Do any of you cover.......

[alison]

... your ponds over the winter. I went to my sisters today and she has a pond at the bottom of her garden and her ajoining neighbours garden. They built it together and share the costs etc. She hates it being covered but her neighbour wants it covering so she has always agreed. I can understand the reasoning behind it in the autumn for the leaves do clogg up especially as she has lots of tall broadleaf trees very close to her pond. She says it has been closed over since october but surely it can be opened up by now even if it is just for short periods of time in the sunshine. It is the most unsightly covering I have seen, completely enclosing the pond so no light gets in. Today I had her open one section and soon the fish were coming up to the light. Do you think it would be okay to open it right up now?

[dampflippers]

No, I would never cover a pond! Just in net to keep the leaves out.
If the cover is laid on the surface of the pond then the water won't be oxygented at all, so everything will die.
If it is covered with a dark cover, no light will get in, plants can't photosynthesise, so water not oxygenated, so everything dies.
A cover might block access in or out for pond creatures.

If you look at the pondlife Big Thaw survey results for last year, they think that an iced over pond may not be the only cause of amphibian deaths- that it might be snow on the ice blocking the light, stopping plants producing oxygen, and amphibians etc dying.

They should definitely, in my opinion, only cover it say if frosts or severe cold weather are forecast. At other times in my opinion it will cause more problems than help.

If the neighbour is worried about leaves, then a small mesh suspended tightly over a framework of bamboos and string would suffice. It should leave a gap underneath for amphibians and for birds and wild animals to get to the water. It should not be loose or hedgehogs may get tangled if it drapes down.

I can't believe they have it on with fish! Or is it the sort of ornamntal pond that doesn't have any life apart from ornamental fish and no plants or other pond creatures?
Tell her to stand up for herself next autumn! If necessary build a partition!

[alison]

I know!! I thought it was such a daft thing to do between neighbours and although it looks really nice and they have never had any bad feeling all the time they have lived with these neighbours I wondered what would happen if they did, or if the neighbours sold and moved on etc. What if the new neighbours wanted to fill it in. But it is done, and has been for a few years now and the guy next door has always taken the lead with when to cover etc. In fact this time when he covered over he forgot about the plants that were in and he left them all to die on the side of the pond in my sisters garden.
He seems to like more ornamental Koi rather than all fish that we want as more wildlife ponders. My sister has told me that the covers are off now so I will make her harden up a lot before next autumn I will give her all the points you have made so she has an arsenal with which to go to battle.