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| I have a lilliepond 7by16 feet 18 inches deep and have a lot of muck down there,must be from pots and ??.I also have gold fish in there,which will come out before freezing,lot of fun that is.I dont want to empty it ,1000gallons,and shuffle it out.lillie pots stay in over the winter,but I can drag them out.So what is the best way to get it clean?any kind of chemicals I get from those water garden catalogs?Any one out there with ideas for me would be greatly appreciated.the stuff is very black.
sigrid_hilde |
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| Hi I might try swireling (sp?) the pond with a paddle or something to create a whirlpool and concentrate the muck in the center of your pond. Then get a shopvac and a helper to turn it on and off so you only suck up the muck and a small amount of water.Don't stand in the water and turn it on and off yourself!!! I wouldn't recommend any chemicals. Let your pond clean itself. This forum stresses patience and plants, and I bought into it and my pond now runs itself (along with the help of an UV light) I leave my goldfish in all winter and have made them a little cave to hibernate in. Last year was the first year that I put an aquarium bubbler in and I don't know if they liked it or not. It's the 5th winter coming up for them with no ill affects. They were 2" feeder fish and are now about 6". Your pond is an ecosystem and it will balance itself out with minor help from humans. George |
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| Use a shop vac and suck up the junk on the bottom and at the same time do a partial water change. It is not necessary to get it all because IMO some of that is quite beneficial for the plants. All of my plants jumped their pots years ago and the lilies and pickerel weed are growing great as is the anacharis and floating heart. Even the thalia jumped it's pot and bloomed well this year. I did use my vac to remove some leaves that had gathered the previous winter, not huge amounts but more than I wanted. I also walked in the pond and just felt around in pockets here and there under the plant roots and pulled out leaves that had gathered there, but those leaves also decompose and fertilize the plants. I've become one of those people that just lets things happen in the pond for the most part, not worrying about some accumulation of gunk. The pond is settled down over the years and is in balance. Next spring you might want to consider making the pond deeper and running a 500 gph pump to keep the pond open in winter. Moving fish inside and hauling out big pots of water plants is too much work! Does your pond freeze to the bottom? I'm guessing it does since it is 18" deep and if you have long, cold winters? You could run several bubblers but depending on your winters might not be enough. I'm in zone 7 and my frost line is 22" so I use a pump and bubblers to keep the water open over the pond in one place near a corner (my pond is a rectangle). I don't attempt to keep it all open. The most ice I've ever had is six inches thick around the edges and that was a bad winter for us in So. MD. The last few years no ice at all except a slight skim, but we can get bad winters too. If I ever get an extended sub-freeze which I've seen a few times in my area in my lifetime I'm in trouble. I've seen the Chesapeake Bay frozen before but it doesn't happen often. |
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- Posted by waterbug_guy (My Page) on Sun, Sep 27, 09 at 20:35
| Chemicals, no way. Even if you were to add sulfuric acid in huge amounts much of muck would not break down, and of course all life would be killed. The chemicals sold are for suckers. For large build up I use 2 steps. Net or leaf vacuum to get out the large stuff that clogs the shop vac. Wait a few days and then the shop vac since at 7' wide and 18' deep you can reach most of it. Shop vacs do fill really fast so for some people it's too much work. Plus they get really heavy. Also, although wet vacs are made to suck up water I wouldn't say they're really designed for this kind of work. I've burned out a couple over the years. You can also build a vac that removes water which is what it takes. Even fine muck can be removed with a fine mesh leaf net. It's not as easy as it sounds as the mesh cogs almost instantly. The idea here is to scoop the bottom every day for maybe a couple of weeks, or whatever it takes. The stirring also helps but only toward the end when the muck load is low enough for the creatures to start making a difference. Link below to my vacuum page. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Vacuums
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- Posted by hawkiefriend (My Page) on Mon, Sep 28, 09 at 4:34
| I like your website, waterbug guy. Interesting that you say most of what you hear from "expert" ponders is not true or at least not true for every ponder. The guy I got to put together my filter and pump works for a supposed expert and he thought I should be cleaning my filter all the time. No wonder the water didn't clear. I keep looking at koi websites to see what they need because I would like to get some. Do koi really need all those super amazing filters and such, or could they be happy in a huge pond with a biofilter, if we didn't get too many? |
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| I have had bluegill, koi, and large mouth bass all together in about 7K gallons with just a biofilter and lots of plants-but I do have a waterfall which runs all the time. I have never fed the koi except for table scraps once in awhile as a treat and they are large. I think to have a healthy pond, you need to leave it alone for the most part and allow an ecosystem to flourish. If you start demucking it you are also taking out snails and nutrients so don't aim for "clean". |
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| At 1,000 gallons per koi you will find water quality copes well through the worst of Summer and Winter. Yups, folk will make a lot of bucks trying to sell water squelching devices that promise to increase the density at which fish can be kept in good condition Bear in mind such devices always fail sooner or later and then you will regret the poor stocking ratios, overnight... Yup koi enjoy low density, where there are lots of plants and bugs to add to their diet... A sturdy net with a fine mesh will do the job of dredging a pond, doing a little often should reduce the worst of the nasty stuff, doing a bucket or two at a time should reduce the amount of stress to the fish in the pond |
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