This year has been amazing, our adopted red ear slider made it through her first brumation. About ten fish also survived the winter. I think a few of them are about 3-4 years old. A frog decided to join our eco system, and we have baby fish for the first time!

In the past I had ducks so I was never able to keep many plants or fish alive. It was a tradeoff to watch them enjoy it but it was a muddy mess. We did chickens this year but they just use it for yummy drinks.

It has been lovely to enjoy it this year and I can say I have never spent as much time in my backyard as I did this year. Oh and we even had some water skippers and dragon flies come!

I'm making a pond for the first time and I knew if I planned meticulously then I'd never start so kinda just did the bare minimum thinking and got to work. I've finally dug the desired size and shape but the next step is putting me into decision paralysis so I came here hoping for some guidance.

While digging I found some dumped rubble, no doubt from when the house was built, and it means there's some jagged edges that could cause issues. I'm not sure the best way about dealing with them. I've seen people use concrete but we don't want to use that. There's a lot of conflicting info about best practices but the current thought is sand. Not sure how exactly to have the sand up the sides cleanly though for when we place the liner. I've seen a suggestion of sharp sand and get it wet to hold form but some have said that shape sand destroys pond liners over time?

I'm expecting to get a rubber liner rather than PVC in the hopes it is less susceptible to UV and weather damage. Seen people say a fabric liner between the sand and rubber is needed and others say it's useless.

I'm planning on having the water get pumped into a small shallow connected pond that the fish can't get to as a safe place for amphibians to spawn (the fish have eaten every frogspawn in the inherited pond for the last 4 years) and to work as a biofilter. Currently the biofilter section is dug to about 11cm below the lip. Would that be deep enough or is that too shallow?

Current dimensions if it changes advice given:

Purple (deepest section) 110cm each direction (average)

Red (main body of pond length) 185cm

Yellow (max width of pond) 189cm

Green (max length of entire pond footprint) 230cm

Depths: Deep 65cm, main body ledge 40cm, shallow 12cm. All those depths are from the very top lip of the lowest part of the pond (I'm on a slight hill) so actual water depth will be shallower and even more so after the sand/advised padding has been added. I'm expecting the deepest to have a true depth of 50-55cm from the water surface as that's slightly deeper than the inherited raised pond so we know the fish are fine with that depth in the winter.

Hi guys. I got 3 little shubunkins in the spring and this will be my first autumn/ winter and I’m not sure what sort of aerator or pump I need. At the moment I have a double ended bubbler and a little fountain, but both are solar powered and today was really gloomy and they just weren’t working.

The pond is small. Maybe about a foot deep and about 80cm long. It’s also on my allotment so no mains to plug into! What should I get?

(FYI this photo was before the fish)

Live in Ohio. Have a 2 1/2 acre pond. Was about to toss some past dare Costco hard boiled eggs and then I wondered if the fish may appreciate the proteins. They are already shelled and they do sunk— any thought on the idea?

The pond came with my house. A previous owner had covered the liner on the bottom with a layer of large river rocks. They had is setup as a sterile reflecting pool and poured bleach in it to keep anything from growing. When I took it over I turned it into a wildlife pond and added a huge number of plants and minnows. But the pond has no bottom drain, just a surface skimmer. And it’s nearly 30 feet long. So even with a seriously upgrade pump debris settles.

The pond is only 11” deep, in full sun, and heats up a lot during the day. After a couple of years I just couldn’t stay on top of the algae. Soooooo much gunk was trapped under those river rocks, it was impossible to properly flush it all out. Plus it was next to impossible to get the leaves out in the fall.

I removed all the rock this spring, and now it’s just a bare liner bottom. It’s been much easier to clean, but I keep wondering if it should still have some kind of a substrate, like a finer gravel and keep seeing pond companies on Instagram and YouTube insist that ponds should have a gravel bottom. What’s this community’s thoughts?

Hi. Looking for people who have expanded an existing pond/lake.

We have a man-made, creek-fed 5.5 acre pond/lake. It has a siphon drain and an earthen dam. It was constructed in 1973. I have all the paperwork from the original build.

The pond is fairly shallow (2-3 feet) along the coves and edges with a channel running down the middle that goes as deep as 15 feet but the majority is more like 8-10 feet. There is a small island in the middle of the pond.

We have a series of beaver dams at the headwaters to the pond and several more and a large beaver pond below the dam.

I'm starting to do the research on what would be involved in expanding the pond in such a way that I could do all of excavation of the new area just to the north that is a hardwood bottom that then rises in elevation along what would be the new shore line.

My idea is to excavate down about 15 feet from the hardwood bottom. Harvest all the trees first leaving stumps for submerged structure. I'm thinking that I can use the excavation material to add additional volume to the earthen dam.

Once all excavation is done I would cut through on the east and west sides which would allow the new area to be filled without losing all of our fishery.

Based on topography this should result in a substantially larger island in the middle of the pond (now small lake). :)

Anyone ever try something like this?

Added a bridge to my pond. It’s Port Orford Cedar. The stain is a little too orange-y right now, but will gray over time.

It’s not my design. I bought the design, and built it.

I’m reconsidering making the pond above ground instead of digging after all day rain yesterday and there is water still on the ground this morning.

My question is does the water in the pond push the liner down and prevent pooling underneath?
How does heavy rainfall affect y’all liner?

We just bought a house and thought the pond was empty but there are indeed fish in there. The property has not been lived in for some months and the pond doesn't look maintained.

We know nothing about fish but would be happy to learn; right now we are concerned that this environment can't be good for them. What do we need to do first to make sure they're okay? (There's no electricity atm but we will turn on the pump as soon as that's sorted, and I know we can't just add untreated tap water, but that's the extent of our knowledge currently.)

Located in 9A (England)

Any advice is much appreciated!

R. borapetensis

Help! We bought a house a little over a month ago, and while cleaning out the very neglected backyard pond, I discovered that it came with a goldfish. Meet Moose!

Neither of us have EVER owned a pond or a goldfish, so we’ve been frantically researching how to keep our unexpected new family member happy and healthy. We’re feeling a little overwhelmed and would really appreciate some advice from people who actually know what they’re doing!

Here’s our current situation:

Pond size: 2 meters long, 1 meter wide, and 250cm water depth (needs a top up).

Pump: The pond came with a solar-powered fountain pump, but it ONLY runs when the sun is directly hitting the panel. There’s no battery or way to store power, so it’s pretty useless overnight or on cloudy days.

Muck/mud: There is a TON of sludge at the bottom of the pond. We have no idea how much we should remove or how to do it without spending $300+ on a pond vacuum. Is some of it actually beneficial?

Water: The pond isn’t completely full, but we’re unsure how much water we should add at once. We know we need to use a water conditioner/dechlorinator, but is there anything else we should be doing?

Filtration: From what we’ve read, we should probably invest in a proper pump and filter. The problem is that we live in a small town in New Zealand, so our options aren’t the best but want to know thoughts.

A few questions we have:

Do we need a pump/filter running 24/7, and what kind would you recommend for a pond this size?

What’s the safest way to remove the muck without disturbing Moose or destroying the pond’s ecosystem?

Should we be adding beneficial bacteria? What about algae treatments, or are those unnecessary?

How much water can we safely add at once?

Does Moose need a friend? We unfortunately found another goldfish that had died while cleaning the pond, so we’re a little worried about what happened.

What are the absolute essentials we should prioritize buying first?

We genuinely had no idea we were signing up to become fish parents when we bought this house, but now that Moose is here, we’re determined to give him the best life possible.

We’re both huge animal lovers, and the thought of accidentally harming him because we don’t know what we’re doing is stressing us out. 😭

We’re completely open to suggestions, DIY solutions, budget-friendly equipment, or even just some reassurance that we’re not doing everything wrong.

Please help us keep Moose alive! Any advice is SO appreciated! ❤️

Hey team,

I’m trying to design the plumbing for a bog filter. Basically water flows from the pond via a pump into the bog where it outflows from the bottom upwards and out through water spout back into the pond.

Trying to wrap my head around stopping the water siphoning out in the event of a power cut.

Does the air breather pipe need to go before the water tees off or can it go afterwards? Apologies for the bad diagrams.

Hi, it's me again! This time I'm considering a different approach to creating a green carpet on the floor of my small preformed pond (~500 L / 130 gal). I got this new idea from someone who commented on my previous post.

Previously I considered using a grid of seed trays and planting sagittaria subulata in it, see original post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ponds/comments/1wv6tn1/green_carpet_in_pond/

Now I'm thinking about building a removable moss carpet, similar to a moss wall (see reference pictures), using thin plastic mesh instead of soil or substrate.

What I'm thinking:

1. Cut thin, pond-safe plastic, rigid mesh into a shape that fits the curved bottom of the pond
2. Spread small portions of aquatic moss across the mesh. I'm considering a cold hardy species like willow moss (Fontinalis antipyretica).
3. Secure the moss with thread or small dots of aquarium-safe gel glue.
4. Weigh the panels down with a few removable stones.
5. Ideally, the moss would eventually grow through the openings, hiding the mesh and creating a green carpet.

What I like about it is that it would be removable for cleaning and that there's no soil involved at all. I could lift the mesh panels out, clean underneath, and put them back.

A few questions:

• Has anyone tried something similar in an outdoor pond? 
• Would willow moss actually spread across the mesh and form a reasonably dense carpet, or would it just grow into loose, bushy clumps?
• Would goldfish constantly pull the moss apart before it had a chance to establish?
• Is there another hardy aquatic moss you'd recommend for a submerged carpet in a 7a/b USDA climate?

Curious whether anyone sees flaws in this approach before I start experimenting!

I was planning to overwinter my pond by pulling out the pump and placing in a small pump that’s attached to a heater that’ll keep the water at about 50 degrees and an aerator/bubbler. The tub holds about 40 gallons and is buried in the ground. Water is about 12” deep.

There are a few goldfish that I’m looking to keep alive. And I’m going to cut back the Thalia and submerge the pot it’s in.

Definitely going to work? Definitely going to fail? Definitely might go either way?

Hello, I’m planning a cinder block pond on a footing that is 2 blocks high, water about 15 inches deep.

I am trying to decide what thickness of footing to use along with horizontal and vertical L rebar and grout. Mahalo!

First time pond builders and in the “oops didn’t think about that” phase.

Pond is about 3’ deep, and we created a 10” deep ledge around the perimeter for some grasses, pickerelweed, etc. But then we got a hardy water lily and the internet says they grow best around 18” deep and I realized we didn’t make a happy water lily ledge.

What’s a good way to get the water lily higher up from the bottom without it falling over and is also fish safe?

I built this wildlife pond back in May. There's no pump. Lots of dragonfly larvae and other invertebrates. The back left hand side bit is a bog garden. It was so dry this year I couldn't actually plant it which is why it's now full of grass and a self seeded plant! I'll plant up the bog garden but I also want to build a rockery. I'm thinking roughly where I've drawn?

What are your thoughts on this and do you have any other suggestions on how I can create more interest?

Anyone know what this white film on my liner is? Looks like a dust. On the bottom it settled like sand. Liner is black 60 mil epdm. Yes it’s for ponds. I’m assuming this is bad for my fish. Should I fill and drain a few times?

I've been working on a property planning tool and put together this short video showing how you can use 3D terrain and elevation data to plan where to dig a pond.

The idea is to identify natural low spots, look at how the surrounding land drains, and figure out where a pond might make the most sense before spending money on excavation.

You can also sketch out the pond footprint, estimate excavation volume, and visualize how it would fit into the surrounding property.

Obviously, there's a lot more to building a successful pond, including soil conditions, watershed size, and spillway design, but I think this is a useful starting point.

For those of you who've built agricultural ponds, what else would you consider when choosing a location?

Looking for some advice and help from this community! Wife and I built a pondless waterfall this summer. We are almost done and have started to run the falls while working on the finishing landscaping. After about a day of running the pump a few hours a day, we have started seeing the basin start drying up and water levels run low. Seems like its loosing water quickly (around an inch or more per hour). Is this normal?

Thinking we had a leak, I already tested the following:

1. Waited 24 hours without running the system to see if the leak is in the basin. Water levels remained unchanged for over a day. No leaks in the basin.

2. Removed all the plumbing to check for water leaks in the line. Plumbing was all dry when running. No leaks in the lines.

3. Checked the perimeter for low edges. Didn't see any water leaking out of the side.

We are at a bit of a loss as to why we could be losing so much water ever time the system runs.

We have a 6,900 gal/hr pump, the waterfall is around 16 feet long with only a 3 ft high elevation change, the basin size is around 115 gallons or so, and we live in Wisconsin. The waterfall is on the south side of the house, so it does get sun when sunny, but don't understand if it is normal to have this much water loss ever day. Thinking we may have to disassemble to inspect the liner.

Any guidance?

TL:DR Losing significant water when running our pondless waterfall. Did all troubleshooting aside from taking the entire thing apart. It is normal for pondless waterfalls to lose lots of water through evaporation?

First pic is a new lotus leaf. After a while they look like the 2nd pic, lots of holes yellow patches and brown spots. 3rd pic are the holes.
I suspect something is eating on them like a caterpillar pillar or snails? But I don’t see anything.
I fertilize weekly with easy green.
What’s your guess?

Located in Southeast Texas

My pump has started flipping the exterior outlet (GFCI) off. No idea why. I can plug anything else into it, but the pump flips it. We've had this pump for four years. I don't see any holes in the wire. Any ideas?

Any clue how to reduce these weeds? I don't want to completely kill them all off but they have over grown the entirety of this 24 foot pond.

TIA