New pond help

ian thenut

Hi, 

New house, new issues.

I've just acquired my first pond, thought nothing more of it as we only moved in last weekend.  I noticed yesterday that there's goldfish in it so i'm looking to clean it up. Its also loaded with underwater snails, pond skaters and when we viewed the house baby frogs.

Its an unfiltered pond and I've got a solar pond pump on the way.

Can anyone tell me if this green stuff is something i should be removing or if its one of those many oxygenating plants I've been reading about but no idea what they look like?

Also, the Lilly Pads, do i have to do anything with them or do i just wait until next spring/summer and remove the clearly dead leaves when the new ones come through?

ta

treehugger80

remove the water lily leaves as they die back, look into getting some oxygenation underwater plants as well as some edging or marginal plants.

the matting stuff is blanketweed, remove what you can as its dying back for winter, but it will be back next year, think about getting some barley straw in the spring to stop it forming

Lyn

Lots of oxygenating plants will eliminate the blanket weed, also, can you put some rocks at one end so anything can get out, little frogs, hedgehogs, birds, you don’t want to find something drowned in there. 

pansyface

And as the weather gets cooler, stop feeding the goldfish on normal food and buy some wheatgerm sticks for them. They can’t digest normal food in the cold weather and get ill. When it gets really really cold and they seem to be sleeping, they are, so don’t feed them at all.

Fairygirl

I think that's what the concrete lintel [?] is for, Lyn, but rocks are nicer and much more natural.
In addition to all the excellent advice given, Ian, you could add some nearby planting which provides cover for wildlife. This can be marginals [plants which are in the water, but in the shallow areas at the edges] and also a mix of evergreens and perennials around the edges, including bogplants if the soil's moist enough. If you can add ones which hang over the edges, like Hostas and Grasses/sedges, they will also help to hide the pond edges. If there are no shallow areas - shelves or  ledges -  in the pond, you can create them with bricks, or similar, to sit the marginals on. 
If you don't have soil round the pond edges [hard to tell from your pic] you can have some pots grouped together, and some logs etc  which provide plenty of areas for little creatures to hide in. It all helps to make the pond look like part of your garden, rather than an addition which sticks out. Try and create a nice 'picture', so that it becomes a really attractive feature. 
It's when the pond water starts to warm up in spring  that the blanketweed will really start growing, so be ready to tackle it