Karen & co. Posted August 21, 2009 Share Posted August 21, 2009 I'm not suire this is in the right place but I wondered if anyone knows when is the best time to clean out a garden pond? Ours is near to a rambling rose and large bush and appears to be magnetic to all leaves blowing round the garden and even though I try to keep it clear ish there is a lot of silt on the bottom and I don't want the nitrogen levels to build up to toxic proportions stopping the frogs etc visiting. I have a place to store the water that we empty off so most of it can go back in, but just wondered if there was a better time of year to do it? Thank you folks Karen x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C&T Posted August 21, 2009 Share Posted August 21, 2009 I think you would want to do it now'ish, as you will not have any baby animals to cope with (frog spawn, tadpoles, or even fish eggs) and be in time for the winter months. I am not saying this is correct - others may disagree... If helps, this is what we did when we had a small pond (only 8 or so fish). I would fill a big (clean) dustbin with pond water, and move the fish into there. Then the rest of the old pond water would go all over the garden. Clean all the silt out, split and repot any plants etc, before re-filling the pond with completely fresh water, and switch the pump on and leave on permanently at least for a couple of days. After that it went back to a few hours a day on the timer. This will help the water warm up, for the frogs etc to go back in. Leave the fish in the bin, in a shady spot, and feed daily. A week later, take some of the water (1/5th?) out of the bin, and replace with water from the pond. Repeat this process every other day or so. After the fish have been in the bin for a couple of weeks, transfer them back to the pond. When doing this, make sure the temperature of the water in the bin is the same as the pond. If it isn't, you will need to change the temperature in the bin to match the pond, preferably over several hours or a day. Keep feeding the fish in the pond, even if you don't normally, as will take a while for the pond to start producing enough food for the fish. If however your pond is a much bigger pond, you can get suction pumps - big vacuum cleaners for ponds - and they can work very well to get rid of silt, and you don't need to empty the pond. Long reply - sorry. Hope helps! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
..lay a little egg for me Posted August 21, 2009 Share Posted August 21, 2009 We did ours this Spring, but no idea if that was the right time. We found 9 newts and one frog (now known as Billy no mates), lots of dragon-fly larvae and lots and lots of baby fish. Last summer DS had been fishing in the next-door fishing lake and caught some rudd which he put in the pond. We said they were too big and had to go, so caught them all but, apparently, not before they had spawned! We put all the fish fry back in the fishing lake because we didn't want them to eat the newts. The newts thrived and there were lots of babies this summer. I don't know how many are still in the pond, but I would not want to empty the pond until they had all left for the winter. Will be interested to see what advice you get on the best timing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
