"Kay Easton" wrote in message
...
In article , Lynda Thornton
writes

Re completely emptying the barrel, there is pondlife at the bottom
including at least one lesser water boatman - what should I do with
that, and possibly others, if I empty everything out?

Collect up as much as you can of living stuff and store it in a bowl of
clean water ready to add back when you've finished.

It's also not that easy to empty the thing to be quite honest, it's an
enormous wooden barrel 3ft diameter/high, weighs a ton and there's no
way I could tip it with even a small amount of water in it.

Dip a bucket in, or siphon the water out. Dig the sludge out using an
old icecream tub and put it on the compost heap. You don't have to get
every last bit out.

Also, it's
on gravel, so it could make quite a mess if gunge etc splashes out all
over during cleaning.

Cover the gravel with old platic bags, then a layer of newspaper to soak
up the damp. The newspaper can go on the compost heap too.

I'm not feeling like going through all this as
I'm sure lots of you can guess!

Don't leave it too long. It may be nasty now, but that's as nothing
compared with what it'll be like when the weather (and water) gets
colder!

Also, in response to someone's comment, I hadn't realised that water
lilies were regarded as annuals, even in this climate - I thought that
once established they would come back every year?

Yes, you're right - they do, getting bigger and bigger every year.
They're perfectly happy sitting under a layer of ice. I don't know
whether there's a problem if the whole barrel gets frozen solid though?
But I can't imagine why anyone would regard them as an annual.


I really don't want to go down the electric pump route - there's no easy
way of hooking it up to a power supply or laying cable. I was hoping
there might be a solar option, ie a solar panel with a submergible pump
attached which could sit at the bottom and hopefully not disturb the
water too much, but in such a small barrel I suppose it would be likely
to be too turbulent and extremely costly as I can't find this kind of
thing on the web.

There are two solar options, firstly an all-in-one solar fountain - a
8in diameter solar panel with a fountain spout in the middle, which
just floats on your pond - secondly, a fountain with separate solar
panel. I imagine there would be some way of adjusting the height of the
fountain so it was just a gentle burble - enlarging the hole, for
example. The main criticism of these solar fountains is that their
performance is disappointing - just not enough fountain - but that is
precisely what you'd be looking for here.

True. In a stagnant body of water, the surface layer gets saturated with
oxygen within minutes (actually, I think it happens within seconds) of being
exposed. The trick is to get that oxygen moved away from the surface. Even
the slightest circulation in the water is sufficient to do that.

Franz