For some reason, I didn't get a net over my pond last fall. So now I'm spending hours with a net and an upside-down rake pulling out a ton of wet leaves from my pond. Any tips on easier ways to do this?
Thanks. Dave
Cleaning out leaves Is there a better way?
Does this mean there isn"t?
I'm thinking that's what this means. I found this link, but don't know if it would work with leaves.
http://www.jandbk.org/pond_vacuum/
The answer on the pond vac ...do't waist your money I did and it don't work...maybe if you had a firehydrant to hook it up to and it could take the pressure ;>) ...it requires CONSTANT cleaning and takes out little ... you'd be better off with just a heavy duty fish net which is what i've been using and that also gives you time to take out the tad poles and put back!!! Here's a link from a previous thread that I think with a really powerful ...read expensive!!!...shop vac will work ...maybe someone will mass produce a refined version of it someday ...it would sell i can tell ya that ...David
http://members.shaw.ca/floydn/
David & Pixy, Thank you. David, your link wouldn't work for me but I guess I'll stay with my net. The had part is done for another year anyway.
That little vacuum pixy sent a link to does not seem like it could handle the barrels of leaves I just took out of my pond.
Dave;
I've been cleaning out water gardens for 20+ years and have found that there is no easy way to get it done when you have a heavy leaf "mess" at the bottom. I usually will remove as many fish, frogs, etc. first. Then pump out the water down to a level 6" to 12" from the bottom....sometimes even lower. Then using a flexible rake and net remove as much debris as possible. What is left can then be removed by using a good wet-dry vac as well as a pod-vac if needed. To filter the leaves from the water while cleaning I use bulb crates which lets the water drain out of the leaves making the loads lighter.
If you need more info let me know.
Regards, David S.
Dave; I should clarify things a bit. I'm sort of retired from the landscape/water garden business and spend the better part of winters here in Titusville FL. The rest of the year is spent in the Framingham/Acton area of Mass.. We live full time in a RV. You can check out my web site at www.diversities.com for contact info.
Thanks, David S
Another Dave! That's 3 Dave's and a Pixy (I've got dibs on the movie rights!).
Thanks Dave S & thanks again Pixy. I have used a net. Didn't get to it last fall. Although, nets are not without their problems. (lots of dead frogs)
Dave S ..yah alot of daves.. I think your method is best I just am too lazy to pump out the water ...I have been toying with using a sludge/ trash pump that you can rent...the tads and bulls would be in jepordy but it would take the process down to one step ...I think that would work unless your pond is 6 ft deep!! you'd have to buy a new hose cause the rental might have been used for a septic and well YUK!!!... as far as the link hummm works for me just checked from site... Email me directly at myersphcf@aol.com and I will link it to you direct...I think if you are a do-it-yourselfer this WILL work but the trash pump idea is easier and intrigs me ...maybe this summer when I'm done with my multitude of other "stuff" I'll try it and report back ...I still got two out of three ponds to refit back up with pumps filters and uv3 sterlizers for spring ...did the easy one the other day ... As far as net tops it wouldn't work for me or anyone in northern areas with oaks or other trees that shed all winter ...youd have to keep it on all winter and the snow ice wind ..I think it would be more trouble than it's worth...so i just use my heavy duty fishing net( for leaves that are on the bottom) and a skimer net ( for top leaves) throughout the winter ...til I find the perfect solution to the ongoing problem most of us have...I think it is the #1 problem with ponds in deciduous teree areas !!!! David M
Greetings--
Cleaning your pond suggestions--
If you have fish, use a kiddie pool or clean trash can to put your fish in while you clean your pond--fill the temporary holding tank with water from the "dirty pond" so that it will have the least shock on the fish--keep the fish in the holding tank in the shade and if you have koi--place netting over the tank because they may try to jump.
Remove your plants put them in the shade with moist newspaper over them.
Drain your pond using your pump; use either a stiff brush or a pressure washer to wash down the sides; use a wet dry/vac to vacuum the bottom.
Fill with fresh water--treat if needed for chlorine or chlorimine; prune and fertilize your plants; put everything back in.
The ponvac works great if you have a small pond and decent water pressure. However, if you have a lot of muck on the bottom instead of using the silt bag that comes with it, use 2" tubing and discharge to your flower beds.
An awesome product--top of the line--vacuum with attachments is manufactured by Oase. This vacuum allows you to clean your pond without draining the pond. The muck fills up in a tank, which holds up to 7 gallons of muck. It back flushes into your flowerbeds. It comes with several attachments which allow you to get around rocks, pots, etc. It is pricey--but well worth the investment.
Happy water gardening, lilypons
Best advice to cleaning the pond that I've ever seen!! You've made my day, lilypons, by telling me exactly what to do and how to do it. Since I've only had the feature a year, just not sure what to do but want to do it right!! Know what I mean? Have you ever considered writing an advice book for maintaining water gardens? You're the BEST!! Dax
Thank you lilypons!! Any help on where to find this Oase vacuum?
We allowed leaves to muck up the pond the first year and had to clean it. much the same way lilyponds is stating. However we used a sump pump, (Harbor Freight purchase) to pull out the pond water and hooked a garden hose to the end threads to use to water the garden beds. First pump water into the holding pool for the fish. We used our power washer to wash the debris down to a low spot in the bottom of the pond where the sump pump was sitting. As the water gets lower, it was necessary to clean the underside of the pump off and on to keep it going full blast. We didn't try to get the rocks spotless, because the good bacteria would be eliminated, and also critters like dragon fly nymphs are hiding among them. We picked up a lot of leaves by hand as we continued to clean. We replaced one of the filters, but not the other in our bio-falls & skimmer system. We were told not to replace both at the same time, in order to keep the bio system viaible and help it recover quickly from cleaning.
Another thing, if you want to know exactly how many gallons your pond can hold, this is a good time to do it. Clock the time it takes to fill a 5 gallon bucket with your water going full blast; divide by 5 to know the minutes per gallon. Then time the filling of the pond from start to finish, and divide by the number of minutes it took per gallon on your test. Make sure to add chlorine neutralizer when you start filling.
Best of luck!
This message was edited Apr 5, 2006 10:15 PM
Thank you Sheila!
Sheila, you touched on the thing that makes me hesitate to try to clean out my pond now. I did have a net over it so it's not bad. I don't want to damage any critters in the process. I just added sludge remover with powdered barley and I'm waiting until later in the season to poke around on the bottom.
Can anyone tell me when everything that is going to hatch will have done so? That's when I want to schedule cleaning the pump and anything else that needs done to the bottom.
Katy, I can't give a scientific answer, especially for your zone. I can tell you I clean mine in March or April and it hasn't stopped the babies from coming.
Dave
Right, the earlier the better here too. I have rocks on the bottom of my pond, so some silt does go between the rocks, and most of the dragon flies are around the sides of the pond where the eggs were laid. When they grow larger, they start moving around more. But if you do it on a semi- cloudy day and work quickly, they will be fine. If you see some, just toss them back in, they look like sick crickets, to me.
Sheila, Dave, Thank you!
In spite of advice to the contrary, I went out and purchased a cheap pond vac at Lowe's (in the spa section) because I was just curious about how it would work. My pond is really big, and cleaning it this year has been a real eye-opener for me. The vacuum is the kind that attaches to your garden hose. I have to tell you, I must have insanely good water pressure because this thing really works for me. In fact, I'm going to have to put a screen over the intake as it was sucking up my rocks (not gravel, rocks) . I will probably make some alterations as follows:
1. Again, I'll probably put one of those plastic webbed fruit bags over the intake to keep it from sucking up rocks.
2. I need a longer handle. They sell a telescopic pole that supposedly goes with the vacuum, but I believe you have to also buy something that will allow them to attach together. I'm going to check tomorrow.
My experience with using it is that it sucks up everything in sight. To get around the rock problem the first go around, I used the vacuum with one hand and used my scrub brush on-a-pole with the other hand. I scrubbed the rocks gently and stirred up the detritus, then put the vaccum in the general area of the muddy water and it sucked it all up. This worked okay, but I'd like to be able to move it along the bottom better.
Regarding critters, I cannot believe how many critters there are in that pond. I had NO idea!!! When I dumped out the first bag of junk, it was swarming with life. I ended up dumping the whole thing in a huge bowl of pond water and netting all the dragonfly and damselfly larvae, as well as some small things that I couldn't idenify. I really was quite amazed. I saw one larvae that I really cannot figure out at all. It definitely was not a damsel/dragonfly. I returned everyone I could find to the pond.
The only other problem is that it discharges the water from the hose directly into the pond through the filter bag. In a pond as large as mine, this isn't too much of a problem. I just did a small area at a time. But in a smaller pond it would not be good unless you took the fish out first. If you didn't want to worry about the little critters like larvae, it would be fairly easy to attach a discharge hose to the outtake and dump directly into the garden. I'm glad I bought it. It will make my life much easier I think.
I have had the same problem with dirt and leaf debris in my pond this yr...
i, too want to see a vaccum created for ponds that will REALLY work..
This is what i did...
I took an old garden hose, cut it long enough so when screwed on the Outtake of my 1800 GPH pump, it would lay in my flower beds... On the intake, i placed the vaccum wand attachments, (they fit perfectly onto the intake), placed a netting of lingerie bag at the end of the wands, then the duster attachment from an old house vaccum.
Wow! it worked out pretty well...
altho, i will now use a hose that i have found from an old canister type vaccum.. i was overzealous, and broke the intake faceplate off the pump ( i just got the replacement today!)
Of course i had to be IN the pond for it to work and work it did.. im hoping to get back into the pond tomorrow and again on tuesday, to do more vaccuming..
(see my post about Koi and dirt here at this forum)
Fellow ponders, one thing you should remember.......... save at least 1/2 of the pond water to put back into the pond, this saves all of the water having to be aged and going thru the pea soup stage.
We had our pond cleaned this spring and yes there were a lot of critters and a whole mess in the bottom, leaves etc. But the man who came to clean it also brought a inflatable kids pool and saved 1/2 of the water to put back into the pond. Needless to say the pond is crystal clear, no pea soup. fish. frogs etc are happy and lilies are growing great.
He drained, saved fish etc and power washed and sucked out the muck. A very interesting thing to watch. I'm disabled and can't do it myself and I so grateful to the local pond store that offers the service..
In a possibly vain attempt at not having to empty out my whole pond and clean the sludge, I bought some beneficial bacteria and a booster that are supposed to speed up the decomposition process. Was I taken for a ride? Anybody else use a product like this? What were the results?
I use the bacteria & accuclear. They work. But for a pond like mine (which is in shade & having tons of pollen, etc dropped by the trees this time of year), it takes several treatments. I assume its quicker if you're in the sun.
Thats good to know, because it sure smells AWFUL. I'm glad its worth it!
I use the powdered bacteria they sell at Lowes and I'm happy with it. I generally add a bit of it every couple of weeks, and I always add a bit of it after mucking around in the pond stirring things up. I add a bit more if I've actually cleaned out the pond. I have a good biofilter and also a veggie filter, so i have plenty of filtration, but I do find that an extra boost of the beneficial bacteria is good occasionally.
I vaccumed out my pond yesterday and I always put the 'sludge' in a plastic tub with pond water so I can get any larger critters out before dumping. Then I realize there are literally thousands of tiny creature, some almost microscopic, swimming around in it and I feel terrible for not being able to save them all. It's like a small city in there! I don't even know what half the stuff is.
Well, Pixy, look at it this way, you can't save all the little critters but they can help feed your garden :~)
I feel the same way when cleaning my saltwater reef tanks(which I'm doing today)hate the thought of any little critters being sucked up and thrown out :~( Plus, I can't even use the water for the gardens!
Lana
Quote, I bought some beneficial bacteria and a booster that are supposed to speed up the decomposition process. Was I taken for a ride? Anybody else use a product like this? What were the results? end quote
I always use the beneficial bacteria to jumpstart the pond.. and yes, there is a difference in the decomposition process.. It does help ALOT. I will say tho that in my experience, i still went in the pond to remove the muck that would be left over from decomposing.
The bacteria works well as the water warms up.. Doesnt do much when the water is cool.
I use the powder bacteria also ever two weeks to maintain a healthy clear environment.
However, it would need to be added everyday for 10 days-2 weeks to a newly setup pond or one that you had a large percent of water replacement. That would give the pond a good start to setting up it's ecosystem. Prior to putting the bacteria in, I would definately clean the muck first if it were me.
This message was edited Jun 3, 2006 10:12 PM
A definite yes to cleaning out the pond before adding the bacteria. I add some every time I stir the pond up for any reason - like moving pots around or scrubbing algea off the sides. Today I realized I had done stuff backwards without realizing. (The estrogen moments are getting to be more regular now.) I cleaned out the pond this weekend -vaccuming etc, after taking as much string algea out by hand as possible. Then I realized I had not added the hydrogen peroxide and that was why the algea was hard to clean off. I added it today and the water immediately became cloudy with little bits of dead algea floating around. I scrubbed the sides again to loosen the rest of the dead stuff, then added the bacteria. Tomorrow much of it will be collected on the pond bottom where I can use my skimmer net to retrieve it.
Yesterday I found two new dragonflies and a brand new damselfly! Here is the new dragonfly- newly hatched with his wings not even dry yet and no color to him yet. He is so vulnerable. He can barely crawl, much less fly.
Nice shots Pixy! What is the plant the damsel is perched on?
Thanks Pixy! That was a treat. (Plus a good clean-up tip)
Dave
This message was edited Jun 1, 2006 10:07 PM
I applied the monthly booster of bacteria this week and within 2 days I could see the bottom of my pond again!!! That's four feet down, I haven't seen that since last summer! Yay!!
Good going JoieM!! I don't think I would enjoy my pond if I couldn't see my fish.
Sheila, Your pond is gorgeous!
Can In ask what kind of filters you have?
Dave
Thanks. We put in the Aquascape system; biofalls and skimmer. I believe Pixy has the same one too. We have had it 3 years now and have never regretted it a moment. It is easily maintained.