Although cleaning a fishpond is a dirty job, you have to do it to maintain your pond and keep the residents happy and healthy. It can be once a year for the minimum care that you need for a complete cleaning for most of the fishponds. The most suitable and great time for cleaning your ponds are in the spring and fall. Here are the steps on how to clean your fishpond.
Things that you need:
- Buckets
- fish net or skimmer
- flower pots
- holding tank or wading pool with cover
- water hose with sprayer
- scrub brushes
- de-chlorinating agent
- wet-dry or shop vac
Steps:
- First, replace the fish and other animals from the fishponds to other place before cleaning. Start by bucketing out the pond water or by suctioning it. You have to reserve some of the pond water for the holding tank or wading pool. Fill the wading pool with a half ratio of pond water to a half of fresh and de-chlorinated water.
- Carefully pull out the pond plants from ledges and place in a shady area in pots. It is a suitable time to fertilize the plants using a special pond plant fertilizer while cleaning the pond. To remove any debris or algae that may have accumulated on the plants, spray them gently with a water hose.
- Drain the remaining water out of the pond. Make sure to search through the muck for any pond animals that you may have missed such as tadpoles or snails. Take out any decorative items or large rocks and clean them with the water hose. It may be virtually impossible to remove all the debris if the rocks line the bottom of the pond. Replace the rocks with new ones if things have gotten extremely messy.
- Using a brush, scrub the lining of the pond gently and clean it with only fresh water. The good bacteria needed to keep a fishpond\’s chemistry in balance will be destroyed if you are using soap or other chemicals. Brush all the debris in downward direction so it accumulates in the bottom of the fishpond.
- Use a wet-dry or shop vac to vacuum out the remaining debris from the bottom of the pond. If you like to use it for compost or fertilizer, just save the remains of them. Spray down filters and pumps with a water hose. Replace all plants, decorations and rocks back into the fishpond. Add other additives and chemicals to the pond if needed. For pond cleaning in the spring, add a water conditioner to reduce nitrates and ammonia. Return the fish and other pond life to the pond. The transition should be done gradually, so the fish can get used to the new water chemistry.
Additional Reading:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2265252_clean-fish-pond.html
Image Credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/97964364@N00/321395437/
