Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Self-Sustained & Low Maintance Pond?

Hello, I am planning to build a pond in our new houses backyard, as I am trying to make it a tropical paradise... I would like it to be a self-sustained and low maintance pond. I live in central FL so it is warm and rains a lot.

Can I please get tips/suggestions/ideas on how to do this?

I keep aquariums so I would imagine it should be a decent size with a few fish only with lots of live plants. I do not plan on doing a filter... I would like a waterfall for it and may add some sort of fountain or water feature in the middle of the pond.

I was thinking of making the pond in the range of 5-7'Lx5'7'Wx2-3'D... not sure how many gallons that range is, but not super huge but decent size.

Like I said, key words are self sustained and low maintance.

Bring it on, thanks for your help.

Most folks on here have ponds from 1/4 acre and up.

You are talking about a small decorative pond

Sorry to not be of help but perhaps one of our other members
Has some helpful tips for you or websites

I do think however you will want a filter on that pond, think of it as a large
Aquarium

www.koiphen.com


The guys / gals on that forum specialize in ponds the size you are describing.

It is a really good forum too...

The pond part is easy. The question is do you want fish. If so then gold fish (koi) might be your best bet. Plants can be put in pots (holes in the side and bottom) and placed in the water (pot rim about 3-4 inches above the waterline.

There is no such as a low maintenance pond if you want it to look nice. Of course look nice is a relative term. All ponds tend to need maintenance because nutrients enter the pond by numerous ways. Nutrients grow plants and plants will be the cause of your pond problems. You manage nutients with filtration -either mechanical or natural -mainly by plants absorbing nutrients. Then the filter needs cleaned or remove the dead plants. This is the maintenance part. The more nutrtients the pond gets the more maintencance that is necessary. So your trick to low maintenance is to keep as much nutrients out of the pond as possible. Any animal that poops in your pond including fish will add nutrients. Leaves and wind blown organics (dust) will add nutrients when these things decompose. Your other thing to do is have plants. The amount of plants will depend on how many nutrients you have to filter the water to keep it clear. Managing the plants and removing dead plants will be your main maintenance.


numerous

During the warm weather there are numberous types of plants, many of then algae, that will live, grow, die and settle in the pond to make muck/sludge. This will periodically need to be removed. Even adding bacterial products to consume the muck will recycle the nutrients to eventually grow more plants. The only way to redue plant growth is chemically kill them or reduce nutrients that are feeding them. There are some ways to chemically permentantly bind nutrients in the pond but I am not well versed on those topics. I presume that the bound nutrinets are in solid form and will contribute to the biomass in the pond bottom. One other bit of advice try not to get too many fish in the pond. More fish will make more manure which is plant food.

Let us know if you have more questions.

Thanks for all the replies and link to other forum. I will ask the same question there and thanks for the helpful info. I would plan on keeping under 5 fish in it, as it is only for tropical looks for our backyard. That is crazy so many members here have huge ponds, I search pond forums. I will look into it and hopefully start digging soon. I may add some sort of filter but will try the heavy plants and water for current first. Thank you