*YEARS* ago on my last pond ( which was fiberglass) I just used a swimming
pool sand filter & vacuumed the bottom. In Spring, I'd empty the thing out &
clean. tossing crud out.

NOW, this pond is twice as big (vinyl-type liner) & deeper.. I saw where
some use the vacuum type thing to suck up the crud,( the is ONE advertised
that it doesn't add water to pond,, but uses water pressure to 'remove'
gunk....yes, I know there is one thread started on vacuum thingies)...
but you guys totally EMPTY your ponds to remove the gunk??? big ponds
3000 gal ones?? on, where do you put the fish??? ( this time I don't have a
separate holding pond........ guess I could borrow the horses' water
container??? 100 gal

muffin wrote but you guys totally EMPTY your ponds to remove the gunk???
big ponds
3000 gal ones?? on, where do you put the fish???

Totally emptied our 3000 gallon pond.
Emptied our 150 gallon stock tank filter and put the fish in
there with two air stones. Put net over stock tank to keep them from jumping
out.
DH and football playing son scooped out most of the gunk. About 5 half wheel
barrels full.
Filled the pond back up slowly with dechlor. Fish overnighted in the filter (I
got up at the crack of dawn to check them.) Went back in the pond later that
morning.
If I had to do this myself I'd wait the 20 years for the pond to fill itself in
and then sell the house
;-)


k30a

I had my pond guy come over last week to clean out my pond.
The sweetheart got in and said: "Wow... What do you use in here?
It's really clean." Then I did my song and dance on BZT.
Makes me feel really good when the pros tell me my pond is
too clean to clean!! lol Anyway, all he did was trim the survivor
lilies and fertilize the lotuses. K30a - muffin, if it weren't for the pros
my pond would have filled in several years ago...

Nedra
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pines/4836
http://community.webshots.com/user/nedra118
"K30a" wrote in message
...
muffin wrote but you guys totally EMPTY your ponds to remove the
gunk???
big ponds
3000 gal ones?? on, where do you put the fish???

Totally emptied our 3000 gallon pond.
Emptied our 150 gallon stock tank filter and put the fish in
there with two air stones. Put net over stock tank to keep them from
jumping
out.
DH and football playing son scooped out most of the gunk. About 5 half
wheel
barrels full.
Filled the pond back up slowly with dechlor. Fish overnighted in the
filter (I
got up at the crack of dawn to check them.) Went back in the pond later
that
morning.
If I had to do this myself I'd wait the 20 years for the pond to fill
itself in
and then sell the house
;-)


k30a

"K30a" wrote in message
...
Totally emptied our 3000 gallon pond.
If I had to do this myself I'd wait the 20 years for the pond to fill
itself in
and then sell the house
k30a

I hear ya! (G)

but the pond is MY baby..... *sigh*

when we moved to our current residence 15 yrs ago, I wanted to put another
pond in,, but things got put on the backburner... ( the hole was dug,, for
the most part 5 years ago!) just no time for the liner, when it got nice
out,, hubby had to work more hours, etc... & his time off was NOT going to
be used for my 'stupid' pond...

also,,,,,,, I am 20 yrs OLDER than my last first pond,,,,,,, *sigh* , back
then I had nieces & nephews to help catch & clean the pond.. now I am sure
it will be just me,, & I am not looking forward to that..... I mean when I
eventually hit 60 ((eegads)) would I even be able to???? so all this may
just be backfilled eventually,,,,,,, (dang, I wonder if I can con the
grandson to clean it, when he gets older,,,,,,,)

I use a skimmer to try to keep stuff from sinking, and a bottom drain to get
what does sink. In addition, I use a pool type vacuum attached to either
the 1800 or 2400 GPH Mag drive pump, depending on which pond I am in, with a
leaf trap, to do occasional cleaning. I never drain a pond, and never have
much debris to remove by vacuum.
--
RichToyBox
http://www.geocities.com/richtoybox/pondintro.html


"*muffin*" wrote in message
...
*YEARS* ago on my last pond ( which was fiberglass) I just used a swimming
pool sand filter & vacuumed the bottom. In Spring, I'd empty the thing out
&
clean. tossing crud out.

NOW, this pond is twice as big (vinyl-type liner) & deeper.. I saw where
some use the vacuum type thing to suck up the crud,( the is ONE advertised
that it doesn't add water to pond,, but uses water pressure to 'remove'
gunk....yes, I know there is one thread started on vacuum thingies)...
but you guys totally EMPTY your ponds to remove the gunk??? big ponds
3000 gal ones?? on, where do you put the fish??? ( this time I don't have
a
separate holding pond........ guess I could borrow the horses' water
container??? 100 gal

"*muffin*" wrote:

NOW, this pond is twice as big (vinyl-type liner) & deeper.. I saw where
some use the vacuum type thing to suck up the crud,( the is ONE advertised
that it doesn't add water to pond,, but uses water pressure to 'remove'
gunk....yes, I know there is one thread started on vacuum thingies)...

You may be thinking of the "muck mop", which you should be able to
google up in this group.

*muffin* wrote:
... but you guys totally EMPTY your ponds to remove the gunk??? big ponds
3000 gal ones?? on, where do you put the fish??? ...

Warning: Long answer. Our pond's previous owner and designer cleaned our
3500gal pond each spring, emptying it completely while holding the fish
in a kids' wading pool. Almost everything I've read since becoming
interested in ponding has said not to do that. So for a couple of years
I tried different types of vacuums made for ponds and swimming pools,
but after three years and about eight raccoon raids (they push potted
plants into the pond, the koi empty the pots that are not already
emptied, bottom gets covered in potting soil, rocks, etc.), we decided
to completely clean the pond. (We don't have a bottom drain, but I'm
hoping to put together a DIY bottom drain and skimmer this summer.)

I didn't remove the koi because I didn't have a place to keep them, so
only took the water down to 3 inches in the shallow end so they could
continue to move around in the deeper end which is 12 inches deeper. I
used a Python water changer (used for aquarium tanks) but I duct-taped
the siphon tube to a piece of sturdy PVC pipe (siphon tube outside pipe
-- tried siphoning through the tube but lost a lot of suction power that
way) so I didn't have to spend days bent over the short tube. It didn't
work well with large leaves or twigs, but those usually piled up in the
tube so I could reverse the water and shoot the leaves out onto the
lawn. The Python also didn't pick up the gravel and rock, but once I
could see just rock I used a swimming pool leaf net to scoop those out
of the pond. I lowered the water gradually over 2-3 days, spent about 5
hours with it at the lowest, then gradually refilled the pond with
treated water over 2 days.

I also took advantage of the low water to catch and remove all the
shubunkins in the pond; their population doubled or tripled each year,
and in that time we only had one surviving koi baby. Within a month of
removing the shubunkins, we had hundreds of koi fry.

Without a bottom drain, mulm and leaves pile up at the bottom no matter
how much I net them or how long I keep nets over the pond in the fall /
winter. So this year I'm using a 16gal shop vac with the built-in pump
for pumping away the waste water. It's slow going because of suspended
particles in the water reducing the visibility. Plus the rocks I used in
the planters (which were dumped by raccoons, again!!) gets stuck in the
vacuum tube. I just put together a suction head with slotted openings
this week and will report on its effectiveness soon. I put a mesh bag
inside the shop vac body (tied around the inlet pipe) to catch rocks,
leaves, twigs, and anacharis. Doing that helped increase the time I
could run the pump-out feature without rinsing the fine filter leading
to the output hose. Because I'm moving the vacuum slowly and only taking
out about 1/5 of the pond water, the koi aren't effected by my cleaning,
except they love to root around in front and behind the vacuum head to
see if I've dislodged anything tasty. True pond pigs!!

If you don't have a bottom drain, I recommend putting one in if you
decide to empty your pond. Retrofit or over-the-side drains aren't as
good as ones installed from the beginning but they can be done.
--
Kathy B, zookeeper
3500gal pond (Oregon)

I too use a shop vac, but made an extension of 3/4 " pvc on the end of a
blower attachment, a slip fit, (on the vac side). Then reduced the 3/4 to
1/2" at the end. This slowed down the process, got more debris, less water.
Placed the vac on a small stand so I could empty the vac into a strainer,
i.e. milk crate w/ some fabric DW got somewhere, kinda like cheesecloth, but
holds up well.