At the moment i have a small fish pond 6ftx6ft it used to be a wildlife pond and as such was a pleasure to sit by and enjoy, eventualy i bought 3 comets and my grand daughters brought me home 10 minnows from a paddling trip, i did not want to dissapoint them so i put them in the pond, the fish that is, not my grand daughters, (although it is illegal to take fish from the wild in the uk) the minnows seemed quite happy. Eventualy the water became cloudy so i bought a pump, biological filter and u/v filter, that cleared the water up beautifully, sadly with it being early spring the pond was short of cover and the 3 comets were taken possibly by a heron. Everything was fine for a couple of months then the stringy algae arrived, the water was so clear that even though the plants had all grown well i could not stop the algae. In the spring i am going to treble the size of my pond and make it back into a wildlife pond, my problem is do i keep the minnows as they are wild anyway or will they eat all the small creatures that i so enjoyed watching the first time around.

"my problem is do i keep the minnows as they are wild anyway or will they eat all the small creatures that i so enjoyed watching the first time around."

If the minnows were local native fish, they can be in your wildlife pond. The benefits are that they will help eat the small creatures you don't want such as biting insects. Being native, they are less likely to eat things like tadpoles than non-native fish but may still eat a few of your small creatures. It's really up to you if you want fish in there or not. I have a page on wildlife ponds at http://www.fishpondinfo.com/wildpond.htm

Thanks Robyn, glad i found your website, it`s full of good things, i have printed out a lot of the information that you have given and put into a folder i hope you don`t mind. I used to go on a bbc pond/fish forum on their gardening w/site but they closed it down, but i have to say yours is more informative, and it`s nice to get a differant point of view from you our american cousins. I will try to let some of my friends from the bbc w/site know about you i am sure they will bi interested Derek.