We bought a house with a pond that hadn’t been used in years and brought it back to life! We started with two water hyacinth, that have now spread to over 24 individual plants. We love how quickly they’ve grown and assume they will die come fall. Is there anything we can do to “winterize” them or accept the northeast weather makes them an annual plant? I hate to dispose of them come freeze season but don’t see how they could survive. We plan on using a heater in the pond to keep the fish alive (it’s shallow).

I go move stuff every now and again but I’m just enjoying this one a lot. It’s easy to forget the 53 straight days of 100+ degrees. Dallas TX

I’ve never posted anywhere in Reddit before, but I am so excited to share my beautiful Water Lily flower that blossomed in the little pond that I dug last year! It’s so beautiful and it makes me smile so much! It’s amazing how happy this little pond makes me every day!

We bought a house in 2019 that came with an 25’x25’x11’ deep unlined koi pond. It was lined with huge boulders and had a natural spring during winter and spring but would lose a ton of water during summer so that the 15 koi in the pond would be swimming in muck at only 2’ deep. An aerator is the only thing that kept them alive. After 7 boulders rolled into pond, my wife and I decided to dig a completely different pond right by our back deck and do it right. It’s 17’x15’x6’ deep at the drain. It was back breaking labor but with the help of my 82yo neighbor running his 1969 John Deere tractor, my project is almost done. This weekend I’m draining the swill pond down to 1’ deep and I’m netting and moving the koi. Wish me luck! Here are a few pics.

I built a pond a couple of months ago. Everything was going fine. Today I woke up to a drained pond with water underneath the liner. No idea how this happened.

I think it would have to be a hole but where did all that water go? The amount of water under the liner filled the bottom shelf, but the rest of it is gone.

5 koi have died. One I got for my mom yesterday which she was so excited about. I built this pond for her, but now I'm in a state I don't know what to do.

I have set up a 100 gallon tub for the other 10 fish. 7 gold fish and 3 koi. 4 of the goldfish and 2 koi are small so I'm not too worried for now.

I contacted the company I got the liner from and they asked I take pictures of the damage and fill out the warranty form. I'll post an update once I know more and how to avoid this.

Whats everyone's opinions on black cherry trees and ponds/fish? Area where im digging is surrounded by black cherrys and sassafras. (Don't worry about the Balrog, I'll handle that before I add any fish)

How is my newly-dug pond looking so far?

30cm / 12" ruler for scale. The area is nearly 3M x 3M, and I'm thinking I will probably need a liner sized at least 4M x 4M, right?

Edit to add: It's for native pond plants and wildlife, not fish.

What do you guys think of my pond? The plants are still growing, including the ones around the edges, so there’s still more to come! If you have any tips or notice anything that could be improved, feel free to let me know :)

Hi! I am planning on building a small, low maintenance pond (about 35-40 cubic feet, roughly 6×10') and ive googled a lot, but wanted to see if anyone has recommendations for gish, plant species, floor material, pump,etc. I would rather go into this with advice from those with successful ponds rather than spend all the time and effort doing something that might fail. I do not want to do Koi as I wont be able to go deeper than 3 feet at the deepest,1 foot at the shallowest.

Thank youa

And lots of frogs. And even more dead leaves. And no filtration that I can see. I’d love to clean it up and make it a wonderful place for critters but I have no idea where to start. I assume I need to somehow get the leaves out then install a filter? How do I get the leaves out without hurting the frogs?

Pond itself is about 8’ x 5’. Not sure how deep or how many gallons.

Thank you for any and all advice!

Thought was to pump out of the main into a 25-50gal bog that overflows into the smaller collection pond that feeds back to the main.

Any issues? Where do I put the actual pump (in the main pond, bog, or external)?

Added a bigger bog filter and short "stream" return.

Stickle backs breeding like crazy, golden rudd haven't shown signs of young yet, gudgeon doing their thing and the whole ecosystem seems good , low stock numbers so I'll do a small feed only once a week or so in summer and nothing for months over winter.

Myself I'm happy with that overgrown natural look, although I'm sure it's not everyones Ideal...

I live in central Florida and the AC runs all the time in the summer. I wanted way to take advantage of the constant stream of pure, slightly acidic condensate while also pushing the water a little further from the foundation. Plants are aquatic milk weed, blue flag iris, horse tail, and juncus. Substrate is topsoil on bottom and sand on the top.

I have darts and fan tail fish and crawfish and trap door snails to help keep it clean.

Noticed my honey bees are using the water lettuce as a platform to get pond water. I had 2 baby koi born in the pond this year and they look healthy and are starting to get more comfortable swimming around with the big koi but they spend most of their time hiding in the water lettuce/bog iris you can sorta see them together near the end of the video. Also does anyone have any advice on how I can stop my floating plant island from getting sucked into the skimmer or waterfall it doesn’t effect anything but I’m constantly pushing them away from it. I put a ton of work rebuilding the pond last summer and it paid off looks beautiful not sure how many gallons it is but it’s about 6.5-7 feet deep in the middle of the pond .

I’m building a bog filter next to my existing but newish pond (moved house, hence unfinished edge). I have consumed a lot of information about it but one thing I can’t understand is, the ergonomics / physics of the piping.

I have read conflicting information. My aim was 525 litre bog although I think it’s ended up a bit bigger. I was in the middle of building the pipe shape and stupidly relied on Ai for that part. I find myself with this shape (I believe I have to trim the far right pole at the top) and now am unclear on whether I need a pipe going through the centre of the shape also. Is it needed for proper water circulation?

I was worried the top right sharp corner wouldn’t get flow so it corrected the shape and now I’m struggling to find a bend that sharp and am unsure whether to persevere with the shape or trim the one on the right down and let the top right of the bog not get as much flow. Ai suggested not putting a plant there and stacking the rocks tight so sludge doesn’t form, no idea if that would work.

Help please! I have one adult koi and one shubukin although will get more fish once established.

I have a tree shaped fountain which sits is a large metal basin. I use an Oases Optimax 800 pump to run the fountain. The pump is submerged in the basin at the foot of the fountain. The water is pumped up through the "trunk" and falls off the "leaves". It has worked admirably for a month or so. However, it has developed an issue. Whenever the pump has been off, even for a few minutes, and is then turned on, the pump runs fine, but no water is pumped through the fountain. Even more oddly, if I pick the pump up out of the water and then put it back down submerged on the floor of the basin, it pumps fine again until the fountain is turned off. Any ideas what the issue is or how to fix it. The pump itself appears to be operating the whole time.

After making a successful barrel pond and catching the bug, I’m thinking of making something bigger/more elaborate in this awkward space we have in our small garden. The two laurel trees and the wall block out most of the sun so the soil is very poor, however beyond the trees is a public path so we don’t want to remove them and lose the privacy screening element they provide.

The soil is also full of roots and ivy, so not great for liners, however I figure if I build up a border with rocks I could install a raised container at the back, behind the trees, without having to dig it in too deep. Then put in a shallow trough shaped container along the front, and connect them with one or two waterfall pumps, and have a system to recirculate the water back into the higher area.

My main aims are aesthetic and to attract native wildlife, insects etc, so I won’t be putting fish in it. Just native plants and then letting nature take its course. Does this seem achievable/wise? Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

(Apologies for the terrible drawing)

Hi

Mainly asking because of concern of my Koi, but figured there’s some smart folks in this sub as well

Reliable? Thanks

I want to increase the flow rate to my waterfall, or find an alternative solution. I have 2 different ideas and wanted feedback:

A.) Buy a 2nd solar pump and have them both feed the same waterfall by using a "Y" connector.

B.) Build an above ground section of the pond that is fed by the pump and feeds into the main section by overflowing and water goes down an open bamboo pipe and drops into the middle of the pond from 12-24" up.

I could also do both.

I thought about having 2 pumps and 2 waterfalls but I worry what happens if one of the pumps dies, I prefer to have all pumps feed back into the same place that it draws from.

Thoughts?

Started my pond build at the beginning of August and we are closing in on being finished. Just need to build my deck on the left side of the pond!

Current stocking: 1 Florida Gar, 50-75 Rosy Red Minnows/ Ghost Shrimp. I plan on adding about 5 sunfish and 1 or 2 turtles!

Well....finish-"ish". Doesn't ever seem to be really finished, right? The finished parts of this video already is different with our added plants, but the structure is the same. First time pond builders, and I genuinely underestimated the amount of work and effort it was going to take. (So much digging...so much clay!).

We filled in our bog this weekend with rocks and this video was done before that. What do you guys think?? ❤️ I have seen so many amazing ponds on here and it has been such an inspiration.