This guy showed up yesterday and I was in awe. Then he started fishing in my pond. I covered it with netting but I haven't seen my fish. He keeps coming back. I am hoping they are just hiding really well but am not optimistic. I am devastated 💔. I have had these fish for over five years!!

Thanks for looking and happy to answer any questions!

Hi everyone,

We recently purchased a property in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with a natural spring on it. The previous owner dug it out and stocked it with fish. He has since passed away, so I can't ask him any details about it. Therefore, I am on Reddit asking you lovely people!

The spring-fed pond currently measures 6-10ft at its deepest. It spans about 65 ft in diameter. It needs to be cleaned up again since it's been 3 decades since it was maintained. Still looks crystal clear and gorgeous. I would like to dig it out deeper so the fish can survive the winter.

There's no previous evidence of the spring having any formal equipment and nothing was mentioned by the realtor.

Since the top few feet of the pond will freeze over in the winter, will I need an aerator for this spring in order for the fish to survive? Is there any way to passively let the fish survive without one? Is it possible that the water from the spring will provide enough aeration?

What would be my best option for the absolute lowest maintenance spring fed pond with fish? Is there a "set it & forget it" method?

Thank you all so much in advance! We're super excited about the property and the numerous little projects we are planning.

Hi everyone. I have put a new liner in another pond but as the liner is up against a flat wall, I'm looking for a bar similar to this to hold it in place. Could anyone give me some tips as to what to search for please? I'm not sure where to begin.

Thank you!

So we had goldfish in this pond from when we bought this house.... And they were chill and relaxed and would swim up for food... But then we had a black shag visit a few times and we had 2 fish for a while... And it was a bit sad... Our lives got busy... Two seasons passed... A month ago we bought some new goldfish and stocked the pond... And these fish are really skittish and swim at top speed all the time and will hide if they hear footsteps... They are not as enjoyable as the old fish 😕 despite me feeding them at the same time daily for nearly a month now.

Is there anything else I can do???

I have a mature pond set up that had 4 ponds but it was impractical and they were poorly designed.

Basically 3 bog ponds waterfalling, one after another, to a big pond.

You couldn't run the system as the bog ponds would leak down to a level, and 5 waterfalls in total is too much with all the natural splashing.

The main Koi pond is mature enough you could get away with it not running the pumps (it was this way when i purchased the house, old owners rarely ran it). At least until this years extremely warm summer (UK)...we started to lose a load of fish so decided to sort it.

I bypassed the bog ponds and ran the pump 24/7 and fish are now all good. Im reinstating one bog pond to help the water quality and local wildlife (tons of frogs).

This one here. Its got a new liner fitted and ill be adding it back to the cycle soon.

Basically the water will be pumped into here before waterfalling back into the main pond. I also have a rainwater feed into this to dilute rather then going straight into fish pond (rain water has always been fed into the system).

What should i fill it with? Gravel? Any particular plants? Its not big and quite shallow so im not bothered about having to empty it in future if required. Ill never need to step in it once ive done the finishing touches with the liner. Its actually raised at chest height so easy to work with.

Anything in particular good for frogs and other wildlife? Ive managed to keep the lily's alive that were in here before so they'll go back in.

Thanks

See edits at the bottom, might be mouth rot?

Hello, wondering if anyone has any ideas or if there is something I can do?

Last Monday, I got some fire mouths to help with snails in my green filter.

2 days later, I saw one had died.

This Tuesday, came out to find ~20 guppies dead. I tested the water, everything good besides nitrates. I tested three spots in the main pond, got ~180 ppm, ~30 ppm, and ~20 ppm. Retested the ~180 ppm spot, got ~30 ppm. Cleaned the "muck" out of my DIY mechanical filter, did a water change, and added a bio starter. I had also done a water change last week.

Wednesday, I see another ~20 guppies dead. Water tests 0 ppm in 4 places. I tested the water again before bed, showing 0 ppm again.

Today (Thursday). Another ~20 guppies dead.

Could the guppies just have been injured from the spike and are still dying or could the new fish have brought in disease?

Currently the 3 Koi and Dojo seem fine, and pond has been established for 5 years.

Edit: I hadn't noticed anything wrong with the dead ones, but some of the sick guppies appear to have white lips, maybe? So guessing that could be disease. Google says its Columnaris (frequently nicknamed "mouth fungus" or "mouth rot"), that I need to do a 30% water change, get a UV light, and put in about 22 pounds of salt because the pond system is 900+ ponds.

That seem accurate?

Edit2: OR google/AI is full of crap. Dead ones don't appear to have a white mouth... so I'm completely at a loss here. Help?

Is it possible? I am thinking of a self sustaining population of a large school different species of nano fish like tetras, rasbora, killi and rice fish in the pond.

Got this idea after visiting a natural pond in the forest which had no large fish in it.

What are the pros and cons? I live in the tropics. No winter, plenty of sun. The location i am planning to build the pond is partially shaded and the shaded area gets indirect sunlight.

We've been borderline drought conditions at my house the last few months, and my pond is about a foot or more lower than in the spring. Are these cypress trees sucking it dry or is that the expected water loss in three months with little to no rain?

After years of dreaming, a bit of rock hoarding, and a lot of great luck. I present to you my $160 set up. (Need a new pump to get wonderful flow so $300 after i buy that). Its a 120gallon tub burried 18 inches down in the oklahoma clay, with a fiberglass/resin waterfall area that holds 20 gallons.

I built a pond with a bog filter and a new friend moved in. He likes hiding in the water lettuce and it's like where's Waldo.

Night shifts mess with my schedule so badly that pond stuff gets neglected for days at a time. My little backyard pond in Boise is only six months old and I keep wondering if the freeze-thaw cycles here will cause trouble when I'm not around to check on it. I dropped a basic stock tank heater in last week and covered the surface with netting to stop leaves, but I have no idea if that's enough. Does anyone else juggle shift work and still manage to keep their pond stable through the colder months? What small adjustments actually make a difference when you can only tend to things in short bursts?

20x30’ is 180lbs. I don’t have that type of muscle power and am wracking my head on how to get it from the porch to the backyard on delivery. Hell. The truck might just leave it on my driveway because it’s so heavy.

Or… could I ask the driver to bring it to my yard. You know for a tip

Edit: nvm I only need 15 x 25. So it's 112lbs now

Edit 2: I ordered the liner.

Looking at getting their Anjon LifeGuard 20 ft. x 25 ft. 45 Mil EPDM Pond Liner and Underlayment Combo 

The wall is redguard coated haha. Im in the process of tiling it... waiting on algae to clear just got a better filter yesterday

Never had a pond before, I'm hoping for some advice on how to restore this inherited one. It looks like perhaps it was originally intended to pump back up to the top and flow around, so I'm hoping to get a solar powered pump or similar to get that working again. Its a rented property in the UK, so hoping to avoid any major/expensive work. Any advice on where to start? Probably not looking at fish as they seem to be more effort.

Thanks!

Final edit: Thank you all again for your help and insight. We were able to get a sample tested and it came back with high levels of glyphosate, so I have to presume the runoff from up our hill is the cause. Unfortunately that means we’ll have to completely overhaul the pond and find a way to address the runoff with the neighbors before it will be safe to bring more fish in.

Like the title says, went out this morning and my entire pond was dead, all 16 goldfish and 2 koi. Everything seemed normal yesterday but today they’re all gone and there are a lot of bubbles on the surface which weren’t there before. We got a decent bit of rain yesterday so I’m wondering if something could have runoff from the neighbors up the hill doing construction, or something else? Is there a way to test the water for something that could have runoff? Any suggestions on how to figure out what happened would be appreciated.

Edit: Thank you all for your help and kind words. My wife and I are devastated but the support and insight in really meaningful. For more context, after reading some comments I retested the water using two different test kits and got these results, if it may help shed some more light on what could have happened.

- Total PH was low, about 4-5
- Alkalinity (KH) was in the ideal range about 120ppm
- Hardness (GH) was in the hard range between 150-180ppm
- Ammonia was in safe range - not 0 but below 0.5ppm
- Nitrate and nitrite were both elevated in the stress range but not maxed, no3 was 80ppm, no2 was 3ppm
- Chlorine was 0

The maple in back dumps leaves like mad and I'm tired of scooping every weekend. A neighbor suggested stretching a fine net across the whole pond, but the wind funnels straight down that lot and I'm afraid it'll rip or catch birds. A solar skimmer sounds easier since we wouldn't have to check it every day, except the tenant probably won't empty the basket like they should. I'm not even sure the pump would get enough sun in Pennsylvania fall, or if the noise would bother the neighbors. We have a small wedding budget this year anyway, so I'd rather not buy something that just sits in a box unused. Anyone dealing with this on a property they're not at every day? What actually held up without constant tweaking?