Unidentified in my pond
 

I have a "problem" with my pond. I used to have a large colony of frogs.
Last year they didn't come. This year it seems they are not coming. I live
in Cornwall - so no bad weather this year and having looked around I see
other people have frogs now.

I did have newts last summer. Not too many.

So I decided to take a look at what might be in the pond. I found one frog
( he/she seems to have gone now) one newt last night and a net full of
something I cant identify. I looks like a fish . Its about half an inch
long - some slightly smaller , greyish brown translucent .

I have no fish in the pond and never have. I have trawled the internet for
something like it to no avail. Any suggestions?

PS - I don't want any false trails but if I didn't know better I would
suggest baby sticklebacks but I don't have any fish in the pond, nor could
they have got in ( nearest river 2 miles away).

Also - anyone suggest what might have caused the demise of my pond since I I
seem to have lost everything in there?

Its smallish but I keep the area with long grass and a rockery for habitat
and only strim once a year. I have lilies and oxygenating plant and it looks
clearish , although it was full of stinking tree leaves until I set to last
year.

Any suggestions to a healthy pond ( and about my unidentified) would be
welcome

Thanks.

Unidentified in my pond
 

On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 09:18:05 -0000, "sweetheart" hotmail.com wrote:

I have a "problem" with my pond. I used to have a large colony of frogs.
Last year they didn't come. This year it seems they are not coming. I live
in Cornwall - so no bad weather this year and having looked around I see
other people have frogs now.

I did have newts last summer. Not too many.

So I decided to take a look at what might be in the pond. I found one frog
( he/she seems to have gone now) one newt last night and a net full of
something I cant identify. I looks like a fish . Its about half an inch
long - some slightly smaller , greyish brown translucent .

I have no fish in the pond and never have. I have trawled the internet for
something like it to no avail. Any suggestions?

PS - I don't want any false trails but if I didn't know better I would
suggest baby sticklebacks but I don't have any fish in the pond, nor could
they have got in ( nearest river 2 miles away).

Also - anyone suggest what might have caused the demise of my pond since I I
seem to have lost everything in there?

Its smallish but I keep the area with long grass and a rockery for habitat
and only strim once a year. I have lilies and oxygenating plant and it looks
clearish , although it was full of stinking tree leaves until I set to last
year.

Any suggestions to a healthy pond ( and about my unidentified) would be
welcome

Thanks.

It may be a little early to panic. Different people in this group are
reporting different levels of frog activity - some of us are now
over-run with spawn, others have yet to see spawn at all and some
haven't even seen frogs.

One possibility though is that if you had a lot of sludgy leaves at
the bottom of the pond and removed them all, you also removed the
habitat in which frogs might spend the winter and even, possibly, the
frogs themselves if any were in that sludgy stuff.

Every so many years I have to clear out the pond a bit and I always
have fewer frogs visiting the following year but things recover the
year after that.

As to what you've found in the pond, I have no idea. If you're able to
take a pic and upload that to a photo sharing site and then link to it
from a message here we can have a look.

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay.

Unidentified in my pond
 

On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 09:18:05 -0000, "sweetheart" hotmail.com wrote:

I have a "problem" with my pond. I used to have a large colony of frogs.
Last year they didn't come. This year it seems they are not coming. I live
in Cornwall - so no bad weather this year and having looked around I see
other people have frogs now.

I did have newts last summer. Not too many.

So I decided to take a look at what might be in the pond. I found one frog
( he/she seems to have gone now) one newt last night and a net full of
something I cant identify. I looks like a fish . Its about half an inch
long - some slightly smaller , greyish brown translucent .

I have no fish in the pond and never have. I have trawled the internet for
something like it to no avail. Any suggestions?

PS - I don't want any false trails but if I didn't know better I would
suggest baby sticklebacks but I don't have any fish in the pond, nor could
they have got in ( nearest river 2 miles away).

Also - anyone suggest what might have caused the demise of my pond since I I
seem to have lost everything in there?

Its smallish but I keep the area with long grass and a rockery for habitat
and only strim once a year. I have lilies and oxygenating plant and it looks
clearish , although it was full of stinking tree leaves until I set to last
year.

Any suggestions to a healthy pond ( and about my unidentified) would be
welcome

Thanks.

My garden wildlife records show that the first signs of frog activity
can vary considerably, from 16 January to 8 March here in South Devon.
Two frogs have only just arrived in our pond and we now have 4 newts
visible, so I suggest that there is still plenty of time for more of
them to arrive.

In the event that you were a bit over enthusiastic with your pond
cleaning it is possible that you removed some of the layer of mud and
detritus at the bottom of the pond that amphibians and invertebrates
like to hide in.

As to the tiny fish-like things a photo put somewhere on the web would
help considerably. Given your description, the only thing that I can
suggest without an image and bearing in mind that your pond is fish
free, is late developing newt larvae - have a look at
http://tinyurl.com/72fk7no for an example. As with tadpoles I have
spotted them over winter in this 'legless' state and in slightly later
stages of development, with front legs only and then eventually with
all 4 legs.
--
rbel

Unidentified in my pond
 

On 26/02/2012 09:18, sweetheart wrote:
I have a "problem" with my pond. I used to have a large colony of frogs.
Last year they didn't come. This year it seems they are not coming. I
live in Cornwall - so no bad weather this year and having looked around
I see other people have frogs now.

I did have newts last summer. Not too many.

So I decided to take a look at what might be in the pond. I found one
frog ( he/she seems to have gone now) one newt last night and a net full
of something I cant identify. I looks like a fish . Its about half an
inch long - some slightly smaller , greyish brown translucent .

I have no fish in the pond and never have. I have trawled the internet
for something like it to no avail. Any suggestions?

PS - I don't want any false trails but if I didn't know better I would
suggest baby sticklebacks but I don't have any fish in the pond, nor
could they have got in ( nearest river 2 miles away).

Also - anyone suggest what might have caused the demise of my pond since
I I seem to have lost everything in there?

Its smallish but I keep the area with long grass and a rockery for
habitat and only strim once a year. I have lilies and oxygenating plant
and it looks clearish , although it was full of stinking tree leaves
until I set to last year.

Any suggestions to a healthy pond ( and about my unidentified) would be
welcome

Thanks.


I'm wondering if your unidentified and uninvited visitor could be a
dragonfly larvae. At a stretch of the imagination they might be likened
to a fish, colouring sounds appropriate, and they are voracious feeders.

--
Spider
from high ground in SE London
gardening on clay

Unidentified in my pond
 

On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 12:37:32 +0000, Spider wrote:

I'm wondering if your unidentified and uninvited visitor could be a
dragonfly larvae. At a stretch of the imagination they might be likened
to a fish, colouring sounds appropriate, and they are voracious feeders.

From memory a dragonfly nymph has visible legs on hatching as do other
invertebrates such as the great diving beetle larva (these are really
voracious, even tackling small fish).
--
rbel

Unidentified in my pond
 

"sweetheart" wrote ...

I have a "problem" with my pond. I used to have a large colony of frogs.
Last year they didn't come. This year it seems they are not coming. I live
in Cornwall - so no bad weather this year and having looked around I see
other people have frogs now.

I did have newts last summer. Not too many.

So I decided to take a look at what might be in the pond. I found one frog
( he/she seems to have gone now) one newt last night and a net full of
something I cant identify. I looks like a fish . Its about half an inch
long - some slightly smaller , greyish brown translucent .

I have no fish in the pond and never have. I have trawled the internet for
something like it to no avail. Any suggestions?

PS - I don't want any false trails but if I didn't know better I would
suggest baby sticklebacks but I don't have any fish in the pond, nor could
they have got in ( nearest river 2 miles away).

Also - anyone suggest what might have caused the demise of my pond since I
I seem to have lost everything in there?

Its smallish but I keep the area with long grass and a rockery for habitat
and only strim once a year. I have lilies and oxygenating plant and it
looks clearish , although it was full of stinking tree leaves until I set
to last year.

Any suggestions to a healthy pond ( and about my unidentified) would be
welcome


They could be fish but there would be no doubt about it, they would look
like little fish. Fish eggs are often sticky and cling to the feet of
wading/swimming birds which is how they can get transferred into new
environments. They could also be introduced with water plants. Suggestions
for fish, sticklebacks (maybe the ninespined) and minnows are the most
likely but there would be no doubt in your mind you had fish.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

Unidentified in my pond
 

On 26/02/2012 11:01, Jake wrote:
On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 09:18:05 -0000, "sweetheart"hotmail.com wrote:

I have a "problem" with my pond. I used to have a large colony of frogs.
Last year they didn't come. This year it seems they are not coming. I live
in Cornwall - so no bad weather this year and having looked around I see
other people have frogs now.

I did have newts last summer. Not too many.

So I decided to take a look at what might be in the pond. I found one frog
( he/she seems to have gone now) one newt last night and a net full of
something I cant identify. I looks like a fish . Its about half an inch
long - some slightly smaller , greyish brown translucent .

I have no fish in the pond and never have. I have trawled the internet for
something like it to no avail. Any suggestions?

PS - I don't want any false trails but if I didn't know better I would
suggest baby sticklebacks but I don't have any fish in the pond, nor could
they have got in ( nearest river 2 miles away).

Also - anyone suggest what might have caused the demise of my pond since I I
seem to have lost everything in there?

Its smallish but I keep the area with long grass and a rockery for habitat
and only strim once a year. I have lilies and oxygenating plant and it looks
clearish , although it was full of stinking tree leaves until I set to last
year.

Any suggestions to a healthy pond ( and about my unidentified) would be
welcome

Thanks.

It may be a little early to panic. Different people in this group are
reporting different levels of frog activity - some of us are now
over-run with spawn, others have yet to see spawn at all and some
haven't even seen frogs.

I don't have a pond, but there are still a few frogs and toads in my
garden and sometimes the odd grass snake. The nearest pond is a fair way
away and the nearest beck about 400m. They seem to live under shady
hedges and near the compost heaps where it is usually pretty damp.

Every so many years I have to clear out the pond a bit and I always
have fewer frogs visiting the following year but things recover the
year after that.

As to what you've found in the pond, I have no idea. If you're able to
take a pic and upload that to a photo sharing site and then link to it
from a message here we can have a look.

A picture is very helpful. Our previous house had a pond and sometimes
spontaneously gained new full grown goldfish when expat neighbours
returned home. This was somewhat surprising the first time it happened.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

Timings can vary a lot even within the same garden - my front garden pond usually gets spawn about a fortnight later than the back. [quote]

Newt tadpoles is a possibility. If they're newt tadpoles they should either have feathery gills, or they should have legs.

Newts will happily gobble up all available frog spawn, but that doesn't explain absence of adult frogs.

Apparently about half of male frogs overwinter in the pond and the rest on land - better survival on land, but the pond ones are first in the queue for the females.

Unidentified in my pond
 

In article ,
"sweetheart" hotmail.com wrote:

.... I found one frog
( he/she seems to have gone now) one newt last night and a net full of
something I cant identify. It looks like a fish . Its about half an inch
long - some slightly smaller , greyish brown translucent .

That sounds exactly like a baby newt, to me.

J.

Unidentified in my pond
 

On Feb 26, 9:18*am, "sweetheart" hotmail.com wrote:
I have a "problem" with my pond. I used to have a large colony of frogs.
Last year they didn't come. This year it seems they are not coming. I live
in Cornwall - so no bad weather this year and *having looked around I see
other people have frogs *now.

*I did have newts last summer. Not too many.

So I decided to *take a look at what might be in the pond. I found one frog
( he/she seems to have gone now) one newt last night and a net full of
something I cant identify. *I looks like a fish . Its about half an inch
long - some slightly smaller , greyish brown translucent .

I have no fish in the pond and never have. I have trawled the internet for
something like it to no avail. Any suggestions?

PS - I don't want any false trails but if I didn't know better I would
suggest *baby sticklebacks but I don't have any fish in the pond, nor could
they have got in ( nearest river 2 miles away).

Also - anyone suggest what might have caused the demise of my pond since I I
seem to have lost everything in there?

Its smallish but I keep the area with long grass and a rockery for habitat
and only strim once a year. I have lilies and oxygenating plant and it looks
clearish , although it was full of stinking tree leaves until I set to last
year.

Any suggestions to a healthy pond ( and about my unidentified) would be
welcome

Thanks.

Leech?

Hi, it could be fish but its unlikely, as to be so small they would have to be this years fry and likely coarse fish havent spawned yet this year ! For the record (and since your in Cornwall) since the introduction of coarse fisheries, ducks, herons etc have quickly spread perch, whose eggs are very sticky !
So, we are left with either immature newts or damsel fly larvae which are much smaller than dragonfly larvae and thats what I think you've found !
Also, I notice that frogs in lots of ponds are now only just spawning, so dont give up just yet. As I thought might be the case (from an earlier post) the frogs which normally spawn on the first full moon of the year, knew it was going to stay mild, knew there was no rush to enter the water at their normal time and this year are incredibly late spawning !
Lannerman.

Unidentified in my pond
 

"sweetheart" hotmail.com wrote in message
...
I have a "problem" with my pond. I used to have a large colony of frogs.
Last year they didn't come. This year it seems they are not coming. I live
in Cornwall - so no bad weather this year and having looked around I see
other people have frogs now.

I did have newts last summer. Not too many.

So I decided to take a look at what might be in the pond. I found one
frog ( he/she seems to have gone now) one newt last night and a net full
of something I cant identify. I looks like a fish . Its about half an
inch long - some slightly smaller , greyish brown translucent .

I have no fish in the pond and never have. I have trawled the internet for
something like it to no avail. Any suggestions?

PS - I don't want any false trails but if I didn't know better I would
suggest baby sticklebacks but I don't have any fish in the pond, nor
could they have got in ( nearest river 2 miles away).

Also - anyone suggest what might have caused the demise of my pond since I
I seem to have lost everything in there?

Its smallish but I keep the area with long grass and a rockery for habitat
and only strim once a year. I have lilies and oxygenating plant and it
looks clearish , although it was full of stinking tree leaves until I set
to last year.

Any suggestions to a healthy pond ( and about my unidentified) would be
welcome


No idea on the fishy things.

With regard to the stinking leaves - not nice.

I neglected our medium sized pond and it went more or less anaerobic
So we decided to clean it out.

After carefully removing most of the water, and the plants in their baskets,
we started removing the muck from the bottom.
We then set up two muck buckets with water to keep any frogs or newts we
found.
We thought we might have a few frogs, and perhaps about four newts as we had
seen a couple swimming around the previous year.
We stopped counting after about 50 frogs and a similarly large number of
newts (can't remember how many).
So ponds have hidden depths :-)
Also, stinky leaves don't seem to cause frogs and newts any problems, just
fish.
Your frogs and newts may just be hiding.
If the pond looks clearish and doesn't smell bad then it is probably O.K.

Cheers

Dave R

--
No plan survives contact with the enemy.
[Not even bunny]

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

Never seen a translucent leech

Unidentified in my pond
 

"harry" wrote in message
...
On Feb 26, 9:18 am, "sweetheart" hotmail.com wrote:
Any suggestions to a healthy pond ( and about my unidentified) would be
welcome

Thanks.

Leech?

You mean put leeches into the pond or the unidentified was a leech? I have
had leeches in the garden, well one , once in my greenhouse to be precise.
Never found out where that came from either.

I have been working hard on the pond and I still think the unidentified
looks like a stickleback. I need them to grow a little to decide .

Unidentified in my pond
 

"kay" wrote in message
...



Timings can vary a lot even within the same garden - my front garden
pond usually gets spawn about a fortnight later than the back.



I have kept a weather diary for the last 30 years. My frogs have arrived
every year on or within a couple of days of 14th Feb , except when they
havent arrived at all - last year and this year.

As to the tiny fish-like things a photo put somewhere on the web would
help considerably.

I know it would but I dont have a camera nor do I have a web page.

Given your description, the only thing that I can
is late developing newt larvae -

I am wondering about newts, although I didnt see any of them last year
either. I know I have opne adult newt in the pond because I scooped him/ her
out when clearing up the debris yesterday. I put him/her back

Apparently about half of male frogs overwinter in the pond and the
rest on land - better survival on land, but the pond ones are first in
the queue for the females.


That I can believe, I have one frog who may have over wintered. I certainly
do not have a companion for him it seems.
Thanks


--
kay