Hello! I moved to a new home in January that has an artesian well fed pond, and I am looking for advice to make it swimmable/ turn into a natural swimming pool.

I would love to stock it with fish and plants that help keep the water clear. The water level doesn’t change due to the well supply, approximately 12 feet deep in the middle. Currently only frogs in it. I would think it’s too late in the year to stock with fish or plants, but advice on time of year to do maintenance would be great. I am located in southeast Michigan so it freezes over in the winter!

Would love any and all advice!!!!

I was battling algae/cloudy water and likely a curious racoon. Bog filter + 2 massive sponge filters and I could only get the cloudiness to go away for a day or so. Covered it with a raft from my pool for a few days and ignored it. When I checked, the water was crystal clear. Had to make something that I could close at night for the racoon, a screen at night wasn’t cutting it, combined with something I could keep closed if I need to black out the pond again.

Hey folks. I built this pond in our backyard back in February, and it’s bloomed beautifully(ignore the odd placement of the potted plant, it’s properly planted in the background of the pond) since then. I’ve noticed in recent months that it very slowly drips out the backside of the steel trough I’ve used for the bog filter, and it’s made the gravel/soil beneath it moist enough to cause it to lean back ever so slightly- which makes the dripping worse, the ground wetter, and the lean worse, and so on.

Any suggestions for other 165 gallon containers for a big filter? Or am I better off trying a different filtration system? I think no matter what I need to create a waterfall at the request of my family, but I’m having a bit of creativity block on this and I need to address this sooner rather than later. Thanks for any and all input!

I have 10 shubinkin and comets swimming around in there.

My 170 gallon stock tank is under a tree that dumps leaves and sticks and I found this jelly like substance growing on several of the sticks. ID would be much appreciated!

My pond is usually crystal clear (Thanks to watching lots of Ozponds videos before the last expansion) but a couple of times a season I have to "weed" the bigger of my bog filters.

When I do, I toss whatever I've cut back or pulled up into the main pond. My fish go absolutely nuts over the treat!

I can only grow duckweed in the bog filter and frog pond because the 4 koi love it and eat every piece they can find, so when I weed I try and get as much of that with the other stuff as possible. It grows back again quickly in the ponds without fish.

I leave the whole mess floating around for a few days until all the roots have been nibbled away and the foliage picked off. The fish don't eat the creeping Jenny, but will turn the water celery to stems and the water cress and duck weed will be completely gone. Then I compost what is left.

The pond is a murky mess for an hour or 2, but the fish are thrilled.

After a few busy weekends just wanted to share the pond I’ve built.

The pic is the inspiration.

I'm planning a small shed/home office in the side yard. It's very flat. I'm looking to do something very similar to above, as far as the pond.

• Very shallow (8"-10").
• No fish.
  
• Approx. 20'x20' in size, so about 3k gallons.
• I do want a wide (maybe 6'-8'), shallow drop (a few inches about waterline) waterfall, mostly for sound.

I'm comfortable with construction, but want to learn about necessary filtration and pumps. I have a water turtle with a large DIY tank, so I'm somewhat versed in filtration, but I don't know where to start at this scale. Any direct input from those with experience will be appreciated. And can you recommend resources to learn from? websites? Youtube channels? Thanks in advance!

I have a piece of property that is a peninsula in a deep bay off a large river system located in Northwest Ontario. The water moves pretty well through the main river, however the bay it is pretty calm and I have two fairly stagnant areas to the north and south of my property. In these areas around the mid July as the water warms algae blooms form in the weeds along my banks on the south and northeast point. Is there any way I can stop these blooms from forming?

Pictures:

1. Is an overhead view. My property is highlighted blue and north is roughly the top of the photo. The main problem area is from the south shore about 75' from shore. The area is roughly only 2-4' deep here. Then drops to about 7' in a narrow boating channel. At the West Bend there is a small creak that feeds the river from a large marsh.

2. From my dock looking east toward the main river channel. You can see the weed line pretty much starts at the front of my boat.

3 -5. From my deck looking west. You can see the large algae blooms that have formed. These start by adhering to the plant growth, then grow in size from there, at least two feet thick. The weeds are dense here and there isn't much current.

1. Smaller problem area on the north east portion on my property. 2-4' deep.

I was thinking aeration, as I only have power at the mid point of my property. It is another 450' to the dock. This makes a fountain extra costly.

I'm open to thinning out some weeds but there is a fairly healthy ecosystem of fish and other marine life and it is a known breeding zone for musky, so I don't want to disrupt too much. I just really would like to remove the blooms as they are unsightly, smell and dislodge themselves, floating by us while swimming, which isn't enjoyable when you swim or dive through them.

Purchased a home this spring that came with a koi pond. Sellers said pond is established and from what I’ve seen everything is thriving just fine. They told me it’s a 1200 gallon pond and now that I’m reading some posts here I’m concerned about the number of fish.

It’s got three big koi (each a foot in length?) and dozens of smaller koi about 3-6 inches long. They all seem to do be doing fine but sounds like this pond is overcrowded for the amount of fish. What is the best way to get rid of the smaller fish? Should I just post online selling them? What if I get no takers? I live kind of rurally, I can’t imagine people around here will want a bunch of little koi.

Thanks in advance or any advice !

I've put in an offer on my first house and the property comes with a ~1 acre pond.

I'm excited to be a steward of the ecosystem, but I've never had to manage a pond before. Unfortunately, the current owners don't know much about the backstory of the pond (e.g., earth pond, spring fed pond, etc.).

Overall, the pond ecosystem seems quite healthy. The owners say they fish in the pond and the plant life along the banks is very vibrant. No weird smells or anything like that. The pond is in the northeast US.

My main questions are :

* Is there anything to be done about the algae and duckweed? The photos above were taken in late summer (August) and I know direct sun + heat will contribute to algae blooms. I'm wondering if there are filtration systems, plants, fish, etc. that can help with this after an initial skim. I'm open to any solutions, but the single fountain doesn't seem to be sufficient for aeration.

* Any idea what the thing in the second picture is? It's ~10 feet to the left of the fountain in the pond.

* Is there any hope of making this thing swimmable?

*Anything else I should know as a first time pond owner?

Hi,

The lights are on the outside btw.

Pond is: 155gallons

I’ve had my pond up an operational for right at about a year now and everything has been great. My pond and bog filter are created using one large continuous liner. It’s folded around a lot where it is stuffed into the bog filter. Apparently I now have water being pushed up through the folds of my liner and going up and over my bog filter edge and out of the pond. Has anyone else ever dealt with this? I worry it means my bog filter is too dense if the path of least resistance is through a tight fold in the liner. My intentions for fixing it are to trim the liner in a manner that will let me fold it back on its self so the edge of the liner goes back into the bog filter. That way even if it’s pumping through the fold it just goes back into the pond.

Hello fellow pond enthusiasts! I wanted to share my recent BioFalls filter horror story so that I can educate others. I had my koi pond built in August of 2024. My pond installers put bare root umbrella palm in my waterfall filter. It grew really fast and gave my pond a beautiful tropical look. However, it quickly began to overtake my bog. By mid-2025, I expressed concern to the koi pond guys, suggesting they trim it down. It was getting really tall and wide. They told me to (and I quote): "Let it grow."

WORST advice I've ever gotten. I listened to them, and "let it grow". Fast-forward to August 2026. The umbrella palm completely took over my BioFalls filter with its dense, matted root system. It dislodged both of my filter pads. My husband and I spent all day outside in the 97-degree heat here in Houston removing the root system. I kid you not, we removed at least 100 pounds of roots. They grew so thick that they matted my foam filter pads together like concrete. It took heavy duty pruning shears, a hand saw, and a Sawzall to cut through the thicket of roots. Once we finally got the roots out, we needed a shop vac to remove the sludge.

I am sharing this because I got BAD koi pond advice from the people who built my pond. Do not put bare root umbrella palm in your BioFalls filter and "let it grow". It grows fast. Yes, it is a fish waste sponge and filters the water well, but it's not worth the long-term maintenance. There are plenty of non-invasive plants you can put in your bog. I ended my koi pond maintenance contract, and I am going to manage my pond on my own now.

Photos:

1. The umbrella palm we removed (circled in black). At least 100 pounds of matted roots overgrown in the filter. I should have taken pictures of the root mass, but I was muddy and sweaty and not thinking about pictures at the time.
2. The filter basin after we emptied it out, several hours later.
3. The BioFalls replanted with friendly, non-invasive plants. The lizard's tail in the center is potted.
4. The waterfall. It flows so much better now, without the overgrowth. I had been having issues with water leakage and evaporation. Not now. The water is flowing exactly where it is supposed to flow.
5. A current picture of my koi pond as of today, 08.30.2026.

I hope this post helps someone. We'd all like to think we can trust our koi pond builders, but unfortunately, we need to do our own research as well. Be careful about the plants you put in your bog. That's the moral of this story.

Edited to correct language: I have a BioFalls filter system, not a true bog filter, as originally stated.

When I was weeding around my little pond today, I found a baby gray tree frog! It made my day 🐸

What's the best way to clean rocks? Only way I was able to think to clean the 2 smaller sections on the right of my pond was to drain them and then shop vac the sludge up. Anyone have a better way?

Used to have a decent sized koi pond but we downsized so this is my new Pondle (not a pond not a puddle). Troy, Emmitt, and Michael are enjoying it so far.

What heater should I buy without it burning a hole in my plastic? I Want to keep my guppy in there still

Had the honor to renovate this 100,000 gallon pond at the residence of the Japanese Ambassador in Washington DC. New pumps, re sealed. Lost 5 out of 455 koi. 99% survival rate isn't bad!

Link to build video NovaPonds

Would love ideas and advice on how to develop my newly clean pond! It’s about 3x4 feet, about 2 foot deep (in the UK). It has a solar powered filter fountain and a few small plants but looks so dull and empty to me - I’d love to make it really lush without letting it get totally choked up. I will be topping it up when the hosepipe ban is lifted, I’m aware the low level right now makes it look even worse with the liner showing!