Ponds and pond life questions

T

Tony

Model railways
Ive always had a pond but kept fish in it ....always had frogs and tadpoles and a few newts but the newts have never bred that well (i seem always to have 6 or 7 each year and although i get tons of frog spawn not many seem to survive for the amount born but last year i gained a male creasted newt and hearing newts and fish dont really mix the fish had to go (dont worry they are in a big tank in the house)
Anyway thought some of you might be intrested in a Pond related thread because i now have a ton of questions and unbelievably i cant find answers to on the tinterweb and im sure most of us have ponds....so please ad questions of your own and see if we can get some answers
BTW....since the fish have gone my pond is now a haven of wild life a varient explosion of living wonders i have hundreds of baby newts frogs snails water boatmen etc far more interesting than the fish... but that has thrown up more questions than answers

Like i know tadpoles eat meat because they will throng around a peice of bacon or a slug you put in but some are eating the algie weed that has taken over the pond since the fish have gone and these are much bigger than the others that have already grown legs and are hopping about

just one more for now ....i know adult newts eat frogspawn but what do baby newts eat from 7 adults i have hundeds of babys and a lot more eggs still to hatch


if this thread takes off i have lots more questions but as i say please ad your own and we will see if we can find out more

Tony
 
Young newts leave the pond and live in the garden under stones etc. They look like small lizards. It will be two or three years until they grow big enough to breed and this is when they will return to the water.
At the last house we had three ponds. Two of them had newts. My neighbour had a similiar size pond to one of ours and decided to replace the liner with the help of her grandchildren. Although we only saw single newts now and then they decided to keep count of how many they found. After 130 they stopped counting. The ponds were about ten feet by six.
Trust this helps.
 
I have plenty of Spring Peeper toads each year, mating for about two weeks in the Spring. Hundreds of eggs are laid and the edges of the pond are black with tadpoles about two weeks later. I also have goldfish and koi. The koi are small, less than six inches. There are still two or three Bluegills left in the pond from my mis-lead attempt to stock the pond with free fish a couple of years ago. I would imagine that it is they who would eat the tadpoles, but I'm not certain of that. Still, quite alot of tadpoles survive and will be back next year to mate and sing in the Spring.

The one thing we haven't had is newts. It is few and far between, when I turn over a rock, that a newt would be under it. Snails, on the other hand are plentyful.

As for the string algea, both the goldfish and tadpoles love it.
 
Frog tadpoles are cannibalistic (don't know if newt taddies are the same though but wouldn't be surprised) and as the spring turns to summer you will find there are fewer and fewer in the pond but those that are left get very big having eaten their peers! :bigsmile:

You only need a few, from the thousands of eggs, to reach maturity and you'll never be short of frogs finding them all over the garden during the rest of the year returning to their breeding pond in early spring. I just wish that they would eat more slugs than mine appear to. :impatient:
 
Tony said:
i was really staggered how much more there is with out the fish even the Mrs sits there for hours ...as for the newts i read they only lay single eggs but we have hundreds of babies
Click to expand...

When I was a kid, I used to keep Salamanders - absolutely fascinating little things, the black and gold ones - they actually birth live young, not in the same way as mammals but the eggs actually hatch inside the mother, emerging (in water) as tiny 1" long replicas of the adults (tiny little legs and feet!), except for the colouration (mottled brown at birth) and that they have gills like tadpoles - they live in water for the first few weeks, then change from gills to air-breathers and emerge onto land, shortly after that they get the adult colouring. Amazing stuff, I could bore you with many tales of them if you're interested..... (or not, if you're not!) ;)

Jon.
 
Just be really careful and don't leave your track power on at night. I've accidentally electrocuted several frogs. I now switch the power off - it was running my lights in building but I've gone solar powered now.
 
Tony said:
i was really staggered how much more there is with out the fish even the Mrs sits there for hours ...as for the newts i read they only lay single eggs but we have hundreds of babies
Click to expand...

We have two ponds......both get frogs and tadpoles, the small pond once had a newt but
they don't seem to like it here.

No fish here but if you have a real good look it is amazing whats in the pond.
Look for Boatmen, skaters, Mayflies, Damsels, Dragon Flies and various snails.

If you have crested newts remember it is illegal to handle them unless they are in danger.
 
Had a few Newts at Js house but I wont get any here. Newts will lay eggs individualy on certain types of weed which they then roll over the egg. They lay a lot less than frogs but are more carefull with them. Newt taddies will get the front legs first then the back. Frogs and toads are the other way round. I guess (but it wouldn't be the first time I have been wrong) that most of the taddies will be frogs (first out) then toads and newts a little later. I have some massive frog taddies (and lots of smaller toad taddies) in my pond and the love the food I give to my sterlet which is more meat/fish based than normal fish food. If I ever have a real garden again I would have two ponds, at least. One for fish and a wildlife pond.
 
we have several ponds, the original one was started for my daughter circ 27 years ago. with busy life style, it was mostly left to its own devices, So frogs, boatmen, skaters, dragonflies, damsel flies, snails, red tubiflex worms etc had free reign & made thair own balance.
When I had a heart problem in 2000 & was at home more, I saw that the pond, 3ft deep, only had 2 ins of water, the rest was sludge, draining the sludge, the liner was at 15 years old beginning to get brittle,so it was replaced, extra ponds have been added to the system gradually with pump & waterfalls & it was only about 2006?? that we first saw newts at all!! Now they are everywhere, smooth ones.
Since we have had newts, 1st year tadpoles became fogs & legged it, but 2nd year no tadpoles survived to adulthood, assume newts had them, but never actually saw them do so.
The original fish from 2000 are still in the pond but they do not appear to affect the tadpole population. This year tadpoles seem to be developeing nicely
Still trying to work out why certain things happened.
for example when the pond was restocked in 2000, we had lots of duck weed, many people seem to try to get rid of it, but as we initially had cats trying to get at the fish, we let it stay, but in order to see the fish etc I made a floating circle of hozepipe to sit in the centre of the pond, scooped all the duckweed out of centre & left it round the edges, kept the cats off, kept the duckweed absorbing the nutrients & sunshine,. so water did not go green.
about 2009 there was suddenly no duckweed at all, instead we were invaded by that blanket weed. Then in 2011 the duckweed returned & the blanket weed reduced.
now wether it has anything to do with the different pumps we have had recently, I dont know.
One burnt out,I think because it got fouled up with banket weed, which even was growing in the pump pipe! it was replaced with a 6000 ltr/hr monster, with an 1.25inch outlet pipe. That then fed the Lily pond with one outlet, an ornamental snail feature with another pipe, and the main feed into the big back tank over a waterfall, all back into the same sump, circulating through 5 different ponds, individual flows regulated by valves
I know water lilies dont like a big water flow, & the lily pond only has a controlled small flow & is thriving, whereas the main pond the lilies are not doing so well, but that was getting over run with them.
Since the monster pump only lasted 12 months ( still under garantee however), I have this year replaced it with 2 smaller pumps, one a 2000ltr/hr, feeds the Lily pond & the Snail feature, so flow can be controlled & all ponds get a small through put. the other a 4000ltr/hr
can then be used for extra circulation through the the main tank & pond only when its needed in the middle of the day or when we get any remotely summer heat, which can leave fish gasping
See if I can find some pics
 
We have a fairly sizeable pond and have tried to keep a balance between a naturalistic and managed environment. In the past I have let a certain amount of fish excreted and dead leaf 'sludge' build up for the wildlife to use as feeding area or birthing site whilst maintaining the correct nitrite levels for the fish. The recent two hard winters killed off our fish (although it is over two and a half feet deep at one end and I tried to keep an air-hole open in the thick ice) and then a cormorant decided to dine on the ones that had replaced the deceased, so I decided to have a fairly comprehensive 'clean out'.
I left some of the sludge and the reeds, flags, grasses etc and found had a whole plethora of newts and mini-beasts as I took out the 'sludge'. I carefully put the newts back and any other wildlife that presented itself back into the pond after the sludge removal. The pond is now back to 'normal' and has newts, frogs, toads, dragon flies, damsels, water boatmen, pond skaters etc but some species will need a year or two to build up again. In fact the toads cause me a lot of grief as they love blundering about crashing through the layout buiding doors.

When I had my rail-power 'control centre' out under a cover next to the BBQ and I was going to operate trains, I would often find the young newts nestled between where the cover met the brick as it was always damp there. To protect them from being crushed by the cover, or eaten by a predator, I would carry them back to near the pond. I could just hear them saying "Oh hell, it has taken me a week to get over here and now he's taking us back!"
 
spike said:
Tony said:
i was really staggered how much more there is with out the fish even the Mrs sits there for hours ...as for the newts i read they only lay single eggs but we have hundreds of babies
Click to expand...

We have two ponds......both get frogs and tadpoles, the small pond once had a newt but
they don't seem to like it here.

No fish here but if you have a real good look it is amazing whats in the pond.
Look for Boatmen, skaters, Mayflies, Damsels, Dragon Flies and various snails.

If you have crested newts remember it is illegal to handle them unless they are in danger.
Click to expand...

i remember we had a single palmate newt kept coming back for years on end but never saw any others but then about 3 years ago we had 5 turn up they did all the mating bit but never saw any young so i guess it was the fish eating them then as i said last year we had a huge male crested newt turn up so after advice i took the fish out...and this year the whole pond has changed with hundreds of baby newts and still more eggs to hatch....not seen the creasted one this year but i live in hope............i guess all newts travel about untill they find a pond that suits them

Tony
 
Tony said:
Part quote

i guess all newts travel about untill they find a pond that suits them

Tony
Click to expand...
When the newts found the pond system mentioned above it took them till the next season to find the ponds in the back garden where the railway is, ( 60-70 feet away) they now thrive there in the Canal Basin
We find newts every where in the garden even in spots that are bone dry!!
The newts dont bother the fish out front as they are 10 -12 ins long, but we dont see fish fry any more. Though I do try to keep the fish in the main back DEEP tank for winter ice protection ( incidentally that tank is lined with 2" polystyrene sheet so that being above gound ( half of it ) expansion of ice doesnt crack the walls.
Sometimes of course even the big fish go walkies & go over the waterfalls & when seen are fished out & back in to the big tank
So I suppose you could say each of my ponds now has a different life base
EDIT
Just remembered , years ago when working a building site, due to really bad wet winter, site was left closed , on returning in feb/ march found whole clumps of newts in the tyre tracks left previously that had filled with water, but no weed or other life visible
 
We have a small pond, with a small pump to recirculate the water.

We used to have frogs in there, a newt or two and a few goldfish.

The fish eventually either died or were taken by by a heron once they got to be big enough.

A couple of years ago I emptied and clean it out, and allowed it to refill naturally during the winter. I installed an air stone to keep the water oxygenated. My uncle Ian gave me 8 baby koi carp last year and I recenly saw all 8 have survived the winter, but I rarely see frogs in the pond now and certainly no more newts. No frog spawn this year.

I have also added a few plants for the fish to hide in. This year we seem to have had a lot of blanket weed, so we have treated the water with a bio friendly additive which dissolves it. However, the fish like to hide in this weed, and we haven't entirely eradicated it as yet?

We pretty much let the pond do its own thing with minimum interference or maintenance, apart from topping up the water, cleaning out the pump and keeping the blanket weed in check....
 
Police raided Kermit's house and discovered many compromising photos of Miss Piggy on his computer - a spokesman said it was the worst case of Frog's Porn they'd ever seen..... :rolf:

A joke that definitely works better spoken than when written down. :bigsmile:

Coat, hat, door....

Jon
 
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