Subject: How green is your pond?

From: [email-masked] (Stephen Bedford Clark)
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 1995 19:20:08 +0000

HOW GREEN IS YOUR POND?

Conservation should be a familiar word to the environmentalist.
We are determined to save whales and protect large areas but mainly without 
thought for a totally neglected  ecological niche, the humble pond. Whether
situated on a village green or in many cases our own backyard, here lies
(with correct management) a fascinating educational microenvironment, full
of the wonders of nature.

Man has artificially created the majority of inland stillwaters and these 
aquatic biotopes have played a vital part in the everyday life of our 
forebearers, as far back as prehistoric man. The onset of piped freshwater 
to dwellings outdated the need for this important communal asset and left
to its own accord, either dried out, stagnated or used as a rubbish dump.
Further agricultural trends have seen improved land drainage and landfilling 
of many livestock watering holes, once a haven for aquatic life.

Travelling along todays highways, many surviving ponds can be seen from the 
roadside and there is a likelyhood that the route your vehicle has taken will 
have been historically predetermined by the location of pools, springs or 
streams. Our pre-mechanised dusty tracks were once crowded by horse drawn carts
and animals driven to market and just as we now rely on oil for vehicle
replenishment, so water was an essential pre-industrial revolution commodity 
and a great many villages have risen around a ponds.

There are an estimated 3.5 million ponds or pools (defined as small pond) in  
the United Kingdom and the trend is upward. A pool can be a pleasing extension 
for the keen gardener willing to take the challenge of cultivating fragrant 
water lillies, dignified bog irises and other aquatic plants. If correctly 
located, a pond can add a splash colour to otherwise bland landscape and 
culture a rich larder of insects for the local bird population.
To children, a pool can open up a wonderful educational experience and 
appreciation of the wondrous environment we live in.

The success of a wildlife pond is an understanding of the basic theory of 
nature's aquatic food chain, to which as pondkeepers you can ultimately 
create. From the moment the first sunlight strikes the fresh poolwater, there 
is a transformation from an inert to living state and in a few weeks the water 
will be redefined as a living"soup" stocked full of microscopic animals. 
The colonisation of plants including single celled algae (the green water 
colour in Springtime) to the pool form the backbone and foundations for life.
Primary aquatic creatures namely rotifers, daphnia, cyclops etc... 
feed upon this vegetative matter and in turn are preyed upon by carnivorous 
insects such as pondskaters, backswimmers and dragonflies. The growing aquatic
larder attracts further potential residents to the pond  that include frogs, 
toads, newts and all manner of birdlife. 
The organic cycle is completed by the tireless work of microscopic bacteria 
breaking down decomposing bodies of plants and animals and recycling and 
revitalising the watery "soup".

This oversimplified explanation, a combination of natural phases, adjusts 
itself by the fact that the aquatic environment is constantly changing.
Certain species within the food chain disappear and our replaced by others.
However, take away one important component of this complex puzzle and the
whole process can disintegrate to a barren or stagnated wilderness.

The technological advances in pondkeeping have given us plastic liners,
mechanical and biological water filtration coupled with chemical additives to 
fight disease and ultra-violet sterlizers to produce the ultimate clinical
environment.These automated systems can and do work, but not without forfeiture
for the normal abundance of natural life cannot exist in these antiseptic 
conditions. The singlemost major problem in pond /lake culture today is that 
one or many pieces of this cyclic puzzle is disregarded and therefore the 
"pond balance" is incomplete.

So what can pondkeepers do, to redress the imbalance and create a true
wildlife pond? 

Just a few pointers:

> Study the overall balance of the pond 

> Use an organic pond liner (clay, bentonite, gley etc...)

>  Introduce a wide variety of aquatic plants

> Wherever possible, unless there is a necessity, do not use water filtration

> When introducing fish employ sensible stocking densities

Further information or specific enquires:

Aqua-Terra International Aquatic Ecology Advisory Services
part of THE EARTH CENTRE
Kilners Bridge
Doncaster Road
Denaby Main
South Yorkshire DN12  4DY
United Kingdom

Telephone:      +44 (0)709 770566
Fax:            +44 (0)709 861727
E-mail          [email-masked]

-- 
Stephen Bedford Clark