bramble towers muttered:

I have recently moved into a house with a very large pond. The water is
brown
& murky (muddy?) there are no plants growing in it & recently I
found a dead
fish floating in it. The pond is approximately 150 feet
long by at most 70
feet wide & I believe is lined with puddled clay.
The house particulars
stated that it was a spring fed pond ( but
knowing estate agents, that may not
be the case!).

Can anyone recommend a book which might deal with large natural ponds
as all
the books I've managed to find in the library & book shops seem
to relate to
6ft by 10ft man made ponds & focus on smaller plants which
wont outgrow their
space.

There are a number of other fish in the pond - all a white-ish colour &
about
1 - 1 1/2 feet long - should I be feeding them, bearing in mind
the lack of
vegetation in there??

As I am a complete novice, any advice would be appreciated - I wouldn't
want
to lose another fish

Sally
Kent


--
bramble towers

It seems we are living in a parallel universe we also have a pond that we
made lined with clay two years ago. I recommend these people as I learned
most of what I needed to know and got some lovely plants (all established
and doing well) from them also:

http://www.wetlandplants.co.uk/home.ihtml

The muddy-looking water may be due to bottom-feeding fish such as Tench (we
put in 15 of them and have never seen them again, but they bred like mad
this year - hundreds of fry) they do a good job keeping nutrients down on
the bottom which prevents blanket weed. Our pond still looks a bit muddy but
is improving. A good tip is always have your boggy plants planted down-water
of the pond so the nutrients they'll need to grow in isn't washed into the
pond. Native fish will only breed to fit the amount of food available, so
although it may sound a bit hard-hearted don't feed them over winter and
make a start next spring.

I recommend Ceratophyllum demersum Hornwort, Callitriche autumnalis Water
starwort, Willow moss, water hawthorn for planting now. About next March
though you can really go to town on marginals such as Saggitta, Marsh
Marigold, Cyperus alternifolius Umbrella Palm - just follow Wetlands'
recommendations and aim for about a third of water area stocked with
pondweed and shading plants like water lilies.

We've only used native species (fish and plants) and please beware of anyone
offering you weed from their ponds you might get parrot feather, Canadian
pond weed or duck weed and that would be a disaster. Also be prepared to go
into pond to sort out problems