 3 m deep in the center. I have about 10 call ducks, some mallards and some khacki cambells on it at the moment. I have some small rocks making a shore into one side and am hoping to put some bog plants on one side.

Someone told me that fish might help to keep the water clean but Im not sure if I agree with this?? I was hoping to put some water lillies and other flowering plants in it but these would ahve to be non toxic (for the ducks) and capable of oxegenating the water to keep it clean.

[dragonfly]

most ponds are to cold at the moment for much to growing one i used was parrots foot but it needs to be controled its a quick growing plant
as for gold fish ask yourself this do i want a wildlife pond or afish pond cant have both as I found gold fish will eat everything

[LoveT]

Originally Posted by dragonfly

most ponds are to cold at the moment for much to growing one i used was parrots foot but it needs to be controled its a quick growing plant
as for gold fish ask yourself this do i want a wildlife pond or afish pond cant have both as I found gold fish will eat everything

I'll second that - fish will eat anything, including tadpoles, nymphs etc. so if you want to encourage wildlife fish aren't really a good idea.

Thea

[aeshna5]

Originally Posted by dragonfly

most ponds are to cold at the moment for much to growing one i used was parrots foot but it needs to be controled its a quick growing plant
as for gold fish ask yourself this do i want a wildlife pond or afish pond cant have both as I found gold fish will eat everything

The plant you mean is called Parrot's Feather which is highly invasive + it's use is to be discouraged as it creates havoc in lakes. The government now advise aquatic centres not to stock this + several other notorious species. With Mallard visiting the pond there is every chance that a fragment will become attached to a bird + spread around.

[Kayleigh]

You may find this link helpful
Prevent pond pests

There was a thread last year sometime about invasive aquatic plants..This is the thread.
Invasive aquatic plants - no legislation?

[Gill Catton]

Originally Posted by razor

I have just dug my pond 6 weeks ago. My pond is about 25m round. Its about 3 m deep in the center. I have about 10 call ducks, some mallards and some khacki cambells on it at the moment. I have some small rocks making a shore into one side and am hoping to put some bog plants on one side.

Someone told me that fish might help to keep the water clean but Im not sure if I agree with this?? I was hoping to put some water lillies and other flowering plants in it but these would ahve to be non toxic (for the ducks) and capable of oxegenating the water to keep it clean.

with resident ducks you may struggle to get clear water because as mentioned previously the droppings just pile in the nutriants into the water which will encourage alage. Adding fish won't help as it will just add their droppings too!!

you could add a hornwort which grows very quickly and may suck a lot of the the nutriants out of the water before it gets to the algae - though you'll have to periodically hoik it out to encourage it to keep growing...

Re bog plants or aquatic / emergent types - what about gypsywort, water mint and water forget me not - all nice pretty native plants.

[coasty]

Not surprised its cloudy a pond that size and newly dug will take quite some time to settle down.. I would be tempted to just leave it alone for a year and see how it gos, If its a completely new pond and unconnected to any watercourses a couple of buckets of mud from an established clean pond will kick start the micro bugs, and the introduction of some native oxygenators and marginals will help,,,Be careful with water lillies though they can complete overwhelm a pond that size,,,
Andy

[razor]

many thanks for all your info have decided to leave the fish for a while and see if I can get some frogs or toads instead so will probably end up transplanting some spawn from a neighbours pond

[Wild-Woman]

If you're patient, the frogs and newts will arrive by themselves when the pond is more mature and has a stable environment.
Sounds very big. Can we see some shots if possible?

[Stewy]

Is it big enough to hold a whopper like this?

Angler catches world's biggest carp - which weighs almost as much as Kylie | the Daily Mail

[witham]

we used to keep a few Call Ducks and had a pond which was a large old fibre glass fish pond which a neighborough gave us as it started to leak and he didn't trust it for his fish anymore so got a new one, we used to drain it every few weeks and refill it as it got so dirty and used to smell in the hot weather, the ducks used to get so excited when it was being filled up with clean water that they couldn't wait and used to slide into it and splash about making so much noise it was hilarious to see them.

[Jez]

aquatic snails are good pond cleaners

[galanthus]

Originally Posted by razor

many thanks for all your info have decided to leave the fish for a while and see if I can get some frogs or toads instead so will probably end up transplanting some spawn from a neighbours pond

I'd agree with letting the pond settle and allowing frogs and toads to find it for themselves. If you plant native oxygenators and pop a few ramshorn snails in, the pond should develop some micro-organisms quite quickly. Tho I agree with the others that it'll be more difficult to keep clear with duck poo and would think fish would add to this problem along with being unfriendly to natural wildlife.

post a pic and keep us updated.