In Zone 5, I wait until late April to begin my spring cleanup. Frogs hibernate on the bottom of the pond and I don't want to disturb them until conditions are safe. If they become active too early, a late freeze can be fatal.

I will start an in-pond pump and filter to begin cleaning the water after the ice clears.

You should not have to drain the pond to clean it.
I use a vacuum and clean the bottom and cut back the iris, rush, and cattails.

There are several questions I would ask before answering you question.

Why do you want to clean the pond? Do you have algae, leaf buildup? Lots of "sludge"? Thin out some fish?

I have a 3500 gallon pond and the only time I remove the water is when I do a fish gather to remove unwanted fish.

If I have sludge buildup, we use a wet/dry shop vac to vacuum the sides and bottom.

Algae, a never ending problem, is treated with barley bales and purchased algae treatment.

As I live in a rural area of S W WA. I have a real problem with leaves and small limbs from lots of different types of trees. I use a pool skinner at least one a week to remove any unwanted material.

Hope this helps!

Belle

My pond is 1100 gallons in USDA zone 4 which means it freezes over pretty good in winter. I do a general clean up about mid-November before the freeze sets in. This means cutting back all the plants in the pots, using a fine mesh net to sweep all the gunk out of the pond, sinking pots to deeper water to avoid freezing solid killing plants, remove pump, clean up and store filter, and plug in thermopond heater. Then I do a similar sweeping with the net in the spring, put plant pots back on plant shelves after fertilizing with Jobe tomato spikes, set up pump and filter, and I'm good to go for the spring/summer/fall. I also remove dead plant bits, leaves and other debris that blow in during the summer on an as needed basis. You should never have to drain water and scrub pond walls or something like that.

thanks for your help guys!

but one thing i dont get... a few of you say i dont need to drain the pond to clean it.. an that i should use a pond vacuum... but i have alot of newts in my pond and recently i found tiny baby newts..
i thought by draining the pond i could gather all the newts and put them somewhere safe...
if i vacuum the pond while its full wont it suck the newts up???

thanks again for all your help guys an girls!

x

If that is the case then I would not vacuum it. Draining it my be the best way for you. I would try using a good fine mesh net and see if you can scoop out a lot of the gunk and then get a good filter going to help with the finer stuff. You may have to do this a few times but it has worked well for me when draining was not practical.

cool!

thanks for all your help everyone! signing up to this site was one of the best things ive done so far! haha!

Hey Scouser, there is a Garden Web pond forum for the UK [click link below] where you may meet up with other ponders from your area and other parts of the UK.
I certainly don't mean to chase you away from this forum, I just thought you may not be aware of the other one and would like to have a look at it.

I don't think it really gets to much action nowadays, since "Scotty" from Derbyshire and a couple more of the regular posters, stopped contributing to it. It could be that during the winter it slows down. But you could try it out and maybe get the flow going again this spring.
Take care,
"Horton"

Here is a link that might be useful: UK Pond Forum.