Habitat - Outdoor :: Dirt/soil in pond

[timmyng531]

i just moved my turtle from my small indoor tank, to an old bathtub, which is outside.

there is one pot, with water lilies coming out of it, the soil inside is securely rooted already.

when i put another pot of a plant in, dirt came pouring out of it, turning the water all brown.

--

are ponds suppose to have soil on the bottom?
if there is dirt in it, wouldnt a filter just suck up all the dirt?....
so, should i just find plants that need no soil?


thanks.

[untsmurf]

Now, I'm not certain because I don't have a pond, but I think it's okay to have dirt in there. You should be able to fill it up and after a while the dirt will settle back down to the bottom. SpotsMama will be able to give a better answer though, I know she has a huge outdoor pond.

[FLhaven4strays]

A bit of dirt in the bottom of an outdoor pond is almost unavoidable from my experience. The dirt will just settle down to the bottom & stay there until the turtle stirs it up again. Just watch out for small pebbles that can be eaten & hurt your turtle!

My pond is about 110 gal (130 - amount displaced by rocks) and there is always a bit of dirt, etc. at the bottom. I do a big water change each week or two (1/2 - 3/4 change) & kind of stir up the bottom to get more of the gunk out, but otherwise I just leave it alone.

I have a small underwater filter/pump that clogs too easily anyway (need to upgrade!) but as I clean it several times a week I don't have much of a problem.

You could try floating plants too, since they don't need any dirt at all. I've had the best luck w/ water lettuce & water hyacinth & my turtles love them both (especially the hyacinth roots) But watch out - they WILL take over your pond. You'll need to thin them frequently. My turtles love water lillies too...so much in fact I finally took them out. They never got a chance to grow.

Glad to see someone else posting about a pond - seems most members live in colder areas where the turtles need to come indoors for the winter. You are somewhere warm, right?

[Terryo]

I don't use any dirt in my pots for my pond. I usually just put the plant in the pot, and put a large rock in there to hold it down. I put one large pot in there with aqua soil in case there is a frog that wants to hibernate. My pond is close to 1,000 gal, and I also have a 60 gal and I have never used any soil for my plants. The waist from the turtles or fish feeds the plants. My plants grow like crazy and I have to divide them every Spring. I get plenty of flowers on the Lilly plants. You could get floating duckweed, that the turtles love to eat, and also some other floating plants. Just go to a plant site and you will find lots of plants. I have been doing this for over 20 years with no dirt.

[Terryo]

FLhaven4strays
I was just reading your post, and you said you do a big water change each week or two ? Do you have a biological filter? The only time that I do a water change is if something is wrong with the water, or if there are sick fish. If you are doing such a frequent water changes you should think about upgrading your filter.
You are right people rarely post on this board. There must be some people out there with ponds. I live in NY, and I do take my turts in for the winter. I would be too nervous to leave them out. It's sad because they love it out there so much and look so sad when they come in.

[GunnerMan]

Yes it's normal/unavoidable to loose some dirt when planting. I usually use 3/8" pea gravel on top of the dirt to hold it in. Most of my plants live in a hybrid material now. it is kind of like cat little but much smaller. It's a hard clay that is safe for animals to ingest. This keeps pond clear especially if you have a res down there sitring everything up all the time.

[SpotsMama]

There aren't any water lilies in our pond because Spot ripped the one we got to pieces, but since last summer a lot of leaves and debris has settled in the pond and there's a lovely blanket of emerald green moss covering everything. I had planned to clean out the pond before putting Spot out for the summer but think instead I'm going to leave it like it is so he can root around in it. Eventually we'll have to clean out the muck but it's not deep enough yet to take up much space and it doesn't seem to be interferring with the pump.

[Terryo]

Oh boy! I can't wait to get out there now. All this talk about ponds has made my long for Spring to get started! Some of the tulip bulbs are coming up now...yay!

[SpotsMama]

Terry, I feel it too! The weather here has been teasing us. Sunday was gorgeous - temps in the mid 70s, sunny. Monday night it froze and we had snow. Wednesday was beautiful - temps in the low 70s, we left our patio doors open for the breeze to blow through. Thursday night it froze and we had more snow - very heavy snow in some parts of the metroplex. What will tomorrow bring????