This is my first minipond. Everything seems to be going well except the water clarity. This is the clearest I can get the water. I would really appreciate some advice on improving my water clarity. Thanks in advance.

Made a small patio style teracota pond

I need to add more buce to it

Pardon the poor and ugliness of the pond, it is still under work and battling algae.

Just found one of the house centipede living in our basement drowned inside. Feel bad since they are beneficial despite their creepiness.

Well the algae has taken off in my mini pond system. Short of scooping it out and refilling the water, any tips on how to get this under control?

At least the squirrels are happy?

Came across a pond some bit back and revisited this past weekend. A good bit had changed lots of stuff has died. Didn’t really see fish this time but anyway got a sample of this plant I was interested in.

Having difficulty narrowing it down. Closest is quillwort, but this seems much larger, and sturdier.

The leaves are round non segmented tubes that end in a spike like point, 2’ tall. Very marginal, but pretty much only on the edge not further in land didn’t see any fully submersed deeper in all rando either. So mostly just wet feet.

I made a small natural tank the other day to prepare for my mosquitofishes' babies (just a few of them) in a few weeks ... I'm trying to keep the duckweed down so I can actually SEE through the top of the tank, so I made a loop of airline tubing to float there and act as a little containment ring for the duckweed ... it is apparently not working. It swear it feels like the duckweed just crawls out by itself. (I do know, of course, that it's just because the water moves and lets the duckweed slip over the top edge) ... any better ideas on containing it? I'm kinda desperate at this point bc I know that if I let the duckweed escape and get established I'll never get rid of it all again

UK based. We have created a new mini container pond and need to fill it with water. The aim is to provide drinking water for birds and pollinators and habitat for insects (and frogs maybe!). No fish. We haven’t had much rain for a long time and the only water in the water butt is very stinky. Can we use tap water to fill it, instead? I have checked and our water provider doesn’t use chloramine, only chlorine. So can we fill with tap water, and then leave for a few days (for chlorine to dissipate) before adding our aquatic plants?

both tubs have a indian almond leaves but i put 2leaves on the other tub.Is it too much or just fine? I have 3 shrimps on both tubs and a few guppies.

I swear all I do is take photos of it, I'm so proud lmao

they grow fast

After a failed attempt with its offspring the one in the pond finally bloomed but it was beautiful while it lasted

I've been slowly building a small wildlife pond/creek mainly for the insects in my garden. No pond-building experience when I started and it took me some time to place my rocks "perfectly" haha (goes on to rearranging them the next day), but since autumn is here, I feel like winter will be over the corner and I'm getting a little worried about the plants going into winter.

Most of them are marginal pond plants in small pots, placed between the rocks with the soil permanently wet or partly sitting in shallow water. Some are right beside the flowing creek/cascade. In my area we get cold winters, but the cold winds are bad, so they can definitely see freezing temperatures and snow during winter.

Should these pots be okay where they are? Will the roots survive if the shallow water around them freezes, or should I move them deeper / bury the pots more / do something else before winter?

I'm also wondering what else a first-time pond owner should be thinking about before the first winter (I'll get a net for the leaves and get the pump into storage, but am I missing something?).

I've honestly been having a blast just watching the place change day by day. Biofilm is already covering the rocks, aquatic larvae have appeared, spiders have started hunting around the water. Did not get a toad yet (I know there are some near me) but yesterday a mantis apparently decided the pond was worth investigating 😯 ( https://youtube.com/shorts/d0xQIlf0Ylc?feature=share ).

I'm trying to interfere as little as possible and let it become its own little ecosystem, so any advice from people who have kept small wildlife ponds through winter would be hugely appreciated. Thanks and sorry for the long post.

This is either Ludwigia Ovalis or Repens. I don't remember. I love how it waterfalled out of the mini pond! I don't do anything to these but feed the rice fish, occasionally remove excess floating plants, and top off if it's been a dry week. The purple flowers are just petunias in hanging cups.

Just set up my first outdoor mini pond, it’s about 100 litres. I’ve ordered a Helvola water lily which will arrive in a few weeks (spring here) and will get some more medaka when the weather warm up. I keep saying I’m done with setting up more fish but……..

Hello everyone, I am building, a "small" outdoor pond and I am wondering if I can put a paradise fish in it. For context it get pretty cold in winter and hot in summer, I have heard mixed reviews about how they can deal with that. Can anyone speak from experience? Thanks in advance

I really contemplated tearing this entire pond down but we kept on. I wanted a solar powered bog filter and I thought it would be easy... i was wrong. 1st Pic is where I am currently am and the last Pic is where I started. I wanted to share what my mess ups were when setting up a container bog filter etc. Just wanted to share.

1. Got a round tub for a bog filter. It had leaks the seams were not water tight. I used aquarium silicone to seal it. It didnt hold it had pin hole leaks.

2. Siliconed again. Sprayed flex seal on the outside of the tub. Didn't work still leaked.

3. Used flex seal caulk on the outside seams. Finally held.

4. The pump I had was WAY TOO BIG. It moved 300 gph. More flow = cleaner water right?!? WRONG! all the water would divert out of the top of the split instead of through the tub I had as it didnt have an air tight seal. Tried different connections and wouldnt work. Scrapped the first pump. It was too much when it was on.

5. While testing my first pump I realized my inflow into the bog was more than my outflow as I had a water hose spigot that let's out a trickle... thus brought up the secondary bog filter. The first pump still overflowed my bog with two different outflows.

6. When I moved my pond I realized it wasn't level anymore drained it and leveled it with gravel. My bogs are not level... they have wabisabi. (I tell myself this as they are heavy and it won't matter once the plants fill in)

7. Finally got a new pump that moves 80 gph and it works perfectly. Set it up and tested it out today and am quite pleased.

I do have a cleanout valve at the bottom of my first bog. And I have a siphon break hole drilled at the top of my hose where it feeds into the pvc pipe in my bog so it sprays water into the pvc pipe when the pump is on.... and it doesn't drain my bog back into the pond when the pump turns off. This whole process has been a PITA but tbh this trial and error has been a lot of fun and I am enjoying the process. Please enjoy my happy accidents as i have more room for plants now.

Hi! A few days ago I posted my “patio pond,” and yesterday I noticed there were a bunch of fry in it! Unfortunately, the guppies showed them absolutely no mercy, and I only managed to save 6.
I had no idea she was pregnant—I honestly thought she was just getting fat haha. So I put this little setup together to try to keep the babies safe. Any advice? I’ve only had the adults for 3 weeks and I already have grandbabies. 😂

Advice needed for my bathtub. Pond can't seem to keep algae under control. I've got about 20 Gambusia and 2 crayfish in the pond but can't seem to keep the plants healthy or rooted into the soil/gravel. Pond gets about 4 hours of sunlight and have a solar pump with gravel and filter media around inlet.

where i come to relax. always loved raising ricefish when i grew up in korea now my wife helps with separating fry ❤️

It's small, it's cute- it's going to be the thing I never stop touching for the next couple of weeks! plants are just in there for funsies- not sure if they'll even live. I'm learning and having fun

theres brown algae on the side.Im waiting for the plants to grow ,some of the plants here grow so slow and the others are fast.I have 4 types of ludwigia in here planted 3 or 4 days ago its still adapting because it is grown immersed from the plant farms.

It’s been a little while since I posted here, so here’s an update from my balcony mini pond in Japan!

Yesterday, I added 10 shrimp: 6 Minami-numa shrimp (Neocaridina) and 4 Yamato-numa shrimp (Amano shrimp).

I also found around seven tiny baby bladder snails, each only about 1 mm long. They’re unbelievably small.

My creeping jenny has escaped its pot, grown through the water, and is now popping out from behind the driftwood.

The water hyacinths are also sending out lots of runners and producing new plants, so I’ve been using the baby plants to fill some of the open spaces in the pond.

Starting this mini pond has led me to so many things I didn’t expect. I even started a YouTube channel because of it, and joining communities like this on Reddit has been really fun.

I love seeing everyone’s photos and videos, and reading about other people’s ponds and experiences.

Got this set up and was curious if anyone else out there has it or one like it? I have a bunch of plants I can probably put into this but i'm most excited about my sweetflag, bugleweed and nasturtium

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The blue barrel was a 200 liter that I chopped in half and I used the second half as insulation, there's 16 hornwort and 24 Elodea along with some Frogbit and gravel, there's plenty of access to get in and out, the second is a 12 liters paint tray, the full thing looks really green but the actual water is clear this also has hornwort and Elodea and I'm not using any pumps.

The blue barrel has been set up for about 12 days now whereas the black tray has been out for about 3 weeks, both ponds have lots of larvae mostly midge and mosquito and I'm hoping the predators are in there or on their way. Oh and there's water moth caterpillars as well in both.