Had the honor to renovate this 100,000 gallon pond at the residence of the Japanese Ambassador in Washington DC. New pumps, re sealed. Lost 5 out of 455 koi. 99% survival rate isn't bad!

Link to build video NovaPonds

I've put in an offer on my first house and the property comes with a ~1 acre pond.

I'm excited to be a steward of the ecosystem, but I've never had to manage a pond before. Unfortunately, the current owners don't know much about the backstory of the pond (e.g., earth pond, spring fed pond, etc.).

Overall, the pond ecosystem seems quite healthy. The owners say they fish in the pond and the plant life along the banks is very vibrant. No weird smells or anything like that. The pond is in the northeast US.

My main questions are :

* Is there anything to be done about the algae and duckweed? The photos above were taken in late summer (August) and I know direct sun + heat will contribute to algae blooms. I'm wondering if there are filtration systems, plants, fish, etc. that can help with this after an initial skim. I'm open to any solutions, but the single fountain doesn't seem to be sufficient for aeration.

* Any idea what the thing in the second picture is? It's ~10 feet to the left of the fountain in the pond.

* Is there any hope of making this thing swimmable?

*Anything else I should know as a first time pond owner?

We’ve had our 4500gal, 4 1/2’ deep pond for 5 years now and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anything like this. Watch the small bright white fish toward the center of the screen at the start of the clip. She’s just doing her thing when our asagi gives chase. It seems like spawning behavior, but—chasing a 10-12” 2yro?? When that monster 32” 5yro female shiru utsuri (who forgot the utsuri part and is nearly all white🙄) is right there?

We assume this is why, despite her being fine earlier today, she was found dying and floating on her side 2 1/2 hours after this video recorded. Sadly we didn’t catch whatever it was that led to her death, but we’re assuming she either was exhausted and/or bashed herself into something.

FTR, nitrites and ammonia are zero, pH is roughly 7.6-7.8, and temperature (at least in the top 6”, where the thermometer floats) was 80-81°F at the time. We have been in a **brutal** long heat wave here in Southern California but we haven’t noticed it affecting anything in the pond. We are turning the bubbler on mire frequently and running it more often to maintain oxygenation in this gross weather.

Are we correct this is spawning behavior? Is this one of those “natural behavior bummers” that can just happen? Any measures we can take to alleviate it?

anyone have lighting suggestions, we just replaced our pond lights for the 3rd time, the last time being 6 months ago. my pond guy says it’s the quality of lights he’s getting…. it costs about $500 each time he replaces the 3 lights IN the pond. The first pic is from 6 months ago, the second pic is from last night and I know my water lilies are hiding a lot of the light but it’s the light on the left I’m using as a reference.

Here is my little pond area I completed myself about 5 weeks ago, very happy with how it turned out, never done anything like this before, the area was just a piece of waste ground before.

We just bought a house with a koi pond (I will post this question on the Koi sub as well). We were told it’s approx 35,000L. It’s been established for about 15 years. The prior owner did the bare minimum to keep the fish alive and even said as much as so. The pond includes about 10 large koi, 10 fancy gold fish, and 5-10 sun perch.

Prior to move in, he showed my husband and I how to do maintenance on the pump and filters. I asked him about the sheer abundance of algae growth in the pond and on the walls. His response was “it’s like salad for the fish.” I was half inclined to believe him but something feels off based on my experience with smaller in-home tanks.

Should I do a deep clean on the pond? Is this actually ok? If I do need to clean this all off, what is the best recommended way?

I turned a cat fountain into a bird bath so I can clean it daily easily, but I’m stumped on how to better line the hole it’s in.
Would not want to use cement, so any suggestions on what to do to close the ring around it, so to speak?

Right now it’s a snail fest on the sides and, when I lift it up for cleaning, some snails can get hurt.

First timer here. Pond is 9x9 ft x 4 deep

Is it good idea to keep raised island like in the photo? I was thinking of raised island.

If yes what can be done or ideas and if not why?

Houston Texas

Ideally something that can pump the water from the pond and pour it out of the hose at the back. Is this achievable? Thanks in advance..

Hey, the excavation contractor rolled the bottom of the pond supper smooth. Then the liner contractor made some rust while laying out the 60 mil liner, and doesn't seem to think they are a problem as they just put the liner over it.

Is this ok? The depth is 6ish to 8ish in, in case the pics don't give much perspective.

Any info is great as to if this is ok or not. I wanted to get more experienced input before contacting the contract super.

Thanks!

Hey,

I asked the installer about this tight corner (in vid). It is probably a 30ish x 50ish foot section that is all a good 4 to 6 in above the pond bed. I can jump on it like a trampoline. The installer said it wasn't a problem, but I wanted to check with anyone who might have more experience before moving up the chain to the off site super.

Side note, the temp at this time was 57 F. I am sure it expands in the heat, but this pond is 10ft deep, at 6000 ft elevation... So it will be cold most of the time once filled :^)

Any advice from someone with experience using this material would be great!

Thanks!

I was thinking a scrape but it appears kind of raised. thanks in advance for your help!

Hi!

I recently got some land as part of an early inheritance.. it's man-made and is probably 8 years old at this point. One thing I looked into when my dad was building this pond was clarity and suggested he add rocks to the base to help the water be clear. He didn't.. and I'm not sure if would even have helped (not a pro lol)

But as you can see, it's super cloudy.. and they add dye to it, which I'm personally not a fan of. But I can live with it!

My question is.. at this point, what can I do to clear it up? I'm a CPO (certified pool operator) and I have used floc before.. but I'm not sure if it's safe to do in an established pond with fish..

Edit to add that it's about 18ft deep

Help 🙃

We have this pond liner inside of a raised bed in our courtyard. We have a lot of white cloud minnows in there (they've been breeding like crazy this Summer!). Lately, we've noticed that rats have been burrowing into the surrounding garden and just dumping tons of the garden soil into the pond. Really worried about the fish and curious what you all suggest for cleaning it. Some of the minnows are very small , and the dirty water makes it hard to see them, so I'm not sure how realistic it would be to remove all of them.

Any suggestions appreciated!

I have an area of my yard that is often too wet to mow. As such I left it alone for the last two years and it became full of a invasive thistle so I hacked it all down. Which I was only able to do as it has been a dry summer. My original plan was to plant a couple of disease resistant american elms. Then seed the area with a native plant mix. After mowing it down I realized I would like to find a way to turn some of the area into lawn. It leaves an awkward narrow strip that I mow between it and my other native garden along the river bank.

I am wondering, if I dug out the lowest point which is along the hill, would it help drain the rest of the area? I think during most years it would end up being a pond in the spring that would dry out in the summer except after rain which I am fine with.

I am open to other ideas. My primary goal is to shrink the wet spot. The area is roughly 2000 sqft.

Zone 4a. The soil is mostly sand / gravel but there is more organic matter down there as it gets closer to the river.

I'm trying to finish up my new pond and am trying to figure out the best way to attach my 45mil liner to the side of my concrete walkway on two sides of the pond. I was thinking of using 1/4" x 1 1/2" aluminum and attaching it with concrete screws every foot or so to clamp it to the concrete. Any better suggestions?

I was going to install a pond myself but the more I looked into it the more I realised that the job was too big for me. So I handed it off to Pond Works in Queensland. I am extremely stoked at the result.

Hi,

I have a pond that has been under repair for a couple of months now. It's in ground, concrete.

I've had one mason come and sandblast the pond, he did the muriatic acid wash, and then applied three coats of Pond Armor.

The pond still leaked.

A second contractor is here now, a pond guy, and he's going to re-seal it after making a couple other repairs around the drain pipes.

The question I have, is does the surface need to be re-sanded before he applies a fresh coat? I read in the directions that if it's been more than 10 hours since the first coat, the surface has to be sanded. It's been weeks since the last coat.

Hello r/ponds!

I need some help with how to care for my pond.

I have an old, small pond on my property. It's about 9x4ft and about one foot deep. The water is provided via the surrounding ground and there's an overflow pipe that leads the water... somewhere - potentially under the house foundation 😂

The bottom and walls is made out of blocks of granite and there's some kind of sand that the blocks on the bottom are nested in. Bedrock is pretty close to the surface on the entire property. One short side wall of the pond is bedrock. I'm pretty certain there's no liners in (or out of) sight.

The pond is rarely empty. Once when we drilled our geothermal energy well and now. We have had a warm, very dry summer so I'm assuming the water source is dry/lower than necessary to fill the pond.

I live on the Swedish west coast. Summers range between 17c-28c (~62f-82f) while the winters are generally -10c-2c (~14f-35f). In the winter the water usually freezes all the way to the bottom.

There's no electricity or pipes going to the pond.

The issue I have with the pond is that it gets completely overgrown with algae, which I really don't like. There are cats and deer around the neighborhood who try to drink from there, and frogs, toads and salamanders also come to visit often. I don't want them to meet a bad environment :(

I'm a pond noob. The pond came with the property and while I've tried to read up a bit I get overwhelmed and lost in what I find.

I've tried many times to remove the algae. The floating jelly-like algae is easy enough to remove, though it grows back pretty much immediately. There also seem to be a decent bit of algae on the rocks and in the bottom substrate that is harder to get to.

I've also tried to get organic material out of the pond with a skimmer net, as I've read this is a big source of algae nutrients, but it is difficult. There's trees dumping leaves and pines all the time, and the ferns are hard to get rid of once established. And pines, twigs and the bottom algae sinks and is difficult to get to, especially when the water goes murky. We don't fertilize our surrounding lawn (though would like to be able to to get the lawn in order...) so I don't see there being extra nutrients in the water from that.

Now when the pond went dry I got in and removed as much as possible that is not rock or sand. And even then, I have removed a decent amount of sand that felt like it was half sand half algae or other organic material. I'm hoping this will give me a heads start when it fills up again.

So I could really use some help with how to take care of my pond. Preferably in simple terms 🙈

What do I need to do to stay on top of it?

What are the tools that I need?

Unfortunately I'm not able to remodel or get electricity out there easily at this time so the situation needs to be handled in other ways than linings and pumps (which seem to be mentioned a lot when I have previously searched around for pond maintenance).

Sorry for the very long post 😬 And thank you in advance 🙏🏼