Building a Complete Pond Ecosystem
When building a pond, you have to remember that a pond is not just a fancy piece of garden décor. Ponds are a living entity that need to be incorporated into your backyard’s ecosystem. A thriving pond requires a symbiotic relationship between all components of your pond: water, fish, plants, and other animals.
The Pond Ecosystem
There are many levels within a pond's ecosystem, all of which have their own characteristics. A pond’s ecosystem comprises the smallest microscopic organisms, such as bacteria and phytoplankton, up to the predators that are the highest up on the food chain, including frogs and fish. What you have to keep in mind is that all levels of the eco-system have interdependencies on each other. Therefore, to properly maintain a pond, you need to ensure that all levels are properly balanced. Also, each tier of the pond ecosystem require the tier prior (for example, frogs and fish cannot exist in the ecosystem without larval insects, and plankton cannot live without the microscopic bacteria and plants).
Water -> Microscopic bacteria and Plants -> Plankton -> Larval insects -> Frogs and Fish