UPDATE: 22 May 2019 – After another water feature rebuild, I think we have settled on how it shall now stay. The pump in the middle of the pond at its deepest point and I’ve encased the wiring in a piece of hosepipe and peeled back the turf to bury it. It forms an almost invisible seam in the lawn. That edge will in time become overgrown as I’m leaving the grassed area to the side and behind the pond to go wild and hopefully accumulate wildflowers with a little seed assistance.
The water is relatively clear, albeit with a green hue, but no layer of floating pond weeds nor algae, just a few mosquitoes and some of their larvae. I’ve not seen the frog for a day or two.
UPDATE: 19 May 2019 – We rebuilt the water feature and used a longer length of hosepipe to get the pump deeper and into the middle of the pond. During the work, we must have disturbed a new, amphibious resident, Mrs Sciencebase spotted it first, a large-looking Common Frog, Rana temporaria, seemed to have an almost pinkish hue in the greenish water. It’s a good sign of a healthy wildlife pond, we believe.
Well, we’re two weeks into PondLife, no sign of the frogs yet, but plenty of green matter forming a blanket in the bottom of the pond, and some algae on the top. The plants have survived so far, but maybe there are not enough to keep the algae down. A pump is now in situ and a few extra rocks installed to create a nano-Niagara.
The aerating, circulating effect of the pump and, probably more to the point, a bit of skimming of the surface with a sieve seemed to clear the algae, which hadn’t taken too much of a hold.
You can read about the initial work, the redesign, and the plants here:
Beginning – Part 1 – Operation Sciencebase Pond
Lining – Part 2 – PondLife moves on
Restructuring – Part 3 – A new landscape
Planting – Part 4 – Oxygenators and filters