Free illustrated guide · 20 chapters
Build it step by step.
Understand it at your own depth.
Garden ponds and swimming ponds: construction, ecology and water chemistry.
Start with the pond you want to build. Then discover how water, plants, microbes and nutrients work together. Every chapter combines an easy introduction, practical drawings and an optional scientific supplement.
Browse all 20 chapters
A quick read or a deeper dive
At a glance explains the main idea. In practice turns it into a drawing and three useful actions. Open Going deeper when you want the mechanism, calculation or scientific detail.
What are you working on?
Planning a new pond
Layout, depth, liner and the first season.
Clearer, healthier water
Filtration, algae, oxygen and useful measurements.
A living garden
Planting layers, microbes and the food web.
A swimming pond
The swimming area, treatment zones and circulation.
Part 1 · Building your pond
Planning a Garden Pond
Choose a purpose before choosing a shape.
Chapter 02Choosing the Right Pond Location
Watch the site in sun, shade and rain.
Chapter 03Pond Depth, Levels and Water Volume
Draw the water level before drawing the bottom.
Chapter 04Excavating and Preparing a Pond
Make the ground ready before the liner arrives.
Chapter 05Pond Liners, Edges and Overflow
The edge is where containment, appearance and habitat meet.
Chapter 06Pond Pumps and Water Circulation
Choose the circuit before choosing the pump.
Chapter 07Pond Filtration and Waste Removal
Catch it, process it and give it a way out.
Chapter 08Swimming Ponds: Swimming and Treatment Zones
Design the bathing space and treatment space together.
Chapter 09Pond Planting Zones and Layers
Match each plant to a real position.
Chapter 10Starting a New Pond: The First Season
Start with a recorded baseline.
Part 2 · Understanding living water
How a Pond Ecosystem Works
Follow where material goes, not just how the water looks.
Chapter 12Light, Temperature and Dissolved Oxygen
An afternoon reading does not describe the whole day.
Chapter 13Pond Microbes and Biofilms
The useful community is mostly attached, not just floating around.
Chapter 14The Pond Nitrogen Cycle
Conversion and removal are different jobs.
Chapter 15Pond pH, Alkalinity and Hardness
pH, alkalinity and hardness answer different questions.
Chapter 16Pond Sediment and Phosphorus
The bottom remembers yesterday's inputs.
Chapter 17Understanding Pond Plants and Algae
Manage the conditions behind the growth.
Chapter 18The Garden Pond Food Web
Small habitats support connections you cannot see at first.
Chapter 19Testing Pond Water
The right sample is as important as the right test.
Chapter 20Seasonal Pond Care
Work with the season and keep a simple record.
Keep exploring
Use the pond calculators and tools alongside your sketch, or visit the complete guide library for plant selection and detailed care guides.
Sources and further reading
- R1 · Royal Horticultural Society. How to Make a New Pond.
- R2 · Freshwater Habitats Trust. Garden Pond Advice Hub.
- R4 · Health and Safety Executive. Excavations.
- R6 · Royal Horticultural Society. Aquatic Plants: Planting Guide.
- R7 · Royal Horticultural Society. Invasive Non-native Plants.
- S01 · USGS. Dissolved Oxygen and Water.
- S02 · USGS. Alkalinity and Water.
- S03 · USGS. Alkalinity calculation methods and carbonate speciation.
- S04 · USGS. DOTABLES: dissolved oxygen solubility calculations.
- S05 · WHO/IPCS. Environmental Health Criteria 54: Ammonia (1986). Includes the Emerson temperature relationship.
- S06 · US EPA. Municipal Nutrient Removal Technologies Reference Document (2008). Stoichiometric nitrification and denitrification demands.
- S07 · Daims et al. Complete nitrification by Nitrospira bacteria. Nature (2015).
- S08 · van Kessel et al. Complete nitrification by a single microorganism. Nature (2015).
- S09 · US EPA. Constructed Wetlands Treatment of Municipal Wastewaters (2000). Engineering context, not a bathing-pond sizing standard.
- S10 · USGS. Phosphorus and Water.
- S12 · Scheffer et al. Alternative equilibria in shallow lakes. Trends in Ecology & Evolution (1993). DOI: 10.1016/0169-5347(93)90254-M.
- S13 · Schindler et al. Eutrophication of lakes cannot be controlled by reducing nitrogen input: results of a 37-year whole-ecosystem experiment. PNAS (2008).
- S14 · Paerl et al. Dual phosphorus and nitrogen nutrient reduction will be more effective than a phosphorus-only reduction in mitigating diatom and cyanobacterial booms in Lake Erie, USA-Canada. Limnology and Oceanography 69 (2024), 2913–2928.
- S16 · Stewart and Franklin. Physiological heterogeneity in biofilms. Nature Reviews Microbiology (2008).
- S17 · Stewart et al. Reaction–diffusion theory explains hypoxia and heterogeneous growth within microbial biofilms associated with chronic infections. npj Biofilms and Microbiomes 2 (2016), 16012. Model context; not pond-specific parameters.
- S19 · Azam et al. The ecological role of water-column microbes in the sea. Marine Ecology Progress Series 10 (1983), 257–263.
- S20 · USGS Organic Matter Research Laboratory. What is Organic Matter?
- S22 · US EPA. Indicators: Conductivity.
- S23 · USGS. Water-quality parameter definitions: light attenuation.
- S24 · US EPA. HAB Methods: cyanobacteria and cyanotoxin detection.
- S25 · CDC. Healthy Swimming: prevention guidance for untreated recreational water.
The watercolour scenes are AI-generated illustrations, not photographs of inspected installations. Labelled diagrams are conceptual and not to scale; calculated graphs and synthetic examples are marked as teaching models.