Natural pond

[fisherman]

FT The lillies also cut down on the amount of light getting into the and so stopping some of the algal bloom that colours it.

Dave

[jevs]

FT The lillies also cut down on the amount of light getting into the and so stopping some of the algal bloom that colours it.

Dave

 

 

Plus they are heavy feeders so reducing the nitrates and phosphates that blanket weed and green water feeds on

[Ken Davison South Wales]

You may titter Chester but there are several different types of ponds including 100% natural.

 

The 100% natural has no liner and is filled via water table and rainfall, excavated in clay is ideal.

 

Depending on size plants such as lilies ,frogbit (Hydrocharis) parrots feather (Myriophyllum) along with numerous indigenous marginal plants will create a natural pond, for fish add sticklebacks or may be roach or rudd. Then leave it to develop, some people omit the fish to give frogs, toads and other wild life a better chance.

 

Without a natural water holding situation a pond liner is used but a liberal coating of aquatic compost or clay covered with a coarse grit will create near natural conditions.

 

Setup and well planted the water will remain clear if 60% of surface area is covered with floating plants, this can include duckweed which is easily removed if required with a fine net.

 

All plants will remove oxygen at night so the number of fish inches per surface area is important, general guide line is 144sq. ins. per inch of fish.

Edited August 7, 2006 by Ken Davison South Wales

[peter mccue]

You may titter Chester but there are several different types of ponds including 100% natural.

 

The 100% natural has no liner and is filled via water table and rainfall, excavated in clay is ideal.

 

Depending on size plants such as lilies ,frogbit (Hydrocharis) parrots feather (Myriophyllum) along with numerous indigenous marginal plants will create a natural pond, for fish add sticklebacks or may be roach or rudd. Then leave it to develop, some people omit the fish to give frogs, toads and other wild life a better chance.

 

Without a natural water holding situation a pond liner is used but a liberal coating of aquatic compost or clay covered with a coarse grit will create near natural conditions.

 

Setup and well planted the water will remain clear if 60% of surface area is covered with floating plants, this can include duckweed which is easily removed if required with a fine net.

 

All plants will remove oxygen at night so the number of fish inches per surface area is important, general guide line is 144sq. ins. per inch of fish.

 

Ken, Quite agree with 90% of your post, but that last paragraph is a statement that continues to puzzle me everytime I read it.

 

It seems to be a common perception but it really doesn't stand up to practical observation. I've lost count of the number of times when I've been fishing, & the weedbeds have been lifting in fish right through the night.

 

Also, at a time when the Dissolved Oxygen levels should be at their lowest - early morning - Ive had some great sport with Carp & Rudd on the edges of huge weedbeds. This usually occurs in high Summer temperatures when the water is least capable of supporting Oxygen.

 

Also read an interesting report from a firm called Wolverton Environmental sciences, which stated that houseplants remove very little Oxygen at night contrary to popular belief. In fact it goes on to say that there are a number of common household plants that continue to add Oxygen to the air during the night.

[Ken Davison South Wales]

Ken, Quite agree with 90% of your post, but that last paragraph is a statement that continues to puzzle me everytime I read it.

 

It seems to be a common perception but it really doesn't stand up to practical observation. I've lost count of the number of times when I've been fishing, & the weedbeds have been lifting in fish right through the night.

 

Also, at a time when the Dissolved Oxygen levels should be at their lowest - early morning - Ive had some great sport with Carp & Rudd on the edges of huge weedbeds. This usually occurs in high Summer temperatures when the water is least capable of supporting Oxygen.

 

Also read an interesting report from a firm called Wolverton Environmental sciences, which stated that houseplants remove very little Oxygen at night contrary to popular belief. In fact it goes on to say that there are a number of common household plants that continue to add Oxygen to the air during the night.

 

In large lakes with a high ratio of water per fish there is not a problem but in small ponds which all to often are over stocked and water movement is not up to speed plants can tip the balance. I get quite a nunber of customers come in and state that they lost fish during the night, they looked healthy no signs of illness.

 

Because the ponds are over stocked the water quality is poor to start with and high temperatures plus still nights quite often bring this about.

 

I cleared a pond just over a week ago it was six foot wide, thirteen foot long and two feet deep, the bottom contained six inches of silt and the pump was not working.

 

I removed 72 goldfish average size 4", 19 roach on todays count at 6" (we had to move them) one mirror carp 18" , and a number of hybrid goldfish/mirrors approx. twenty. The fish were dying and he was teed off with the pond, all the fish are doing well now and we have not lost any (must remember to post a pic of the big boy he is quite a star now) The basic requirement of this number of fish is over 500sq. ft. of surface area he had 78sq. ft. with no artificial aeration to help compensate and he was finding dead fish every morning.

 

PS Forgot to mention we removed some plants from the pond with a retail value of about £400 lilies etc. again well over grown

Edited August 8, 2006 by Ken Davison South Wales

[chesters1]

we can split hairs over natural

if you dig it it isnt natural and most lakes we see are man made ,most ponds near roadsides were dug for horses ,later steam engines then abandoned (loads around here) even "natural" rivers can be man made.

dew ponds are natural but very few nowadays as are ponds in valleys (most becoming marshes then boggy pine and birch woods) but natural (especially in the marketing world) is usually rare as hens teeth.

ofcourse natural also means (if man made) naturally recycling ,so no help with plants fish or naughty filters etc ,just dig a hole fill it with water (if you have to) and leave it alone

natural "looking" is pretending its naturally occuring by stealth (hurrying things up) but faux natural all the same when you notice the filter running

and ofcourse if you need a filter then its unaturally stocked

naturally occuring also means naturally dieing so no topping up either ,if the fish die their either there unaturally or nature decides they die so no topping up and visiting the aquarist to replace the dead ones

Edited August 8, 2006 by chesters1

[Ken Davison South Wales]

we can split hairs over natural

if you dig it it isnt natural and most lakes we see are man made ,most ponds near roadsides were dug for horses ,later steam engines then abandoned (loads around here) even "natural" rivers can be man made.

dew ponds are natural but very few nowadays as are ponds in valleys (most becoming marshes then boggy pine and birch woods) but natural (especially in the marketing world) is usually rare as hens teeth.

ofcourse natural also means (if man made) naturally recycling ,so no help with plants fish or naughty filters etc ,just dig a hole fill it with water (if you have to) and leave it alone

natural "looking" is pretending its naturally occuring by stealth (hurrying things up) but faux natural all the same when you notice the filter running

and ofcourse if you need a filter then its unaturally stocked

naturally occuring also means naturally dieing so no topping up either ,if the fish die their either there unaturally or nature decides they die so no topping up and visiting the aquarist to replace the dead ones

 

I wouldn't dare split hairs with you Chester

 

I think the word natural in this context means to create a natural eco-system rather than an artificial one with pumps etc.

 

Fish dying in a poor enviroment is unnatural, they are poisoned by toxic waste which could be avoided if people do not take good care of their charges and this includes removing fish after a population explosion.

 

We do not push the hi-tech koi ponds as all to often they go sour due to over stocking and a break down in the artificial system which is creating the required water quality. We much prefer to see a balanced pond understocked, well planted and as required maintained.

[Steve Walker]

Ken, Quite agree with 90% of your post, but that last paragraph is a statement that continues to puzzle me everytime I read it.

 

It seems to be a common perception but it really doesn't stand up to practical observation. I've lost count of the number of times when I've been fishing, & the weedbeds have been lifting in fish right through the night.

 

It's a basic tenet of plant physiology, though. Plants respire constantly, at a rate mostly determined by temperature. This requires sugar and oxygen and produces carbon dioxide and water. They photosynthesise when lit, at a rate determined by whichever is limiting of light, temperature and carbon dioxide availability. They consume carbon dioxide and water and produce sugar and oxygen. At some level of light (the "compensation point") the two processes are in balance, and the plant produces as much oxygen, sugar, water and carbon dioxide as it consumes. There's an experimental look at this here.

 

That's assuming that I remember correctly and didn't sleep through anything too important in my mandatory plant phys lectures, they were exquisitely dull.

 

For some real-life numbers, there's an abstract here from a study looking at where oxygen in an estuary comes from, and where it goes to.

 

The thing to bear in mind, though, particularly with the house plants thing, is that a plant's rate of respiration is much lower than that of a mammal. People don't fret about how much oxygen their dog is consuming, yet it will be many times more than consumption of the equivalent weight of rubber plants. It's more of an issue in the aquatic environment, because there is a lot less oxygen about to begin with, and because there can be very heavy concentrations of submerged plants. In a natural water you would expect there to be sufficient rate of carbon dioxide diffusing out of the water and oxygen diffusing in to keep the gases within levels tolerable to the fish. You do see a daily cycle of pH swings caused by the varying carbon dioxide levels in the water, though.

[peter mccue]

It's a basic tenet of plant physiology, though. Plants respire constantly, at a rate mostly determined by temperature. This requires sugar and oxygen and produces carbon dioxide and water. They photosynthesise when lit, at a rate determined by whichever is limiting of light, temperature and carbon dioxide availability. They consume carbon dioxide and water and produce sugar and oxygen. At some level of light (the "compensation point") the two processes are in balance, and the plant produces as much oxygen, sugar, water and carbon dioxide as it consumes. There's an experimental look at this here.

 

That's assuming that I remember correctly and didn't sleep through anything too important in my mandatory plant phys lectures, they were exquisitely dull.

 

For some real-life numbers, there's an abstract here from a study looking at where oxygen in an estuary comes from, and where it goes to.

 

The thing to bear in mind, though, particularly with the house plants thing, is that a plant's rate of respiration is much lower than that of a mammal. People don't fret about how much oxygen their dog is consuming, yet it will be many times more than consumption of the equivalent weight of rubber plants. It's more of an issue in the aquatic environment, because there is a lot less oxygen about to begin with, and because there can be very heavy concentrations of submerged plants. In a natural water you would expect there to be sufficient rate of carbon dioxide diffusing out of the water and oxygen diffusing in to keep the gases within levels tolerable to the fish. You do see a daily cycle of pH swings caused by the varying carbon dioxide levels in the water, though.

 

Thanks for that Steve, It's one of those things that everyone knows, but then you make some observations that seem to confound it & you begin to wonder.

 

Is it fair to say that during the long days of the Summer months, there would be a surfeit of Oxygen within the weedbeds that could not be cancelled by the short nights, resulting in comfortable conditions - Oxygen wise - for the entire 24 hrs?

[Steve Walker]

Is it fair to say that during the long days of the Summer months, there would be a surfeit of Oxygen within the weedbeds that could not be cancelled by the short nights, resulting in comfortable conditions - Oxygen wise - for the entire 24 hrs?

 

Good question. I don't know, I guess it's possible. Sometimes plants will cause the water around them to become supersaturated with oxygen, where the concentration of dissolved oxygen is higher than the stable concentration the water can sustain. The plants are shoving out oxygen faster than it can diffuse out of the area. I think that would rectify itself very quickly once the plants stopped pumping more oxygen into the water.

 

I think the main reason that there isn't a problem is that typical coarse fish are adapted to deal with the levels you would typically see. So say the the water is at 120% saturation in the afternoon and 60% at dawn. At 20C, that gives a variation of about 5.5mg/l to 11mg/l. Most stillwater coarse species will live normally at a constant 5mg/l, so really that range is completely within their comfort zone. 5mg/l would be low enough to start to distress trout, though.