I spent the weekend scooping out leaves and acorns that collected this winter from my stream (approx 75 ft) which empties into a 700 gallon pool. It was nasty, to say the least--right up their with cleaning up dog poop. I notice a layer of what looks like muck is left behind. Am I being too conscientious about cleaning? Should I just put down a layer of stones and forget about it? What do some of you do? I can use all the advice I can get. I sure don't want to kill my fish.
Marsha
I would try to get as much of the muck out as you can (I know its nasty) but its the best thing to do. If you can put your fish somewhere else, like a stock tank then you could drain your pond and then suck up the muck with a wet vac.
Not exactly what I wanted to hear (lol) but was afraid that would be the advice.
Thank you,
Marsha
Marsha, if you do it now you will be able to enjoy it all summer. Your fish will thank you.
Take the pond water and fill the stock tank with it the fish are used to that water.
Then after cleaning the muck out, start filling the pond and put the stock tank water into
it (along with the fish).
Make sure you don't have any chlorine in your water.
I too have a 70+ foot stream. I take a leaf blower and blow out the debris in my stream before starting my pump in the spring. It's very effective!
That muck is good fertilizer for plants. BEV
crazy4brugs--I do have a detached pond; however, my big fish have about 75 offspring (1-4")-- that is just too much to deal with....lol
SongsofJoy--I like the leaf blower idea--I am going to give it a try on the remainder of the muck.
Bev, you are so right. I already piled what I have collected so far on my compost pile--quite odoriferous!!!
Thanks to all for your input--I really do appreciate it!
Marsha
Hi Marsha,
I am from California and we started a waterfall with a large pond at the top of a natural hill with about 50 foot of stream rolling into a 25' x 20' x 5' deep pond at the bottom. We are actually having to rebuild and move the top pond as the acorns are creating such a problem. Also I wanted to let you know that acorns contain a substance called gallotannin. In the rumen, gallotannin is metabolized to gallic acid and tannic acid. Tannic acid causes ulceration of the mouth, esophagus, and gastrointestinal tract in animals. Tannic acid is especially toxic to the renal tubules, and renal failure tends to be the hallmark of this disease. In the fall, this substance concentrates in acorns and increases the risk of animal poisoning when acorns are ingested.
I am not sure of the affect on fish but I would think that if they ingested enough it couldn't possibly be good. The Native Americans had to extensively leach the acorn mash before they could use it.
Maybe some sort of pergola or canopy might be needed if you have a large drop of acorns. If it is only small you probably don't need to worry but I completely understand about the smell. It is gross!! Our tree is only about 40 feet tall and we have it trimmed professionally to get rid of extra unwanted limbs and it still drops loads of nasty acorns. I hope this helps. Good Luck!!
Jeanne
Marsha,
We took as much of the gunk as we could get out of our creek by hand before turning on the pump. Once we turned the pump on and the stream was back in action we waited a couple of weeks and then started "washing" the stream starting at the top. We washed with a jet nozzle on a hose with the pump (and filter) running. We would stick the whole hose in the stream and shoot the water through the rocks, cleaning out the nooks and crannies. We only washed with about as much water as we would have added to top off the pond from evaporation.
An important thing to note is - we don't have any fancy fish, only feeder goldfish that are about 4" long by now. They LOVED the buffet and spent every cleaning hovering around the spot where the stream hits the pond. The pump and filter did a great job at clearing out the floating stuff and we were ready to clear the filter out as we went along. Some of the stuff will remain in the main pond for the frogs to hibernate in next year and then in the early spring we will lower the water level, clean the main pond out by hand and start again.
No real easy way to do it but our "power wash" has saved a lot of time. I probably wouldn't do it the same way if I had a lot of money invested in beautiful fish tho... and this year we are making some mats to cover sections of the river in the winter.
Sue
Marsha, was wondering how the pond cleaning went. I periodically drain my pond and take a wet vac to the bottom.
Funny you mention a wet vac. First I filled the bottom pool as full as possible and turned off the pump. I then started at the top and removed as much debris as possible by hand. I then vacuumed all of the gunk out of that section, dumping the wet vac 2-3 times per section. I repeated this all day until I got to the pool. I then removed as much of the debris as possible. I don't have fancy fish either--just comets. I did have 7 large goldfish that I purchased two years ago for $.12 each; sadly, however, a raccoon ate them, even though we had two 18" by 18" Styrofoam squares floating on the pool to provide cover , water lilies, water hyacinths, and there is a bridge to hide under. I have quite a few yearlings (~75) up to 5 inches, and now I have a lot of babies to boot.
It is a good thing I cleaned when I did because now I have hundreds of tadpoles. I can't scoop up anything without getting a few and I am too tender-hearted to kill the little critters. It sure is funny seeing these tiny toads hopping all over. I know they are toads because we have caught them in the act...LOL--the green frogs will come next. They did the same thing last year and I thought for sure I would be inundated with frogs, but guess they ventured out to find new home. I don't have any more this year than I did last year. In the meantime, I am really enjoying the serenade of the green frogs.
Also, I did notice that the acorns were coloring the water and tried to keep up with them even before I undertook the major cleaning. I also think that there might be a smidgen of tannin in the live oak leaves as well.
As for my pond (Photo attached), which was built a year earlier and is separate from my stream, we removed all fish and placed in the stream pool and drained and cleaned it as well as pressure washed. And can you imagine my disbelief when a month later I noticed that there were baby fish in the pond. Boy, those goldfish eggs must be pretty tough!!!
Thank you all for your valuable inputs.
Parrotma
