Water Quality?

[corrieberry]

How big does a pond have to be, or how many plants does it have to have, to mean it doesn't need filtration? We are planning to turn our garden into an Italian Garden with pond and statues etc, but don't want the water to go stagnant. Any ideas would be much appreciated! The bit we are converting is 3mx7m (bit of an awkward size) and are planning to go up to 1m deep.

 

[Sploke]

The problem with many ponds is green water, if it gets any kind of sun during the day. This can be combated with lots of lots of plants - water lilies and lots of marginals probably stand the best chance of not getting eaten by the fish. Een without a "filter" proper, you'll still probably want some sort of circulation, even if its something as simple as a small waterfall or fountain, to help with circulation and aeration.

 

[corrieberry]

We weren't planning on putting fish in as the existing pond has a very healthy newt population - we were talking about a fountain but are worried the newts will get sucked in as that happened in the old one before I took the fountain out. The old pond is tiny though - hardly even big enough to be called a pond, so maybe the intake won't be a problem?

 

[Wycco]

Regarding circulation- this is key to ponds... growing up we had a couple ponds about 8 or 9ft long... nothing very big- just big enough to keep some minnows and goldfish... We never really had stagnent water... at the same time you see large ponds with stagnent areas... as said- it is all about water cirulation- one thing to look for is geometry. Small nooks and crannies and "square edges" are more likely to stagnate than large open rounded areas where water can circulate better.

Can you get a sponge to put over your intake... I don't recall us ever getting fish or tadpoles or anything else sucked up that wasn't supposed to be- but it was so long ago maybe I've forgotten.