Uncle Marvo writes
In reply to Ellie Bentley ) who wrote this in
, I, Marvo, say :

Uncle Marvo wrote:
Unless you're very anti-fish, introduce a brace of sterlets into the
pond and wait. There are other pond-clearing fish but the sterlet's
the best, IMHO.

Pond-clearing fish? Sterlets? Tell us more! Anything to avoid the
misery of clearing the pond each year.

Sterlets are funny things, like small sturgeons, and they work on the pond
by swimming round the sides sucking the sludgey deposits off. They swim on
their sides near the top, whereas there are others (green tench, I seem to
remember) which dredge the bottom, and they are very efficient. The only
downside is fishshit which can be efficiently cleared up by snails. But then
you get snailshit, and so on, so you need frogs.

No, really, the cleaning fish are good, go to a good aquatic centre and
they'll advise on which to get. They cost around a fiver a fish for small to
medium size, they grow to fit the pond.

I've found sterlets are not very good at swimming through blanket weed -
they get caught up in it. So if you have a blanket weed problem, green
tench are better. They're smooth and streamlined not knobbly and spiky.
You put them in when small, they disappear for a couple of years then
reappear 9 inches long and very fat, basking at the surface and making a
huge splash when disturbed.



--
Kay