I've done two small fish ponds using heavy duty rigid plastic liners expecting only the fish (koi and shubunkin) would enjoy it. We live less than ~10 miles/~15 km from downtown Boston.
We were surprised to see the second pond, which is next to the north side of our basement and on a small hill, gets all kinds of animals and birds coming to drink. Racoons, possum, fox, squirrels, and many types of small birds. Without fail, one or two tree frogs find it every summer and settle in on the water plant we put out there (taro) in a semi-submerged pot.
The frogs disappear in the early autumn. Before the first hard frost, we bring the taro plant inside in a bucket, and place it next to a sunny window for the next 6 months. By mid-December the pond freezes over except where we have a small pump running. The fish go dormant at the bottom, under the ice.
Then in spring it starts back up again. The ice melts, the fish come back to life, and the animals return to drink. I am going to put the taro plant back out in May, and once again the pond will be the center of life in our side yard.
https://youtu.be/8ExfrhjpMp4?si=dJ1pOaw-zLA-Rvk2
FWIW we are only using tap water (which comes all the way from the Quabbin reservoir in western mass) and rain water. I think at the beginning we used some sort of algae treatment once or twice during the summer but in the past 5 years it hasn't been necessary as long as the pump is creating a bubbling flow and there aren't too many fish, usually no more than 3 or 4 small to medium goldfish/carp varieties ... koi, shibunkin, and comets.
What do you use for soil in your taro plant?
We are much farther South and don’t have to deal with ice. I’ve been trying to put fish in it but the chipmunks turned the pond liner into Swiss cheese in some places.
Kind of surprised about the chipmunks. We have them too but the liner has never been damaged. OTOH it's pretty heavy duty rigid PVC.
Your pond looks lovely.
Our main problem is racoons. At night they come to fish with their claws in the shallow areas of the pond.
Once the temp drops below 40 degrees F (~5C) the fish go dormant, usually under some dead leaves at the bottom or in the cinderblock we have at the deep end. When ice forms they will be fine, as the bubbling pump keeps an open spot for oxygen (it should be bubbling about 1 inch above the water line and not splashing outside the pond liner). If it's a deep freeze and the pump forms an ice bubble, break it open with a hammer. The rest of the ice can stay on the pond surface.
To our surprise, every winter the pond freezes over and the fish are fine come spring. In fact they’re thriving and we don’t touch the pond at all - it doesn’t even have a pump.
The other pond could definitely do with cleaning out, but again it’s teaming with wildlife. There’s not a huge window between when the newts leave for the summer and when it freezes in winter. By the time it thaws and we think to do something about it the newts are back again.
It's amazing how much life lifts in with just that bit of soil; I have a few jars from three years ago (that I leave mostly closed) which have shown multiple generations of woodlice, water snails, little mussels, spiders, water fleas, beetles, worms. Sometimes, the whole pot turns opaque green for a few days, and then a few days later it clears up and I find some new life in there I have never seen before.
Highly enjoyable to have on your desk or in the window sill!
I've started to wonder why there aren't more closed loop experiments out there. These would be very cheap to make! (By space research standards.) A closed water loop habitat could be built in the middle of isolated land, like West Texas. Go from there to incrementally incorporating more of an ecosystem. Try and recycle the air last, of course, as that is potentially life threatening.
My native plant supplier encouraged tiny ponds, saying that while you may need mosquito dunks to kill the larva at first, once wildlife is established in your pond e.g. dragonflies will control the mosquitos just fine. I believe him (or at least that it worked for him), but I feel like I would need to do more research before putting it to the test.
This year I'm hoping to try the variable platyfish, Xiphophorus variatus (though most just call them 'variatus'). They tolerate a similar temperature range to white clouds but they're slightly bigger and more likely to eat things off the bottom. They're livebearers, so they make more, but in fairness white clouds are among the easiest egg-scatterers to breed and will likely also make more in a pond.
Here's an example for San Diego but most if not all counties will have a similar program: https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/sdc/deh/pests/wnv/pre...
Some mosquitofishes and many killifishes in America are endangered. The common Gambusia will eat every egg of native fishes. If you spread the invasive ones in the ponds of the endangered ones, this can have serious consequences even in USA. Irreversible genetic contamination, parasite spread or local extinctions by predation can occur.
All you need is something to 'hold' a drip of water - I pipette or syringe is best but it can be done with a chopstick, a laser (any colour) and a white wall or screen tk project the image on.
Suspend the drip, shine the laser through the drip and see the amazing tiny things living in the water.
I've not done it for a while, I better try this out again soon, the kids will love it.
I used medaka(ricefish) and a couple airline filters fed with a single air pump run into a splitter to control mosquitoes. I used an aquarium heater for a bit but the electric bill ended up being quite high because it ran too often. You're better off moving the fish inside in the winter if you're in a colder climate. I'm in San Diego and probably could have kept white cloud minnows all year but I was into medaka at the time. I also had a large population of neocaridina shrimp and aquatic snails that I hoped would control algae(they did not).
I got plenty of birds visiting, and the ponds became a favorite watering hole of the local bees. For whatever reason, SoCal bees are not aggressive, so I didn't mind the 20+ bees constantly filling up while standing on my floating plants.
I did end up buying daphnia and moina online since they never colonized the ponds naturally.
I also had a couple "pond jars" to maintain the daphnia/moina population. Those regularly attracted mosquito larvae which ended up as food for the medaka as well as my indoor aquarium fish. I figured the jars were a form of mosquito control since the larvae never reached adulthood.
I initially topped off the ponds with 0ppm, deionized water that I used for my indoor aquarium(I ran a hippie tank with 0 water changes so I needed pure water to top-off). Eventually I switched to using a filter housing filled with "catalytic carbon" which supposedly handles both chlorine and chloramines. I was scooping out enough floating plants regularly to balance the incoming minerals from the tap water used to top it off.
I'd do it again at some point when my daughter is old enough to appreciate it. But next time I'll use some protection against critters digging up things. One nice companion to all of this is a $300 chinese microscope. It's fun to see the pond life under magnification.
I have some acreage and would love to try this out to create a pond, but there are never any real good details on this - what areas it works best, etc etc.
Anyone here have experience with making their own pond without using a liner?
I lived on a small farm as a child and at the bottom of the land someone had dug a basic well near a very small spring. The spring was really just a muddy puddle, but over time from the sheep walking back and forth to drink from the puddle, it slowly became a small pond. As we scaled back the number of sheep we had, the pond slowly disappeared again.
What is the soil like on your land, do any springs already occur or are there other natural ponds?
If you don't have clay, ducks can provide manure that turns into fine mud with the same properties and pigs can provide the compact work, but will taint the water later with nitrogen. Machines are better.
His specialty though is “bog filters”. These are a natural solution to keeping pond water healthy and crystal clear. They work even for small container ponds.
I followed his tutorials and dug a 8x5m lined pond with a 3x3m bog filter and a mini stream connecting them. It’s the highlight of our garden.
Highly recommend.
If I ever have a yard of my own I'm going to do all native plant landscaping and some raised beds for edible plants.
Seems like it would be better for insects and birds.
This seems like a pretty small thing that municipalities could do that would create a lot of visual interest and help birds.
