muddy pond help

[nell]

Hi
I am new to this forum and looking for any info or advice with a muddy pond

The pond is new - built last week with a liner, just under 1m deep at centre with shelf bits and sloping 'beach', just over 1.2m wide at widest point. The soil at the edges is clay subsoil, the water is still very murky - i believe this may be because of the clay

do we need to drain the pond and remove the clay (my partner's favoured plan, he's seen some 'aquasoil' at the garden centre and wants to replace the clay with this)
do we accept the muddiness and see what happens
we want the pond as a 'wildlife pond' and plan to plant it with local and native species - we don't want to add anything which will upset the balance

thanks for any help!
nell

[Cowgirl]

Hi Nell & welcome to WAB. I had exactly the same problem when I built my pond, albeit it was a large koi pond. I put clay in & I never saw the fish for nearly a year!.

Eventually both me & hubby got in & emptied most of the clay out by hand (not a small job as it is 4ft deep by 16ft x 10ft) & put another filter on the job with lots of that white fine stuff in. Job sorted, crystal clear water.

That is my experience but your situ is a little bit different

I think for a wildlife pond, ideally you shouldn't use pumps & filters if you want to remain natural. No doubt experts will be able to give you better advice, but if it was me, depending how much clay you've put in, and your pond doesn't seem that big, (& I have read somewhere you shouldn't put garden soil in as there are too many nutrients inti & you'll get algae explosion) I would hoik it out & just leave it for nature to get on with it. It will clear, honest, but it may take a good few weeks.



Good luck & keep us posted

[slimrbp]

It will take a while for the pond to settle, how many days has it been?

When I bulit my pond I used the soil from the garden as well which has a high clay content but it settled down in the end.

I think aquasoil just has less nutrients in it rather than ebing any better at settling down so it probably wouldn't help.

This is what the pond looked like after filling



Then about four days later after adding the plants:



About a week after this it was pretty much compeltely settled down.

This is only conjecture but it may be that the soil takes longer to settle when the weather is cold due the thermal layers.

[Cowgirl]

True, & I didn't think it helped that my fish kept stirring up the mud, bloomin things!

[Kayleigh]

leave it alone, plant your plants it will clear on its own.
Mine was very muddy I put gravel in mine and it cleared eventually the wildlife will not mind if the water is murky..

Welcome to WAB..

[slimrbp]

Originally Posted by Cowgirl

True, & I didn't think it helped that my fish kept stirring up the mud, bloomin things!

In our pond it's the woodies and blackbirds having a bath!


Sorry Nell, forgot to say welcome!

[NYBraby]

Having clear water is more for us to see wildlife, they don't really care.

I replaced my pond liner in November just before all the bad weather hit, I have yet to put anything into it (other than some of the old muck and soil I kept when emptying) and its still a tad murkey.

Will be working out what to plant over the next few weeks and will then decide on gravel / soil etc.

[Kayleigh]

Yellow flag iris filter the water naturally and oxygenators keep the water clean keep the iris's in baskets so they dont take over the pond..

[nightshade]

With the old clay lined ponds they used to use Bentonite to seal the clay , this would also clear the water

[triops]

I know that this will give rise to more questions! When we made our pond I cleared it in a couple of days by putting in a bucketful of Daphnia. You'd need to find a local source, a fine net, and (probably) permission to collect them. Perfect natural filters.