CLEANING THE POND

Spring (when it follows a real winter) is the absolutely worst time to do
pond care. The fish have not been fed, their immune system is down and the
"cooties" wake up before the fish's immune system does. The stress of them
being moved out of the pond, or even just "chased" in the pond during this
time will lay them open to disease. Here in zone 5 spring comes on March
21, but a typical unheated pond wont be over 55o until late April or early
May. And by that time the fish will be spawning and stressed and eggs are
very susceptible to bacterial infection while in the female. So it is best
to wait until spawning season is over and the pond temp has been above 55oF for at
least 10 days and the water that will fill the pond, coming out of the hose is the
same or warmer than the water was on the pond.

This is how my "pond pros" clean my two big ponds out at the dacha. They start by
filling a big water tank (100-150 gallon rubbermaid, etc.) with water from the top of
the pond. They drop in a big airstone to keep the water aerated. Then they use a
couple really big pumps to drain the pond almost down to nothing, maybe 4-5 inches.
They DO NOT stir up the much on the bottom of the pond.
They now net and remove all the fish (and other wildlife) when it is easy to net
without chasing the fish around. This is a good time to do a salt bath on the fish
before they are placed in the holding tank.
http://weloveteaching.com/puregold/d...tm#SALT%20DIPS
use same temp water for the salt dip so there are no temp shocks.

When the fish are safely in the holding tank and the tank is COVERED to prevent fish
from jumping out, then they set about cleaning the pond.

They use plastic snow shovels (which wont rip the epdm that lines the pond) to shovel
out the muck in buckets. As they are shoveling out they use a regular broom to
gently sweep the sides and broom the muck towards the low side. They use a bit of
water but not much. Brooming removes the worst without removing the nice sweater
algae on the sides. Once the muck is removed they begin refilling. When it is deep
enough they move the fish back to the pond and dump the water in the stock tank, they
DONT put it back in the pond. I follow up the cleaning with a dose of potassium
permanganate
http://weloveteaching.com/puregold/d....htm#POTASSIUM
and the next day with some hydrogen peroxide and then add 0.05% salt.

Ingrid

On Sun, 17 May 2009 10:28:41 EDT, dunns2 wrote:
Hi need some help if possible, I have an Oase Clear Filter 6000
pressurised unit and 6000 Oase pond pump, I have lived in my house for
about 6 years and have never changed the water, you can see on he
picture the water is very green. The fish are mating every year at
least 30 -50 babies per year. I have 2 Koi as you can see in the
picture otherwise the others are all gold fish I think ? I have set up
a quarantine tank so I can start to remove some of the babies and
smaller fish. What I really would like to know is should I be removing
the water and cleaning out the pond from scratch? Bearing in mind this
has never been cleaned for at least 10 years. Is there a good time to
do this?

I would appreciate any help

Thanks, Steve
Somewhere between zone 5 and 6 tucked along the shore of Lake Michigan
on the council grounds of the Fox, Mascouten, Potawatomi, and Winnebago