My pond

[ctabuk]

Greetings from Lincolnshire Four years ago my wife and I started a pond project to attract wildlife. By hand we dug a pond that measures 25' x 25' x 5' deep. It was into clay and it took us a whole summer of weekends. (photo's to follow) We started with just 8 Shubumkin who have been busy breeding, we now have about 250. Some have got incredibly long tails and are turning blue. Others include pure reds, red and whites, muti coloured blues. One has three tails. The Heron is a regular visitor, but the sides are well wired (in vivid colours, I'm RSPB)
This year we had twenty frogs and some of the spawn is still in the watermint.
Dragonflies are the real show during the summer, we get Emperors, Broadback Chasers, all the Damselflies, Southern Hawkers, the females are very inquisitive and will land on you and walk about as well as a multitude of butterflies.
We have some very good Lincolnshire Wildlife weekly updates, if anyone wants info about them or my forum which can include your stories on fish/wildlife you can e-mail me for details.
ps, loads of newts too!

 

[Cat]

wow that is one big pond
Can't wait to see the pictures

 

[Cat]

whoops! I forgot ,your first post on here

 

[bribones]

welcome to the board

erm a link to your forum would be nice

 

[ctabuk]

Wow, quick replies, many thanks. I will organise the photo's.
The pond actually also acted as a history lesson for us both. As we are out in the fens, miles from anywhere and just a handfull of cottages and Farms, finding the history of reclaimed land is a bit sparse we know our place goes back to the 1800's and that it was a farriers yard at one stage. But when digging the pond we got down to about 4 feet and found hundreds of white sea shells, a whole bed of white mollusc. After doing some research we found out that we live in a 'saltings' area. The Romans set up 'fish farms' and bred seafood in set water depths of about ten feet. They even built a lighthouse at nearby Bicker which was wood fed.

My local Wildlife Site http/www.lnu.org
My forum is just 3 weeks old, we started it in trial mode for a while.
I post in forums around the whole planet, but none as relaxingly as yours.
I have put together some of the Worlds best experts in SEO, you can ask any questions on any subject and get free advice and instant fixes. I will gladly look at anything to do with wildlife and will be doing a Bird thing later this year.
People do not realise that forums can help get your business listed on major SE's, so if you have any input, it will be greatfully received. The Breakroom is full of USA humour (they spell it wrong as humor). But if you feel like 'crashing out' it is kind of unique! Cheers David. I forgot to post it
http/www.davidcastle.org/BB/

 

[Cat]

David you have a beautiful garden
Looked on your forum

 

[ctabuk]

Hi Cat, the pond is at the very bottom, behind all the flowers, Thank you for the compliment. Cheers David

In fact you can see the water at the back of the path in the group photo, far right hand side.

 

[ryan]

Sounds like a great garden David.

 

[ctabuk]

I have a question, we had a beautiful carp (now dead) he had a bite on his side from we assume a flying water beetle. For day's he swam on his(or hers) side and seemed to make a recovery. I know we cannot stop the flying water beetle, but is there any precautions that you can make?

 

[ryan]

I find it hard to believe a species of Water Beetle caused such an injury. Most will aggressively attack and injure fish within their size range but a larger carp is out of their league and their instinct would be to get well out of its way as the carp would see it as food. It is also extremely uncommon and I have never heard of it happen, has it happened to any other fish in your pond? It is more likely to be an injury sustained on a piece of wood or rock or by a Heron maybe that got infected and killed the fish. With a pond that size I'd certainly give Koi or other Carp species a try. However, seeing as you enjoy your wildlife becareful to only enjoy a handful of fish as they may have a heavy effect on the food chain and cause some problems with pond life.

 

[ctabuk]

No just this one, we called him or her 'Survivor' - (well for a while )Thanks for the info on water beetles. The funny thing is they are an incredible species, in their own way they are quite incredible.

We will blame the dear old Heron. We took a wildlife boat trip last summer, loads of Herons eating eels, so I said out loud 'So why pick on my pond when you have all of this?' - To which a reply came 'Harrods'

 

[Paul_MTS]

sounds like a great pond....would love to say "wow that looks stunning" instead though!!

pond pictures!!!

with that size pond you could have almost any fish, sturgeon, grass carp, tench, koi, carp, orfe look awesome with a few big big crusing with the litlins!!

 

[ryan]

Agreed paul.

The the little things that cause damage to fish aren't normally water beetles but the Dragonfly larve, nasty little things.