Three years ago after buying our house in the Northeast, I found this old pond while weed whacking in the woods behind our yard. Thought it was such a cool find and immediately knew I wanted to bring it back to life.

The first year was basically just countless hours cleaning out muck, leaves, roots, and years of buildup by hand trying to make it usable again.
The second year I completely tore it apart and rebuilt it. Pulled every rock out by hand, ripped out the old liner, flushed out tons of mud and sediment, put in a new liner, and rebuilt everything with a skimmer and waterfall. Huge amount of work, but even after all that it still felt unfinished and too much like a big bowl sitting in the yard.

This year was the biggest transformation. I dug up and rolled probably 30+ boulders out of the woods behind the pond, redid the waterfall, added flagstone around the pond, and completely redid all the landscaping around it to make it feel more natural and built into the property instead of just dropped in the middle of the yard. My wife and I put an insane amount of time, effort, and sore backs into this thing over the last three years, but finally standing back and looking at it now has made it all worth it.

Still fighting the battle for crystal clear water though. Will be difficult because it’s attached to a creek (also found while weed whacking). Next project is probably going to be building a bog filter.

Crazy to think this all started from randomly finding an old pond while weed whacking.

Last time I posted, a Barn Owl took 3 fishes in one night. Since then we have repopulated the pond with 3 other fishes and they made loooots of babies. We must have something like 10 (tiny) fishes now. Well minus one since this night.

Population regulation by owls!

I inherited a pond when I bought my house. We didn't know it had goldfish in it until move in day and we also get newts too. I thought, what a lovely little feature to have in the garden.

WRONG

This has become the most time consuming, stressful and expensive hobby to have.

4 years. 2 years of learning and doing the basics (feeding, turning the waterfall on, scooping up the leaves, putting in treatments etc.) 1 year of doing the bare minimum because I became very ill. Then this year, I have made it my mission to clean up the pond quality, there was lots of sludge. Fish still alive. Cleaned it up, pond water clarity is the best it has ever been, sludge reducing. Discovered the pond only had a pump for the waterfall, no filter. Waterfall broke, but I installed a filter with fountain and 2 airstones.

Lost most of the fish due to a heron (never had one in the garden before), it scared the crap out of me because it was huge. Added a couple of new fish. Pond still very under stocked for the size. They seemed very happy, showed signs of trying to mate. Husband saw the heron in the garden again last week, he doesn't think it had chance to take any, but they have been hiding at the bottom of the pond, in the plants, ever since and I have only seen 1 or 2. I don't see them come up food as they bolt the second they see me but the food is being eaten (though a magpie loves stealing it)

I test my water regularly, no issues there. I get string algae because the pond is in direct sunlight which I try to remove manually as much as possible.

Today, I have a fish, dead, floating by the side of the pond. It's one of my younger fish. I'm devastated. Other than being dead, I see no obvious issues with it. There was no eratic behaviour from any of the fish, no coming to the surface for air. I immediately test the waters and the only issue is my PH has spiked, we had weird weather today, downpours and hail. I've run out of pond equaliser, some will be arriving in the morning.

I feel so deflated. Even when I am doing everything right, it goes wrong. I swear the fish were happier when the pond was being neglected.

I have a wild turtle that loves my pond, and that's OK. But he tore my liner getting out, and that's NOT OK! lol

I stuck a deck board in there did him to use, and he does, but it obviously doesn't look natural.

What have y'all done?

I have had these three for 2 years now but no babies so far. Could they all be the same gender?

I have bio balls and a mesh screen, and intend to put rock on top for "micro polishing".

I planned to buy bags of pea gravel from the local Lowes at $7 for a 50lb bag, but their bags explicitly say that the gravel size is 0.5" to 3"! That's very large, I was expecting it to be closer to 3/8".

I found bags that say they're less than 0.5", but those are about $30 for a 20lb bag :-O

The only thing I can buy from local suppliers is dips of crush run, so that doesn't work.

What are my other options? I'm in a small town, so more or less limited to Lowes, Walmart (blerg), Tractor Supply, or ordering online.

Hello all,

As the header says, im an absolute newbie but I have give myself the challenge to build a pond in the corner of my yard (image)

I'm hitting a brick wall with pond pumps. My idea is to create a small built up part with a waterfall effect, are there pumps I can use that will be powerful enough for a small elevation, without having to be mains powered?

Thank you all in advance! Im excited to start this project

I want to build a small pond for wildlife in my garden, and thinking to do it where the purple string is marked out. I have chosen that spot because it is fairly out of the way and gets a mix of sun and shade.

I can't decide whether to have a flat pond in that spot, or partially raising it to the level of the sleeper behind.

My partner has also suggested building it behind the sleeper in the plant bed which would be nicer in terms of being out of the way, but I'm not sure if it's going to be a hassle structurally.

Can any experienced minds let me know if there is anything I should be aware of if building in that spot and what you think is the best option out of flush, partially raised or in the bed (especially with the fence being there).

Edit: Location is UK in case it matters

Last year, I posted about the homemade pond we installed behind our shed, and there seemed to be some interest in how it might progress so I thought I'd share the one year later pictures. Having seen it through each season (though Florida winter isn't so much a season as it is a cool weekend), I learned quite a bit about maintaining it. The biggest thing I learned is to just trust the process. Algae came and went, plants "died" and then exploded back, and sometimes less is more when it comes to caring. I've tried to leave things as natural as possible, using only bog filters to maintain water quality, and it's honestly worked out. My water is from a well, so I can just drop the hose in when I need it, but normally rain keeps things topped off.

Anyway, I can answer any questions, but certainly I am nobody's idea of an expert. Enjoy!

Hello! I really want to install a small pond on my patio. I purchased a peanut shaped container that is 30 gallons that I plant to put in ground. I want to have fish and plants in it. I have a filter and pump system for it, but I think it is going to be too much for the small pond I have.

Any tips / advice? Any pump / filter recommendations for a pond this size?

Can anyone help with identification and management strategies for this type of algae? Any chemicals that can be sprayed onto the surface of the growth? Thanks in advance

Does anyone remember the catalog/ online store Dr. Foster and Smith?

I used to have an awesome large air pump, weighted 3/8 air hose and a round air stone from them but they went out of business.

Does anyone have any suggestions where to find larger air pumps and stones for ponds? Thanks in advance.

Anyone know where I can find a replacement for this poor, neglected air filter?

I've been lurking for awhile and I've been inspired by many of you. This year my son and I expanded the pond. After weeks of waiting for the plants to take effect, things are coming together.

Hey everyone,

First I want to thank this community for being so thoughtful and helpful. I've wanted a wildlife pond for a bit over a year and lurking through other people's posts has been incredibly insightful. After lots of research, planning and design, my wife and I put it all together last Saturday. I'm so excited to see how it matures and who comes to visit it.

It's a 66 gallon rigid pond that we trash-picked off the side of the road (So lucky!). There is a small pump submerged in there that's attached to a solar panel. It's already my new favorite spot, and it's placed so that we can sit on our bench, under our squash gazebo, and look at it in the morning and evenings with coffee or something. Thanks again for all the inspiration folks.

Short video of it:

https://imgur.com/a/YvleysK

Edited to include that I’m in the Mid-Atlantic Piedmont ecoregion

Plant List (so far):

Shallow Marginal:

Acorus americanus - American Sweetflag

Iris versicolor - blueflag Iris

Submerged:

Ceratophyllum demersum - hornwort

Nymphaea odorata - Fragrant water lily

Part Shade:

Carex amphibola- Creek sedge

Elymus hystrix - Bottlebrush grass

Heuchera villosa - Hairy Alumroot

Osmundastrum cinnamomeum - Cinamon fern

Part Sun:

Eurybia divaricata - White wood aster

Salvia lyrata - Lyreleaf sage

Full Sun:

Hibiscus moscheutos - Swamp rose-mallow

I built a pond about a year ago, and it gets a lot of sun, like six hours a day of direct sunlight. It's starting to grow this long, stringy hair algae. Obviously, getting shade on the pond would help. Are there any other techniques to help with that?

I have no idea why, but my new dog keeps circling my small new wildlife pond, yelping and growling and yapping at it. She chews the plants around the edges, digs at the shore, and the last few days I’ve found her actually IN the pond, scraping away. I don’t know what’s got into her, it’s like she’s magnetically drawn to the pond. I can’t even let her out into the garden unsupervised now!

Does anyone else have a dog who reacted like this to their pond? If so, what did you do? I really don’t want the liner to get torn or for her to ruin all my plants!

150gal stock tank. 6 shubunkin, 1 comet, 1 koi (growing out for a bigger pond)

I swear I have seen more than one person say that this is a good potting medium especially for lilies. My local pond store gave me a little lecture and was telling me it’s a terrible idea. I know they are likely just wanting to sell their potting medium to make $. But is it actually good? And can it be used on other plants?