"Tumbleweed" wrote in message
. ..

"anne" wrote in message
...
I know a lot of you have garden ponds, so wondered if you could
answer
this
question. Yesterday I discovered approximately 80% of the tadpoles
in my
pond had died - they were all floating just under the surface. It
was
strange they had all died at once I thought. The pond is new and
has few
plants in it, but is reasonably clear. It has lots of those tiny
floating
green leaves on the surface and one bunch of goldfish weed dropped
in. It
was definitely over populated with the tads and I think there
would have
been a lack of food. We have had very heavy downpours over the
last few
days, could this have contributed - hammering down on the surface?
As far
as
I know, there is no chance the pond could have had chemicals
washed into
it
from the land.

Thanks.


Did you fertilise the lawn with some sort of weed & feed recently
(as a
source of chemicals?). I agree it seems strange they all died at
once, but
at this stage I suppose they will still be vegetarian so eating each
other
wouldnt be an option if there was no natural food, so if its a brand
new
pond with no algae and no other natural food, they might have
starved to
death. And as they all were 'born' at the same time I suppose they
might all
die at the same time as well.

The thing I find strange is that the frogs chose to lay eggs in a pond
with no (or little) vegetation.
'Just don't seem natural. Predators, like moorhens or water shrews
would have scoffed the bodies.
Heavy rain should just have encouraged them to swim deeper.
How about lack of oxygen? If there were no (or not enough) oxygenating
plants and no flowing water, the pond would have been virtually
stagnant and the taddies would quickly have used up whatever residual
oxygen there originally was.

Whatever the cause, scoop out as many of the bodies as possible,
before they decompose and add to the problem.

--
ned