Hi, over-worrier here!

My partner and I dug a pond out earlier this year. To be honest, it was pretty rubbish - it was nearly all ramp and the deepest bit was barely 30cm.

After 5 heatwaves and no rain for months, there was hardly any water left, so at the start of this week, with lots of rain being forecast, we thought it was a good time to sort it out. And it was! We got loads of rain, the pond filled up nicely, and five days after re-digging, we had a frog visitor!

Our mistake came when digging the liner back in; as we were finishing up it started raining again, so we rushed off inside.

When it stopped, we had a very murky pond. Water and mud had cascaded down the side and now it looked like a cup of tea. 2 days later, it's still as bad.

Over-worrying is my specialty, so please put my mind at ease: will the mud settle? Will the plants be alright? And if not, what do I do to make things clear again (until the inevitable algae)?

EDIT: Surprise surprise, I'm worrying over nothing. Thanks for the reassurance everyone!

I built this lined nature pond in our garden about 5-6 years ago. In the past few months I've noticed it's losing A LOT more water than normal. I wedged a ruler between some rocks over the weekend and was shocked to discover we'd lost about 4cm of water in 24 hours!

I ran the bucket test so I could rule out evaporation - which I now have. I've also switched off the waterfall which hasn't slowed the rate of water loss.

Before I accept the likelihood of a leak, could wicking and plant-growth be the cause? As the pictures show, the pond has become very choked with plants - water mint, forget me nots and some reeds which have partially rooted themselves in the bank. Lots of overhanging ivy and grass etc. There's also an area of vegetation (in front of my feet) which was originally a little stoney beach but is now all silted up and covered in bigger plants (2 big Lythrum and some houttuynia). I guess that could be absorbing a lot of moisture up into the surrounding area?

The photos aren't great but the pond is kidney-shaped and about 7 x 7 feet on its longest edges.

Anyone else seeing their snails do this?

We are planning a small wildlife pond and in the area where it will be have had various containers of water for birds and such. However, this year in one of our mosquito dunk containers, we suddenly had tadpoles! So we move them into our makeshift small pond (where the real pond will go).

Now there are probably 100 tadpoles in here and I’m wondering once they get legs and go somewhere. Will it be safe for them as we pull this pond apart and put a new pond in there in the fall?

What are the considerations for all of these tadpoles that are in this pond right now in September in East Coast US? Added photo of mama frog.

I’ve been having some gulf coast toadsspawning in our pond this year, but these don’t quite look like the tadpoles coming out of the eggs. They don’t quite look like mosquito larvae or dragonfly nymphs. I’ve had some Orange/Youkihi Medaka in the pond for a while but I’ve never seen their fry. Anyone know what I’m dealing with here?

I am proposing a wildlife pond a a local pond that is maximum like 6 inches deep. I am probably putting fathead minnows in there and I was wondering how I could keep breeding under control. Also if it helps I'm on the north shore of Chicago about a mile for Lake Michigan.

It’s full of insects and tadpoles but also algae and moss. We planted some plants in it too but not all survived, weeds are pretty much taking over but maybe that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Should I clear out some of the algae and moss or any suggestions?

Just added our first pond (55L)for a frog we saw nearby, he moved in almost immediately which is nice. Planning to add a pump with a small 5L pot as a bog filter soon to give a small amount of flow and noise. Is it worth adding any water snails for algae management?

Featuring the two species of pond snail and assorted wiggly dots that have shown up over the summer 💚🤎

My pond is less than one year old, but gets a ton of direct southern sun. I ran out of room at the bottom for more Lilly coverage, although I’m working on it. So here we are. It’s 50% shade cloth that I will keep up June-Sept basically. Any issues I should watch out for?

8a NC piedmont - I have a smallish pond with Hornwort, water lily, purple pickerelweed, Heart of Jesus, Pennywort, Elephant ears. They are all planted in small river rocks. I know the water lily can stay but if I bring the others inside for the winter do I repot them into soil and just nurse them through, replanting in rocks next year? Thanks, yall.

Hello hello!

I watched some of my tadpoles start to transform but now ive lost sight of them entirely. I realized they may be in or out of the water... this is my first year so are there specif places to look?

Are they just hopping around somewhere close? I just really want to see them😂

This is my pond and my last pic i have of this little guy

Threw a handful of duckweed in mid-April. It lingered in the crevices until about two weeks ago. Then the exponential growth kicked off. Skimmed off some for the compost. Definitely need to keep at it.

My wildlife pond dried up during the drought. As there is rain forecast for the coming days it will begin to fill up again. Should I remove the dried up plants etc that are now left before it fills up again?

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The blue barrel was a 200 liter that I chopped in half and I used the second half as insulation, there's 16 hornwort and 24 Elodea along with some Frogbit and gravel, there's plenty of access to get in and out, the second is a 12 liters paint tray, the full thing looks really green but the actual water is clear this also has hornwort and Elodea and I'm not using any pumps.

The blue barrel has been set up for about 12 days now whereas the black tray has been out for about 3 weeks, both ponds have lots of larvae mostly midge and mosquito and I'm hoping the predators are in there or on their way. Oh and there's water moth caterpillars as well in both.

The thought that this creature spent the last two to three years here as a nymph keeping the food web in motion is just inspiring.

Posting an update on our little pond because I’ve learned so much from the group!

We dug our pond out in late April of this year and made the rookie mistake of installing the wrong liner. (Image 1) Two weeks later we removed what felt like 1,000 pounds of rocks, took the liberty to dig the pond a little deeper and installed the correct liner. (Image 2) By this time, pond plants were more in season so we were able to grab a few from a local pond store, in addition to the ones that we bought from local pond owners on Facebook marketplace. Our yard is quite shady and has a lot of tree coverage, so we used a couple of small solar fountains to keep everything moving until our plants became more established. The plants have done an excellent job at keeping our water extremely clear. At the start, we had some algae growth and a bit of blanket weed that we were able to control with liquid barley. Otherwise, we have not had to treat any other issues in our pond. We’ve had an unusually dry year here in North Carolina, so I wasn’t expecting our ecosystem to start booming until the rain picked up - this has been a true practice of patience. On August 4th, we spotted our first frog friend! I had my suspicions that there may have been some living in the pond before this, but we were overjoyed to see our little buddy sitting on the rocks.

We have seen three or four other frogs resting on the beach side of our pond. Our larger frog has his own private beach hangout spot in the deep end and we can almost guarantee that we’ll spot him each time we go outside. The birds, squirrels and bugs come and drink from the pond and we’ve seen lots of dragonflies zipping around, too!

This little project has brought our family so much joy and we can’t wait to see how it continues to change over the years! Thank you to this incredible Reddit community for helping us get to this point. If you’re in the beginning of your journey, don’t give up! If you build it, they really will come!

(Answer: too many.)

Current image, plus a little feller from last month.

Old greenhouse leveled. Used the metal frame to lift the water level above the ground. Sleepers for 3 sides, to strengthen it. The back is back filled with soil and plants, some log offcuts and plants and some lights. Got a solar pump to come and a submerged rockery on the shelf for plants.