Bathtub pond

[ameno]

I'm planning on acquiring an old bathtub to use as a sort of pond, or more like a big container filled with water, for the lotuses I grew last year
But what I want to know is, must it be an enamelled steel tub, or would the more common acrylic and fibreglass be suitable? Does anyone know if those ones will last for several years outside without becoming too brittle or disintegrating?

[burnie]

Fibreglass is used for all sorts of containers including boat hulls, so sure it will be ok, I have actually sunk out old cast iron tub in the ground and then used a liner to make the pond bigger.

[nickdub]

Just to add that any water container with steep sides should ideally have some vegetation arranged so that various animals which fall in can have a way of climbing out, otherwise it's a bit of a death rap.

[ameno]

Just to add that any water container with steep sides should ideally have some vegetation arranged so that various animals which fall in can have a way of climbing out, otherwise it's a bit of a death rap.

It won't be sunk into the ground. It'll literally be like a container, sat on the surface of the ground. I can't imagine any small animals could even get up into it.
I probably should prop a log or something up the side, though, just in case.

[75 Teak Street]

I'm planning on acquiring an old bathtub to use as a sort of pond, or more like a big container filled with water, for the lotuses I grew last year
But what I want to know is, must it be an enamelled steel tub, or would the more common acrylic and fibreglass be suitable? Does anyone know if those ones will last for several years outside without becoming too brittle or disintegrating?

How did this work out for you? The rules on my site have recently changed so we are now allowed ponds. I'm made up about this development and will be trying to get hold of an old bath over the winter so i can have a go at creating a pond next spring.

[ameno]

I managed to get hold of rather a nice roll-top resin bathtub in the end for £10.

Mine may be a little different from what you have planned, though, since mine is less of a pond, per se, and more of just a submerged growing area for aquatic vegetables. It's half filled with clay soil fertilised with pelleted poultry manure, then filled the rest of the way with water. The bathtub is just sat on the ground, rather than being buried up to its top, and I have only one type of plant growing in it, planted directly into the soil, not in aquatic pots.
It's not the lotuses I had originally planned, though, as it transpires they didn't survive the winter. Instead, at the beginning of June I bought two duck potato (Sagitaria latifolia) plants, little things in 8cm pots, leaves only about 4 inches long.
They have certainly thrived, though. The two plants are now massive, with leaves some 3 feet long and big stolons arching their way out of the soil. They are meant to give a crop of tasty golf ball-sized corms in the autumn, of which you save a few to grow again next year then eat the rest. After the first frosts kill the leaves I will have the pleasure of groping around in freezing cold mud to find them all.

There was a small amount of animal life in there in the summer, despite being raised off the ground as it is. Namely, thousands of tiny pink water fleas (presumably eating the algal growth), and maybe a dozen or so water beetles (presumably eating the water fleas).
Despite the soil in the bottom, the water is surprisingly clear. The nutrients in the soil dissolving out into the water are supposed to encourage copious algal growth, but I only ever had algae growing on the sides of the bath, never any free-floating in the water. And the soil itself only ever made the water cloudy after it was disturbed (such as by heavy rain), and the particles soon settled out of the water and back to the bottom, leaving it clear again.

[Nicos]

Sounds a really interesting project ameno!
Would love to see some photos if poss?

[Snadger]

I used a bath, sunken in the soil as a pond on one of my previous plots. It was a pink fibreglass bath so I covered it with black landscape fabric weighted down with a soil ramp I made from the plughole end to the other end in case something fell in and couldn't get out.
I had water hyacinths growing in it and it attracted frogs and newts.I had it edged with stones and logs and you couldn't tell what its humble beginnings were.