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RAUK - Archived Forum - pond water - can I use tap?

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pond water - can I use tap?:

Author	Message
Louise Member Joined: 26 May 2004 No. of posts: 2 View other posts by Louise	Posted: 26 May 2004 We have a 1 year old pond approx. 4m x 3m . 80 cms at deepest point - but very shallow round the edges. We have some tadpoles (not many but I'm proud of them!) For some reason the pond is losing water - I think because it's seeping into surrounding soil due to way we've laid the liner. Water level has dropped by about 10 cms in 2 weeks. I appreciate I need to fix this but meantime can I top up the pond with tap water gradually over a couple of weeks - or must I let the water stand first? (I'm a working mother of 2 small kids and husband at present unfit due to a bad back - I would prefer to top up with a hose if possible to save time). Thanks Louise Swanson

Mike Senior Member Joined: 15 Feb 2003 No. of posts: 74 View other posts by Mike	Posted: 26 May 2004 Louise, Some of your loss will be to evaporation in the warm weather, we have lost about the same amount due to the weather and marginal plants around the edge. Ideally you should not use tap water directly, it should stand, for how long - pass, somebody else here could advise (at least a few days I would have thought), although the pond will probably stand more loss before things get to bad for the inhabitants. In the future see if you can arrange an "automatic" top up. We have a large water butt filled from the house roof. The butt then overflows through pipes into the pond keeping it topped up except in long sunny spells. In an emergency we can then use the contents of the butt to further fill the pond. In last year's long hot spell we were using the contents of the butt which we then had to top up from the tap but leaving it to stand for about 5-6 days. The pond did not seem to suffer and this year we had even more newts and frogs than last year. Regards, Mike. Brickfields Park FREE 25th Anniversary Funday, 4th July 2010. Wildlife, Farm Animals, games, quizzes, refreshments and more. Fun for all. See - http://www.brickfieldspark.org/dates.htm

calumma Senior Member Joined: 27 Jun 2003 No. of posts: 351 View other posts by calumma	Posted: 26 May 2004 Louise I top up my garden pond with tap water - no ill effects observed. It would be a bad idea to drop tadpoles into tap water directly, best to leave it to stand a few days. However, if you are simply topping up a pond, the tap water will be diluted by the existing pond water. As Mike says though, a less wasteful method would be to use rainwater collected and stored in water butts. Lee Lee Brady Kent Herpetofauna Recorder \| Independent Ecological Consultant Email

GemmaJF Admin Group Joined: 25 Jan 2003 No. of posts: 2090 View other posts by GemmaJF	Posted: 26 May 2004 Louise, I agree with Lee on this, you can safely use tap water as a top up if it's less than 10-20% of the total volume (dropping tadpoles directly into tap water can be lethal to them) You may get an algal plume due to the chemicals added to tap water, but this usually clears within a few days. This can prove more of a problem if you constantly top up with tap water and ultimately lead to eutrification of the pond. We have exactly the same set up, liner with soil around the edge and have seen the same sort of drop in level in just a few days. So overall it's OK to top up with tap water in emergencies but better to have a couple of water butts on standby in the long term as suggested. Gemma Fairchild, Independent Ecological Consultant

Louise Member Joined: 26 May 2004 No. of posts: 2 View other posts by Louise	Posted: 27 May 2004 Thanks everyone! I'll get the hose out now (and bet it'll then rain for a fortnight!) Louise Swanson

Paul Member Joined: 27 May 2004 No. of posts: 13 View other posts by Paul	Posted: 27 May 2004 Can I jut point out a general rule when building ponds is - use tap water to fill the pond, plenty of pond weed too create oxygen and ONE bucket of pond water - from any local pond, that usually works well, so if your just adding a few buckets of tap water to pond water i doubt it will make much of an impact :)

nennen Member Joined: 06 Jul 2004 No. of posts: 3 View other posts by nennen	Posted: 06 Jul 2004 also try to do it on a week day as the water companies put more chemicals into their water at weekends to cope with the increased demand.

-LAF Senior Member Joined: 03 Apr 2003 No. of posts: 317 View other posts by -LAF	Posted: 19 Jul 2004 And... 2-3 days is enough to allow breakdown of the majority of the chlorine. I can use 100% tap water stood for 3 days in my aquariums without killing off the bacteria in my filters and top up water is only stood for 2 (max!). Regards, Lee. Lee Fairclough

jopedder Senior Member Joined: 24 Jul 2003 No. of posts: 55 View other posts by jopedder	Posted: 22 Jul 2004 A little late in joining into this one, but I always found that if you let tap water have a good airing, a lot of the cholrine comes out. By this I mean filling a bucket with the tap on full and angling the bucket so that it hits the side and bubbles up. You can smell the chlorine really strongly by doing this - showing that cholrine has been released into the air. Not sure how much, relativly, is released, but I always filled my terrapins up like this without any problems.

- pond water - can I use tap?

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