r/ponds

I'm coming up on the 1 year anniversary of breaking ground with my first pond build. I know it's not much right now but as a life long fish tank nerd this is a giant step for my hobbies. I was able to keep all my pond plants and fish alive through its first NJ winter. I recently stocked it with a mixed batch of medaka and I've begun brainstorming how to make a bog filter from that 50 gallon stock tank that's visible in the top right picture.

My pond is a hot mess (as is my backyard). Been working on getting it set up now that the weather is finally (hopefully) cooperating. Last two years, we had a heron show up to spear my fish. We had it covered until recently so we can work on it. Tossed a new net over it again after seeing the duck. ;(

Looking for advice on how to properly repair an irrigation pond washout / erosion issue.

We recently bought a property that has an irrigation pond with an older concrete overflow or spillway system. The pond is currently much lower than recent, and I’m trying to figure out whether this is seasonal, a drainage issue, or a failed pond edge / washout problem.

There's a concrete overflow structure, but water is cutting underneath it instead of flowing over it. The soil around it has eroded away and there’s now a channel washing out under the slab/ledge.

- Does this look like a failed design?

- Can this be repaired DIY?

- Any risk of making things worse by trying to fill the void?

- What type of contractor would normally handle something like this? I haven't had much luck -

I believe the pond is spring-fed or naturally wet year-round, so I’m hesitant to just dump dirt into it without understanding how water is supposed to move through here.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I recently purchased a property which had beautiful lotuses and a good condition pond. Now the sale has completed and I’ve moved in I have no idea what they’ve done to it but it looks in horrendous condition.

Please can someone help me with sorting advice?

Yes, there is a lot of food in there. My friend was putting the food in and put far too much in (the fish are somehow still alive)

I’ll be scooping out most of that food momentarily

Couple questions for you guys so finished my pond and it turned out looking beautiful, but I’m losing water slowly. Now the problem is as you can see is I have a mountain of garden blocks stacked and glued on top of the liner so access to the liner is all but impossible.

The upmost care was taken during install to not puncture or damage the liner. Obviously that did not work out as I have a slow drain so now I am trying to figure out options.

Would it be possible to grout the interior or silicone every seam to create a waterproof seal and just forgo the pond liner altogether and have the brick do the job of holding in the water?

Barring that I could frame in a thin void and do a concrete pour against the brick reducing the pond size by an inch or two all around.

Or I could, and this is my least favourite option, put a pond liner inside, but that hides all the beautiful masonry blocks.

I built this, hoping it would be lower maintenance and a nice clean look to the pond and pretty much be indestructible. The problem now with it being indestructible is how to find/fix the leak. My disappointment is immeasurable.

Any ideas on the best way to not have all my hard work be just an every other day chore of refilling the pond constantly fighting the drain.

Hi- I have an inherited pond that was scheduled for a professional cleaning tomorrow afternoon and the technician was going to walk me through the equipment and how it works. I was cutting back one of the plants near the waterfall and tried to remove the algae that was attached to it, but in doing so, I disturbed the mesh/ plastic bag filter at the top of the waterfall and unleashed a bunch silt (?) into the pond. I called the pond cleaning company who advised me that I should just keep everything running until tomorrow, but I wanted to make sure that there wasn't anything else I should be doing in the meantime. I believe there are around 22 goldfish, no koi. The water is now super opaque and the silt cloud has basically extended through the pond. Thank you in advance for any insights!

What is this plant/weed in my pond? 😊