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Terrible time for the tadpoles in my pond.

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chubsta View Drop Down
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    Posted: 18 May 2015 at 8:34am
Despite having a huge amount of spawn and tadpoles I am now left with just a few stragglers and am trying to decided whether to drain the pond and start again...

A little background - the pond is about 12 feet by 5, varying depths to about 3 feet in the middle - it is black pond-liner which runs up to patio stones on either side. The pond has been established for over 20 years and has usually thrived, although it did suffer a little when a leyleandii tree got a little out of hand and a lot of the old needles fell in the pond - that tree is now totally cut down so isn't an issue.

The pond has a large lilly that needs chopping down to size every couple of years as it goes crazy, and there is also plenty of other weed. There are a few fish in the pond which i would like to get rid of totally but don't have the heart to kill. As the years have gone on the pond has become increasingly silted up and although the water is usually clear there is now a layer of sludge which means the water level is down to about 10 inches!

What really concerns me though is that i had a massive hatch of tadpoles again this year, which seemed to be thriving, an unfortunate rain-storm meant the pond overflowed, taking most of the tadpoles onto the patio where they died, I was still left with a good few though. But now i look at the pond and the survivors seem to be in trouble - most are swimming listlessly around, and each day there are a lot of dead ones just lying on the surface - i am not sure if it is disease but i can't see the remaining ones lasting long. 

So, is it perhaps time to just drain the pond and start again with a freshly desilted one with no fish etc, put all new weed in and a small piece of lilly and basically start from scratch? The pond has always been home to dragonfly larvae, leeches, snails and shrimps so i reckon i could perhaps save a few of them whilst getting the weed out.

Any opinions?
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Suzy View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Suzy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 May 2015 at 9:26pm
Oh dear Chubsta you are not having a good spring pond-wise. I don't really know what the problem is, but can you get any survivors out and into a container of rain water or other pond water? Maybe you have already done that.
Sounds like something toxic in the pond or else it is really de-oxygenated. Strange that the fish are still alive though.
Perhaps some of the experts on here have better ideas.
Suz
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote VickyS Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 May 2015 at 8:01am
It might be possible to save a considerable amount of the contents while de-silting. As Suzy says, you can set some clean (rain) water aside for the fish and other animals (including some insects) and you can save a couple of plants with their roots & substrate intact. Then remove the silt and if possible leave it on a plastic sheet at the side for 24 hours so any animals within can crawl out and get back to the pond. I'm not sure how you'd dispose of the silt, maybe a compost heap??

You shouldn't need to drain the pond completely to do this but it will be a messy job! Worth it though, I'm sure!

Do you have oxygenating plants in there?
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chubsta View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote chubsta Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 May 2015 at 11:39am
Checked today and couldn't see any tadpoles at all, even thought the weather is very nice and warm. Not all bad news though, in fact far from it!

I spent 5 minutes lifting up some lily leaves, with the usual leeches, snail eggs and shrimps underneath. There were also lots of damsel fly and small dragonfly larvae, and then i saw a newt!

I haven't seen  a newt in the pond in at least 10 years but was always hoping to get some back - this one was pretty big and although i didn't see his head as he went in the weed he certainly looked fat.

Not sure what happened with the frog tadpoles this year as the pond seems very healthy, but at least there is still plenty of life in there. All i have to do now is work out a way of removing some of the silt without disturbing the wildlife too much - i was thinking of a drill-bit pump so i could put the end of the hose in the silt and slowly pull it up from the bottom without disturbing the surface layers...
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