Mini ponds are 'tiny universes' of biodiversity for gardens and windowsills

The article is correct in my experience. If you build a pond, wildlife will come. I would only add that having a simple pump to create a little flow and oxygenation really helps reduce algae and mosquitoes. If the pond is deep enough (18&quot;&#x2F;50cm), it will frustrate raccoons.<p>I&#x27;ve done two small fish ponds using heavy duty rigid plastic liners expecting only the fish (koi and shubunkin) would enjoy it. We live less than ~10 miles&#x2F;~15 km from downtown Boston.<p>We were surprised to see the second pond, which is next to the north side of our basement and on a small hill, gets all kinds of animals and birds coming to drink. Racoons, possum, fox, squirrels, and many types of small birds. Without fail, one or two tree frogs find it every summer and settle in on the water plant we put out there (taro) in a semi-submerged pot.<p>The frogs disappear in the early autumn. Before the first hard frost, we bring the taro plant inside in a bucket, and place it next to a sunny window for the next 6 months. By mid-December the pond freezes over except where we have a small pump running. The fish go dormant at the bottom, under the ice.<p>Then in spring it starts back up again. The ice melts, the fish come back to life, and the animals return to drink. I am going to put the taro plant back out in May, and once again the pond will be the center of life in our side yard.

One of the delights I discovered over the last few years is constructing and maintaining sweet water &quot;jarrariums&quot;; I take whatever glassware I fancy - pots, jars, glasses - collect some soil and plants from an interesting pond I find somewhere, put it in and just let it do it&#x27;s thing - don&#x27;t interfere, just wait.<p>It&#x27;s amazing how much life lifts in with just that bit of soil; I have a few jars from three years ago (that I leave mostly closed) which have shown multiple generations of woodlice, water snails, little mussels, spiders, water fleas, beetles, worms. Sometimes, the whole pot turns opaque green for a few days, and then a few days later it clears up and I find some new life in there I have never seen before.<p>Highly enjoyable to have on your desk or in the window sill!

I really want to make a tiny pond at my house, but I&#x27;m afraid of the mosquitoes.<p>My native plant supplier encouraged tiny ponds, saying that while you may need mosquito dunks to kill the larva at first, once wildlife is established in your pond e.g. dragonflies will control the mosquitos just fine. I believe him (or at least that it worked for him), but I feel like I would need to do more research before putting it to the test.

Pond water is perfect for using in a DIY laser microscope <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;civilpedia.org&#x2F;p&#x2F;?t=Laser-Microscope&amp;pid=30" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;civilpedia.org&#x2F;p&#x2F;?t=Laser-Microscope&amp;pid=30</a><p>All you need is something to &#x27;hold&#x27; a drip of water - I pipette or syringe is best but it can be done with a chopstick, a laser (any colour) and a white wall or screen tk project the image on.<p>Suspend the drip, shine the laser through the drip and see the amazing tiny things living in the water.<p>I&#x27;ve not done it for a while, I better try this out again soon, the kids will love it.

Almost 20 years ago I helped my mom make a hole for a deep pond in her backyard—a previous occupant had a concrete shallow pond, and her attempts to add goldfish only resulted in turning it into a buffet for the raccoons. The deeper one just needed pond liner and a pump, and it was good to go. Now the only thing that can get to the goldfish is an occasional heron, which is far more enchanting than raccoons. Also the gulf coast toads make for a wonderful spring&#x2F;early summer soundtrack.

I ran a couple container-ponds for a year at my old apartment. It was great until the racoons discovered it. They would dig up the bottom and try to eat the fish and shrimp. Otherwise it was a rewarding experience.<p>I used medaka(ricefish) and a couple airline filters fed with a single air pump run into a splitter to control mosquitoes. I used an aquarium heater for a bit but the electric bill ended up being quite high because it ran too often. You&#x27;re better off moving the fish inside in the winter if you&#x27;re in a colder climate. I&#x27;m in San Diego and probably could have kept white cloud minnows all year but I was into medaka at the time. I also had a large population of neocaridina shrimp and aquatic snails that I hoped would control algae(they did not).<p>I got plenty of birds visiting, and the ponds became a favorite watering hole of the local bees. For whatever reason, SoCal bees are not aggressive, so I didn&#x27;t mind the 20+ bees constantly filling up while standing on my floating plants.<p>I did end up buying daphnia and moina online since they never colonized the ponds naturally.<p>I also had a couple &quot;pond jars&quot; to maintain the daphnia&#x2F;moina population. Those regularly attracted mosquito larvae which ended up as food for the medaka as well as my indoor aquarium fish. I figured the jars were a form of mosquito control since the larvae never reached adulthood.<p>I initially topped off the ponds with 0ppm, deionized water that I used for my indoor aquarium(I ran a hippie tank with 0 water changes so I needed pure water to top-off). Eventually I switched to using a filter housing filled with &quot;catalytic carbon&quot; which supposedly handles both chlorine and chloramines. I was scooping out enough floating plants regularly to balance the incoming minerals from the tap water used to top it off.<p>I&#x27;d do it again at some point when my daughter is old enough to appreciate it. But next time I&#x27;ll use some protection against critters digging up things. One nice companion to all of this is a $300 chinese microscope. It&#x27;s fun to see the pond life under magnification.

I have seen people online dig a pit, let pigs hang out in the pit and in a process called “gleying” the pigs seal the pit making it watertight.<p>I have some acreage and would love to try this out to create a pond, but there are never any real good details on this - what areas it works best, etc etc.<p>Anyone here have experience with making their own pond without using a liner?

Be sure there’s something in there to eat mosquito larvae. In larger ponds there are little fish that you can get that do this.

Kev has a great site and videos on all things ponds ranging from mini container ponds to full on landscaping ponds with waterfalls and things.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ozponds.com&#x2F;about&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ozponds.com&#x2F;about&#x2F;</a><p>His specialty though is “bog filters”. These are a natural solution to keeping pond water healthy and crystal clear. They work even for small container ponds.<p>I followed his tutorials and dug a 8x5m lined pond with a 3x3m bog filter and a mini stream connecting them. It’s the highlight of our garden.<p>Highly recommend.

It&#x27;s amazing how much more biodiversity you get in a local area just from having a small garden around. Easily ten times the number of different species of bugs and butterflies and various things. Manicured yards with grass, a couple of non-native flowering plants and a tree or two are practically dead places in comparison.<p>If I ever have a yard of my own I&#x27;m going to do all native plant landscaping and some raised beds for edible plants.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtube.com&#x2F;@journeytomicro" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtube.com&#x2F;@journeytomicro</a> sadly it&#x27;s closing down.

Been looking recently at some of the sad, under used pocket parks in my city that are mostly scrubby grass fields of no interest to anyone but dogs, with a few scattered trees at the edge and been wondering: could this be better as a pond?<p>Seems like it would be better for insects and birds.<p>This seems like a pretty small thing that municipalities could do that would create a lot of visual interest and help birds.

If you don&#x27;t have the space for a pond, you can grow interesting critters in a jar on the windowsill. And if you don&#x27;t have time for that, you can veg out to the Life In Jars channel: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtube.com&#x2F;@LifeinJars" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtube.com&#x2F;@LifeinJars</a>

Our Koi pond attracts lots of wildlife. Birds, insects, frogs, toads, snakes, and turtles in addition to the Koi fish. The frogs are deafening at night. We love it and are going to put a larger one in at our retirement hobby farm that we are building.