09:10 · cloud, 14°C · basking log, north end

Slowwater Pond

3.2 by 2.4 metres behind the shed, dug over two weekends in April 2019, and the animals that moved in afterwards. Written down here so I stop keeping it in my head. Updated when something changes, which is not often.

01The pond

A butyl liner over a layer of old carpet, seventy centimetres at the deepest point, and a small pump that moves about three thousand litres an hour through a box filter behind the shed. Two bricks and a half log hold the only basking spot; everything else in the water is hornwort, water hyacinth from June, and whatever the birds drop in.

It is not a koi pond and it was never meant to be one. The hyacinth and the hornwort do most of the work in summer; in October the hyacinth comes out in a bucket and the pump goes down to a trickle. The water goes green in June and clears again by September, which took me three years to stop worrying about.

The painted turtle arrived in June 2019 from a rescue two counties over. He has been here since, and the pond has been arranged around him ever since — quieter filter, deeper shelf, one log he approves of.

02Who lives here

The painted turtle

Six years old when he arrived, twelve by my count now. He basks from about nine in the morning until the shade crosses the log, and he pushes the frogs off without any obvious regret.

The box turtle

A land enclosure on the other side of the shed, two metres by one, leaf litter and a shallow dish. She has never been in the pond and the two have never met.

The basking log

Oak, half submerged, held down by two bricks. It goes soft every other year and gets replaced. Everything in the pond queues up for the warm end of it.

Beyond the turtles: four goldfish that were supposed to be food, a moving population of pond snails, and frogs that arrive in March and leave before anyone can count them.

03Seasonal log

• 2026-09-14Water down to 17 °C. Still basking, but only in the middle of the day now.
• 2026-07-26Hyacinth has doubled again — two bucketfuls out. Skimmer clogged twice this week.
• 2026-05-18First really green water of the year. Added hornwort and stopped feeding for a fortnight.
• 2026-03-22First basking of the year, forty-five minutes on the flat end. Ice went a week earlier than last year.
• 2025-11-18Stopped eating. Pump down to a trickle, filter off, log lifted out for the winter.

04Care notes

What I do here, written plainly — not advice for anyone else's pond or anyone else's animal.

• Basking platform dry within minutes and above the waterline. A wet platform is worse than none.
• UVB tube over the indoor tub from November to March, twelve hours a day, replaced every autumn.
• Ten per cent water change weekly through summer, twenty-five per cent at the end of September.
• Pellets most days, feeder fish twice a month, dandelion leaves from the untreated part of the lawn.
• He overwinters indoors in a tub at 8–10 °C rather than in the pond. Two winters in the pond did not go well.

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