Anon:

Your instincts are correct. Get a small tank for the fishes and connect the
filter to it temporarily. Then drain the pond, clean all the junk, scum,
detritus, and unmentionable crud out of there. If it has a liner, replace
it, since 20 years is about all you can expect from most liners. Once it's
spiffy, refill, let it sit for a few days/weeks to stabilize, and put the
fishies back in.

There's no subsitute for getting it cleaned out. No amount of horsing around
will be as effective.

Michael
New Orleans, Louisiana USA
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"Anon" wrote in message
...
Thank you for the responses. I'm sorry that my original question was so
vague. I'm located on the south coast of England and the pond is about
1500 imperial gallons, has an approximate surface area of 122 sq feet, is
approx 2.5 feet deep at it's deepest, is in full sun and is filtrated with
an Oasis Green to Clean gravity biofilter. It has goldfish only but is
probably a bit overstocked in all honesty.
The reason I want to remove some of the weed is that it's really taking
over and actually covers about 90% of the surface area of the pond so the
fish seem to only be able to congregate in one place!
I can see from your responses that the right thing to do is to drain the
pond and clean it properly. I can see the sense in this, especially as
it's about 20 years old and has never been cleaned out. (I'm not the
original owner of the pond, we moved here last year.) However, we have
just had our first child so most of my time is taken up with trying to be
a good dad, so my gardening and pondkeeping efforts are pretty basic at
the moment.
I think that I really need to take some out some of the weed to give the
fish more room to swim, although obviously I want to keep a good amount
for oxygenating etc. I can't imagine that I'm going to have time to do a
proper clean out any time soon, so my main question is what time of year
is best to take some out? Especially considering it's going to disturb the
mulm.
Thanks again,
Jasp

"Anon" wrote in message
...
The oxygenating weed in my 1500 gallon pond is really taking over now. (I
think it's Canadian pondweed, Elodea.) When is a good time to remove some
of it? It's all rooted in the mulm at the bottom of the pond so it really
messes the water up when it's pulled out. How much should be in there
anyway? I don't have much plant life in there at the moment, just a
couple of waterlillies.
Thanks
Jas