…the algae.
Algae absorbs all the oxygen from the pond, creating lots of byproducts which kill off pond life. The killed pond life, then putrify leaving acids which affects sustainable growth.
If you’ve cleared the algae, you could just drop a few tadpoles in and see how they fare. If they don’t live - it’s a bit like trying to manage a larger outdoor fish tank!
Oh cool nice one, thing is I have nowhere I could get em, and apparently your not allowed to buy em
Tadpoles: Makes sense you are not allowed to buy them. We have nature conservation rules in this country and some of them are straightforward and sensible.
Algae: It’s a great indicator that a pond is not in natural balance. Being slightly unnatural, garden ponds are pretty delicate bu88ers to get right. Loads of stuff on the interweb thingy. Also a lot of sh!t. You’ll soon spot which is which.
Just remember, you don’t need to invest in poxy chemicals, just a good thorough clean out and perhaps some plants and a bit of shading if the pond is in full sunlight for more than an hour or two a day.
A bundle of barley straw will help control algae.
Here’s some of the tads we’ve had munching on a piece of chicken. When it rains heavily at night you see loads of the lil’critters!
We have frogs and toads, as said above, water is needed to breed and for keeping cool in the summer!
Tadpoles are great! When I was a kid our dad would take us to collect frogspawn from ponds on the Heath. We’d keep it in a fish tank till it hatched and the tadpoles became little frogs. Then we’d stock our garden pond with them. Don’t know if you have kids but it’s a great learning experience for them to see the tadpoles slowly grow inside the eggs then hatch, sprout legs and finally become tiny little frogs! Not sure you’re allowed to take them from the Heath nowadays but if you’ve got any ponds nearby you could go out with some tupperware boxes next spring and collect some frogspawn. Just make sure you only take a little so you don’t decimate the native frog population. Trouble with taking grown frogs is that they are migratory so if you take them from a nearby pond they’ll just try and find their way back again to breed in the spring.
they love raw bacon
So will tadpoles still be tadpoles at the mo or are they more likely to be frogs? Or in the transition stage
We still have the odd tad, the ones we rear in the house develop so fast but some the ones in the pond are still tads all these months on?
given time and fish will appear, usually perch first, depends on how big the pond is tho.
I was mowing a relatives lawn the other day - the grass was quite long and as I pushed the mower along I saw this tiny frog hopping away from the blades - I stopped the mower and went to catch it - as I caught it I saw another one hopping in the grass - I caught both of them and put them in a bit of the garden where they would be safe from the mowers blades.
I couldn’t bear the thought of chopping any of the little bleeders up so I checked the lawn to see if there were anymore of em.
I ended up catching ten more and put them all in a safe corner of the garden before I was satisfied I wasn’t going to accidentally commit frogslaughter. 
i used to stay at a family friends house in the summer holidays as a kid due mainly to the local fishing:D
at the bottom of the garden there was a manhole cover, lifting it up you would find and old section of pipework, wasnt sewage just water, but it was normally alwasy dry, anyway it was home to **** loads of frogs, some were quite big, i used to see if i could get them to race each other:D
Right lol! Who can I pick some tadpoles/ frogs from? Who’s donating? I’m in woodford/Epping, my little girl is doing her nut about getting some
“given time and fish will appear, usually perch first, depends on how big the pond is tho”
Fish do not come from tadpoles!
How would fish suddenly enter a pond unless introduced? They don’t migrate like frogs on their legs…
Cakesy - it’s getting late season - maybe plan for the tadpoles next spring, and get the pond in balance first before the winter?
I’m in Romford (15-20mins away). About 6 weeks back we a few tads left. I’ll have a look later. We bought a 10"-12" tank with a lid (lettuce water smells) to keep them in the house for £10.
You can feed them on cold boiled lettuce and blood worms. I have seen 2-3 young frogs in the last week or so, so they may all have evolved to frogs now. We didn’t keep them in the house this year so there is not the abundance we’d normally have.
Yeah, please explain Ratty?
I had a quick delve with my Son, we found 1 tadpole. If you want it, its yours. There may be more in there?
Right sneaky, look after that tadpole as if it was a family member and I’ll be over the weekend
I’ve just seen a couple of young frogs out there this evening. TBH I’d think that you’ll already have frogs if you have a pond. Get you a good torch and get out there late at night when its been raining. I think that the wet nights are better cause the worms come up out of the soil?
Regarding the boiled lettuce, you separate it and freeze it…
ah but they do migrate…
amphibians populate open waters like fair size ponds, recently excavated and filled with water gravel pits etc
then the fish come, it is thought that they are carried on birds legs, fish spawn that is, often its perch first then followed by sticklebacks & eels (with eels specially if the water is near flowing water or drains etc) then pike 
its argued exactly how the fish appear but appear they do!
