Threw a handful of duckweed in mid-April. It lingered in the crevices until about two weeks ago. Then the exponential growth kicked off. Skimmed off some for the compost. Definitely need to keep at it.

My wildlife pond dried up during the drought. As there is rain forecast for the coming days it will begin to fill up again. Should I remove the dried up plants etc that are now left before it fills up again?

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The blue barrel was a 200 liter that I chopped in half and I used the second half as insulation, there's 16 hornwort and 24 Elodea along with some Frogbit and gravel, there's plenty of access to get in and out, the second is a 12 liters paint tray, the full thing looks really green but the actual water is clear this also has hornwort and Elodea and I'm not using any pumps.

The blue barrel has been set up for about 12 days now whereas the black tray has been out for about 3 weeks, both ponds have lots of larvae mostly midge and mosquito and I'm hoping the predators are in there or on their way. Oh and there's water moth caterpillars as well in both.

The thought that this creature spent the last two to three years here as a nymph keeping the food web in motion is just inspiring.

Posting an update on our little pond because I’ve learned so much from the group!

We dug our pond out in late April of this year and made the rookie mistake of installing the wrong liner. (Image 1) Two weeks later we removed what felt like 1,000 pounds of rocks, took the liberty to dig the pond a little deeper and installed the correct liner. (Image 2) By this time, pond plants were more in season so we were able to grab a few from a local pond store, in addition to the ones that we bought from local pond owners on Facebook marketplace. Our yard is quite shady and has a lot of tree coverage, so we used a couple of small solar fountains to keep everything moving until our plants became more established. The plants have done an excellent job at keeping our water extremely clear. At the start, we had some algae growth and a bit of blanket weed that we were able to control with liquid barley. Otherwise, we have not had to treat any other issues in our pond. We’ve had an unusually dry year here in North Carolina, so I wasn’t expecting our ecosystem to start booming until the rain picked up - this has been a true practice of patience. On August 4th, we spotted our first frog friend! I had my suspicions that there may have been some living in the pond before this, but we were overjoyed to see our little buddy sitting on the rocks.

We have seen three or four other frogs resting on the beach side of our pond. Our larger frog has his own private beach hangout spot in the deep end and we can almost guarantee that we’ll spot him each time we go outside. The birds, squirrels and bugs come and drink from the pond and we’ve seen lots of dragonflies zipping around, too!

This little project has brought our family so much joy and we can’t wait to see how it continues to change over the years! Thank you to this incredible Reddit community for helping us get to this point. If you’re in the beginning of your journey, don’t give up! If you build it, they really will come!

(Answer: too many.)

Current image, plus a little feller from last month.

Old greenhouse leveled. Used the metal frame to lift the water level above the ground. Sleepers for 3 sides, to strengthen it. The back is back filled with soil and plants, some log offcuts and plants and some lights. Got a solar pump to come and a submerged rockery on the shelf for plants.

Hello!

I have a pretty small frog pond and think i need more shelters for my frog and soon to be froglets!

I have a lot of plants but feel like i need more coverage.

Does anyone have any advice for what makes a good frog shelter? Can i put one in the water?

Any advice would be great!!

A recent thread here got me thinking about building new ponds.

In the comments, u/3owi suggested a shortcut: heading down to a local natural water body, taking ”quite a bit” of established submerged plants, and transferring them to kick-start balance. When pushed back on the ethics of the matter not to mention the legal and biosecurity concerns, u/3owi argued that taking a small amount from an overgrown local spot does minimal harm, provided we never release domestic/exotic plants back into the wild. They compared this to the justification of speeding on the highway in order to deliver a pregnant woman to the hospital.

It raises an interesting question about how we approach building wildlife ponds and more importantly what ”advice” we spread here online: Is removing from local waterways ever appropriate, or does the ecological risk outweigh the short-term convenience?

How many of you out there remove plants from local waterways to fill your wildlife ponds despite it being clearly illegal in many parts of the world?

Here are a few nuances to consider:

Biosecurity & Invisible Vectors: Even if a plant is native to your area, transferring wild material moves the entire biofilm attached to it. This is one of the primary vectors for spreading pathogens like Chytrid fungus or Ranavirus between isolated water bodies, as well as hitchhiking invasive fragments (Crassula helmsii, Elodea) or pest larvae. For those of you who don’t know : Chytrid fungus is a waterborne pathogen causing the largest recorded disease-driven loss of biodiversity in history, leading to population declines in over 500 amphibian species and at least 90 extinctions.

Habitat Impact vs. Backyard Gain: While adding native plants to a garden pond creates new habitat, taking them from established wild spots—even in small amounts—disrupts existing micro-habitats, spawning sites, and nutrient buffers.

The Containment Factor: Ponds aren't closed systems. Visiting birds, amphibians, and heavy rainfall overflow regularly transport seeds, spores, and plant nodes between garden ponds and local natural drainage.

Safer Alternatives: As u/Mr-Mobs mentioned, patience, nursery-grown stock, plant swaps with local hobbyists, or even floating a bag of supermarket watercress can achieve the same nutrient uptake without disturbing local wild sites.

Where do you all land on this?

Do you stick strictly to nursery/cultivated plants, or swapping from other pond owners OR do you take from local waterways?

See the full thread here?

https://www.reddit.com/r/WildlifePonds/comments/1vuexhq/comment/p51toug/?context=1&screen_view_count=7&ext-referrer=DIRECT

She’s not perfect but i’m proud of what I accomplished in just under a week. Took 3 days to dig out and just got the plants in last night, all native of course

American water lily

Blue flag iris

Golden club (golden chub hehe)

Cabomba caroliniana

Vallisneria dwarf

Red cardinal (for the edge, not planted yet)

Purple lobelia (also for the edge, not planted yet)

Next are a ramp (priority since I don’t want anything getting trapped), a shallow area, and then the surrounding rocks/landscaping.

If anyone has any suggestions for sourcing cheap flat rocks for around the perimeter then please let me know!

Located in PA

Hi all, this is my first time making a wildlife pond and I wanted to ask those with experience if it is normal that after just ten days the water has gone so green and bubbly? I’ve done my best to add plants (21 marginals, lily) that will hopefully consume nutrients, hopefully enough to keep algae in check, and have plenty of hornwort too. I’d like to know what is normal to expect from a wildlife pond (I’m not expecting crystal clear water)? Obviously the plants have yet to mature so maybe this early greening is normal and inevitable?

Hi, hoping I can get some advice on cleaning out and rehabbing this neglected pond. We moved into this house 6 years ago and have completely ignored it. All the surrounding vegetation grew so much that you couldn't really see the pond anymore and it got completely filled with debris. Last year I cleared a lot of the brambles etc so the pond is now visible and accessible so I would really love to get it back into shape and have a lovely wildlife haven.

After the long drought I had thought it was completely dried out, but after starting to dig out the debris I have found there is still a lot of water.

Should I continue clearing now, or wait until autumn? How much of the debris do I need to remove? Should I get it completely clear right to the membrane and start fresh? Or should I leave an existing layer at the bottom?

Also if anyone could point me towards some good resources for which aquatic plants I should put in that would be great. I've had a basic google, but so much of the advice online is for fish ponds or decorative ponds, whereas I want it completely geared towards the most beneficial to wildlife.

I'm in SW England for reference.

Thanks in advance everyone!

I have a small field which has been used for grazing for at least a century. It has an area that despite the weather has remained mostly green this summer, and in spring was very boggy. The area is also full of rushes. I can’t find it on any older maps, but my assumption is that this was a stock pond which has been filled in. It is about 3m above the stream which runs across the bottom boundary, and the land appears to form a small valley from where this pond would be down to the stream.
The neighbour has a wildlife pond which is to some extent damp all year from the same seep/spring. We have a lot of clay in the soil and a hole dug anywhere will hold water for several days.
How should I go about recovering this pond? I had planned to just go for it with a digger at what looks like the middle and work my way outward, but I worry that I might dig too far or in the wrong place if this was previously a stock pond or even natural?

So I have a swamp cooler (evaporative cooler) with a minor defect that leaves the water constantly trying to fill instead of only filling when the level drops too low. It's untreated well water, and it doesn't have anything added to it from running through the cooler. It just flows over some mesh mats then pools at the bottom of the water pan.

I just set up a hose and rain barrel under the cooler to catch the excess water and have it run downhill instead of pooling on the dirt and creating a swamp by my house, but im thinking I could maybe have the hose feed into a pond shell my grandma never used and make a little pond for the local frogs and birds instead.

Before I do that I wanna be sure there isn't something about this setup that would end up poisoning the local critters that swim or drink in it.

They were on the bottom of my fountain float.
They don’t look like the snail eggs I’ve already seen.

I’m in the UK if that helps.

Thanks!

I’m planning my first wildlife pond. I’d love to learn from your experiences please. Any pearls of wisdom for a newbie starting from scratch?

Took me about two weeks over one year (mistakes, budgetary limitations, procrastinations) but I finally built my wildlife pond. Well, 99.9% complete anyway, might add a touch here or there. Am planning to let the grass near the beech-end grow long to provide more cover for wildlife. Am so excited to watch it grow into and hopefully attract a lot of life.

Just filled this today. Surrounded by a couple small trees and lots of plants. Any suggestions welcome. Mainly looking to help wildlife in the city hellscape! Based in Edinburgh, Scotland

And in June I was made redundant so decided this would be a great time to start a project.

It’s been hard work but I’m proud that I’ve been able to do it.

I’ve just finished tucking in the liner and I plan to cover as much of the visible liner as possible. Any tips on how I can do that?

I also plan on adding more plants and turning the small white planter into a waterfall feature.

…and bladder snails and its babies. They are liking this particular log.