Hi all I usually hang at the maple forum but thought someone might have some ideas ...probably been covered many times but did'nt see it in any of the threads.
Having gone overboard with lilliies and not being anal enough ...I have mucho dirt and leaf material in the bottom of all three of my large water gardens. ( I highly recommend going with lotuses rather than lillies...their roots don't grow so extreemly that they push all the dirt out of the pot wi/ one seasonn at least mine did).
Any who I have a mess and i really don't want to drain them which would be a big chore and then shovel out tons of crap.
Has anyone used a trash pump with any success to pump out the bottom garbage and not the entire pond...yah I might loose a bunch of tad poles and a few frogs leapord and bull but it needs to be done .. I have tried the overpriced junk available in pond places that supposedly vacumn out everything using your hose ( yah right !!! ) but they are much too wimpy and virtually wothless and a waist of money
My other idea was to have a septic person do it... but I would be afraid of contaminating the pond from it's prvious use I already have crap in the ponds don't want the real thing ;>)
Anyway ...you guys ave any ideas or have anyone tried trash pumps that you can easily rent???
David
pond sludge cleaning aka dredging
Don't you hate that muck that gets accumulated. I've used some flat edged nets to scoop some of that gunk out. That works okay. This seems to be a problem everyone runs into eventually. I know there are some people around here that you can hire to muck out a pond, but I've never seen how they do the process.
We have also done the bit where you take some water out fill the barrels with that water and put aeration stones in to keep the fish going. Drain the whole thing. Use a power washer on it. Drain that water. Get the wet dry vac and get the remaining crude. It's an all day deal. Then you have to refill and wait for the water to get rid of the chlorine. Then add everything back in.
I just "bit the bullet" and bought a Pondvac. The project probably can be done cheaper but its worked great for me.
I usually do what Deb said, drain, wash, refill & treat. I also have a skimmer that keeps most of the debris from having a chance to settle. But have looked at the pond vacs before. Did your vac stir up the water and make it cloudy when you used it? That is what I am hesitant of, afraid it might stress the fish more than moving them. Did it get everything and leave the water clear?
Sheila
I bought a hose fed pond vac a few years back ....Don't know if it's the type charllotteda uses but I found it useless ...really hard to use and ok for skimming stuff but didn't do nutin' with bottom gunk ...it used a hose and had a mesh fabric pillow case sort of thing that first clogged with gunk THEN filled with water and fell off TOTALLY worthless. After a few tries i just started laughing hysterically and quit...If it hadn't cost any money or been such a waist of time I might still be laughing. it's always funny seeing yourself looking rediculous with a useless invention ;>)
Yah draining is the best way but I gots three ponds and finding three LONG days clear to work on each is hard to come by... David
Thanks David. That is what I imagined the results would be if I bought one. Like the misquito magnet, IMHO, I think I will pass on both of them. LOL!
We have a Aquascape system that has a in-ground skimmer. Very little debris lands on the bottom, so we can skip a year if necessary . But we have another that only has the in-pond skimmer which doesn't pull out as much as I had hoped. I think if I hook it up differently in the spring it may work better.
Sheila