Duck Pond questions

[mirandaleecon]

Hello! I am in the process of digging a pond (by hand!!) for my ducks and I have questions! I'm digging this pond in an area (maybe 1/4 acre, hard to tell since it goes into the woods) that regularly floods to about a 1/2-1 foot deep and will hold water for a couple weeks. All I want to do is make it maybe a foot deeper so that it will be below the water table (ours is super high already) and will retain water longer.

So, my questions: Has anyone dug their own pond for ducks specifically?
Did you do anything to keep the water clean besides filtering? I don't want to use a filter because it will be too big of an area and I don't want the hassle. So I was thinking of aerating and adding some different fish/critters to help get an ecosystem going. Just not sure what specifically.
How many ducks could a pond handle before the ducks just turn it into poop soup?? I have 7 right now but who knows in the future.
Also, do you let your ducks sleep on the pond? There are a lot of predators here but I feel like as long as they are on the water, anything that tried to get to them would wake them up from splashing or the predators just wouldn't bother. I had a Muscovy that used to fly to a neighbors pond to sleep for the night and she never had a problem, just got too fat to fly that far...

Any input is appreciated, thanks!

 

[mirandaleecon]

Anybody?

 

[ragdolltb]

I haven't done this but look upba tb show called pool masters (I think). He creates swimming pools with bio filters that use different plants. I'm not sure how it works, but you may be able to find info through that.

 

[mirandaleecon]

Oh cool, thank you!