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Old 13-09-2006, 10:48 AM posted to uk.rec.gardening
Uncle Marvo Uncle Marvo is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Aug 2006
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Default Pond Sludge - To clear or not to clear?

In reply to K ) who wrote this in
, I, Marvo, say :

Uncle Marvo writes
In reply to MB ) who wrote this in
, I, Marvo, say
:

I bet you get kingfishers too, but you'd be lucky to see one ... I
see many because I live on a river, they are fantastic but travel at
about Mach I, all you see is a bright electric blue flash. I don't
think herons eat frogs, but I expect to be corrected.


FWIW, one of the carvings on the Natural History Museum building in S
Ken shows a heron with a frog in his mouth, IIRC

See. If it /ate/ frogs, it wouldn't have hung around long enough to hav the
carving done :-)

I have in the back of my mind someone telling me that snails with
pointy shells are bad for the pond, and flat ones are good. Is there
any truth in this? Some of the pointy ones in my pond are over 2
inches in length!

I know not. I bought snails to start with, then realised that you
don't need to. Mine were flat though, and bottom snufflers. Some
spend their time round the sides and have to compete with the
sterlets.


Fun to have different species. I have the pointy and the flat, and
also a smoother intermediate shape which has beautiful patterning on
the shell.

If you /do/ get fish, and even if you encourage frogs, make sure you
keep the eggs/spawn away from other fish/frogs/anything else by
putting a partition in with small holes (like chicken wire)
otherwise the breeding cycle gets rudely interrupted by lunching
predators.

Green tench are veggie, and don't seem to have affected the newts and
frogs in our pond - in fact, even the newts aren't having that much of
an impact on the frogs


True, green tench will not normally eat spawn, but if they're /really/
hungry ...

Carp are notorious cannibals. Shame, they are so nice to look at.