It's beautiful! We have a similar set up and the birds love it.
Any stand out strategies that have worked well or poorly for you? Trying to learn more.
You are more advanced than us! We have just a large planter full of rocks with enough water for a solar powered pump to keep it circulating. It stops at night but generally keeps it pretty fresh.
We just top it up when the level gets too low for the pump, and empty it in the winter (which lets the rocks dry off and clean up over winter too).
It’s lovely! Can you describe a bit about technical aspects of building and maintaining it? How often do you replenish evaporation, and do you do anything to balance the water?
Certainly, glad to. It is a purpose-built bucket style pond liner from Lowe's. Pump is also a cheapy little store brand one mint for a ceramic cutting tile setup. I just took out the filter because it always gets clogged and contributes nothing. I let it collect rainwater, but it didn't get full fast enough so I treated some tap water with fish tank treatment solution. The rain has replenished it plenty recently and I've kept some buckets out and then cover them to replenish it if it gets low. I put a couple of rosy red minnows from the local shop in there, apparently they are native and they eat the absolute hell out of any mosquito larvas to get in there. I don't do anything to balance the water, it seems to generally take care of itself but I did have some trouble with clay silt settling out so I turned the pump off for a while and put a little bit of sand over everything down there. I did leave the soil for the lilypads in a bucket that is removable just in case I feel uncomfortable with getting underneath the freeze line to save them.
This was initially set up to support frogs in the area. I put the slanted rocks in there to let anything that falls in or maturing tadpoles out of the water. Sometimes the birds will land on the little branches and bathe themselves. The frogs chose a bunch of other spots and not the micropond this year so I committed to the minnows and the pump. I saved some tadpoles from a construction site recently so I've probably got about a hundred and a 40 gallon tank with a bubbler in it. Just responding to what things I can out here lol.
Hope this is helpful, I'm still experimenting with/researching the best ways to set this up as I go.
Thanks! Mine is still a work in progress.
