Well, this year DH decided it is time to clean the pond!
At 3,000 gallons a pond can be very forgiving
for a long time, it was crystal clear the day before
the big project...

We rented a large 'trash' pump.
It emptied the pond in about an hour and a half.
We (DH, moi and three kids on and off) had already
emptied and cleaned the filter, a 150 gallon stock tank.
Filled it back up with pond water and this is where the
fish were placed with bubblers and parrot's feather on
top to keep them from jumping out.
DH estimates about five wheel barrels (about half full)
of gunk came out of the pond and trundled over into the
compost area. All this gunk was removed with these flat
edged nets DH found at a sporting store and buckets.
DH and youngest football playing son did this.
Two *floating* thermometers were found in the muck.
Several rocks that originally held water lilies down
in the muck (went back to baskets this year).
The waterfall was weeded of grasses that I had brought
back as seeds from the lake my MIL lives on.
The fish overnighted in the filter and watched very closely
by moi, DH and the two watergardening labradors.
The pond is continuing to refill this morning. In addtion to
dechlor we are running the water over rocks and have a
fountian going.
So far, so good.

Moral of this cleaning. A skimmer would help and a bottom
drain. All stuff we should have put more consideration into
when we built the pond. Netting is hard with this setup and two labradors but
I promise to be better about skimming out leaves next fall!



k30a