How much maintenance does your garden or /fish pond need?

I have always dabble in the idea of a fish pond but never got around to it in my plan of things.
I suspect it can be analogous to owning a pool. I do the opening, closing, daily maintenance on an inground salt water pool for years.
I have never wanted to fill it in. Even if the chemicals go off balance at the beginning of the year and I have a nice pool foam or the green of August. Every year I anticipate some failure or replacement of this or that. Pump this year, salt generator another year, a hose or two.
I make things a ritual to help me not think of it as a chore. The joy of opening it, morning coffee while I give it a daily brush, stretching the season as much as possible until I close it before the leaves fly. Yes, I find dead things in it all the time. Chipmunks, snakes, birds, frogs, etc. The fence is high enough to ward off the deer and bear.
My mantra is that everyday is good day if it is clean and balanced. My only angst is when I want to go on vacation. I then ask pool owner friends to check it every 3–4 days.

That sounds similar – except that I have about 30 lives that depend on me. :-)
If I’m not around to scare off the green Heron it would would dine on goldfish sashimi. I have put three, multi-zone motion detectors with transmitters out there. They silently alert me in the kitchen if a bird, chipmunk, squirrel, etc, passes near the pond. I then have to immediately spring into action.
When I get up in the morning I walk out there and check on things to make sure there are no disasters. Every day my pond is like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates: “You never know what you’re gonna get.”

I suppose I could put a 10 ft high electrified fence around it but that would detract from the relaxing view and upset the “wa”.

Respect on the responsibility to 30 lives. I think this is exactly why I never got there. A friend lost most of his to a red-tailed hawk.

We have a natural pond in our backyard. I think it’s only about 1.5m deep, maybe a bit deeper in some places. It’s hard to say how big it is because its edges aren’t straight, but I’d estimate 25m by 50m. There’s a constant supply of fresh water from the stream, and the overflow is piped back into the stream at the back fence.

We don’t feed the animals in our pond, but we keep the backyard insect-friendly and don’t use pesticides or herbicides. I think the pond population is happy…I’ve seen big carp, small crayfish, and many toads – the toads return every year, and there’s a couple of weeks when the property is inundated by baby toads. I suspect there’s also frogs, salamanders, and trout because the pond was originally used to raise trout. For all I know, there’s several other species. I only recently discovered that at night, my strong headlight will let me see right through the water.

Even though there’s no maintenance necessary to take care of the animals and the water itself, there’s other stuff to do. Cutting back weeds, saplings, and brambles around the edges so they don’t take over. Cutting back the reeds on the small island in the middle (using a boat or getting wet). Keeping the pipes clear. Watching the water level if there’s heavy rains (though there are several overflow pits). I haven’t fished out anything dead, but I’m sure the property owner (our neighbor) has.

There’s herons who visit frequently, and we don’t stop them. I’m sure they’re eating many of the fish. If it’s a problem for you, the local fish hatchery uses a realistic-looking scarecrow to deter them. I love having the herons hang out, though. We found one who had injured his wing in our pond last fall. We captured him and took him to the vet, but sadly, he was euthanized as the fracture was too complicated.

If you can’t mow it, don’t grow it.

For protection from birds you can easily make a frame out of PVC pipe and fittings, then cover with a net. I do that every spring to protect the cherries on my cherry tree. There are even 45 degree fittings so you can make an oval-ish frame if you wanted.

My neighbor had a koi pond I could see outside my kitchen window, and every day he was out there trying to clear the filter. Looked like a huge headache.
Before he could sell his house, he had to fill it with gravel.

So a raccoon or house cat ate the shibunken out of ours. I started the process of making it bigger and deeper but it has sat halfway finished since October. I just have not had any free time since then. When it’s working it needs almost no maintenance.

I see that I am not the only one with these issues. I’ll have to figure out other jobs that can be automated. ....another project.