Bog Cleaning

[Faebinder]

I never clean mine, and i never shut in the winter in PA. I do put a trough heater in the winter though cause the pond is too small and is above ground.

 

[GBBUDD]

That build up on top of the bog may be exactly that - sludge on top of the bog. It probably doesn’t reflect what’s going on underneath. We get that every spring before the plants get going, but the clean out pipe produces clear water. Get more plants growing and I bet it disappears.

Anyone who completely empties their bog of gravel every year has a very small bog!

amen to that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! theres 38,000 pounds of stone in my bog placed by equipment and that was a lot of work it took 19 super sacks of gravel to fill the bog.

 

[Sunshine]

I never clean mine, and i never shut in the winter in PA. I do put a trough heater in the winter though cause the pond is too small and is above ground.

I leave my bio filter run all year long on one side of the pond. The other side of the pond where the bog is, I shut it down and it gets ice on top. That's where the fish stay in the winter. I don't think they like the water movement. I do put a trough heater in the side of the bio filter if it starts to freeze over.

 

[CometKeith]

Does anyone clean out their bog? I have had mine set up for 10+ years. I've recently noticed a lot of sludge coming up through the pebbles. I'm on a group on Facebook and they clean theirs out yearly. I mean take out all the pebbles and empty it than put new pebbles or clean the old pebbles and put them back in. I always thought you were not suppose to mess with it. What's the opinion on here? Clean it or leave it?

So I have the exact same question and was going to post it this week! My bog is 2 years old and I can see a lot of sludge on top of the gravel. I do have a standpipe for cleaning out the pvc. When I first set up the bog it seemed to work way better than it does now.… but my fish have grown a lot since then. I feel that my bog is tiny compared to a lot of yours. I only put in 2600 lbs of stone. I have pulled out so many plants this summer and they keep growing like crazy so there is no issue there.

 

[addy1]

I've recently noticed a lot of sludge coming up through the pebbles

I have off and on taken a garden hose and rinsed the sludge stuff out into the yard, after winter shut down. But to be totally honest I usually ignore it. When I do the shut down I do rake the surface for plant debris, after I pull a lot of plants out and or cut them back. And in the spring another rake job before turn on. Other than that ignore until there are too many plants and I do a plant purge.

 

[GBBUDD]

The sludge by the time it goes through the bog is pretty much soil now. It's like a compost pile when you first start its a toxic stinky mess . But worms and other critters look at it as dinner..
One out of the bog it's prettymuch the most fertile soil money can buy .
Skim it off and put it in the gardens

 

[Sunshine]

Well, I think we figured out the problem. The hose that runs from the shut off down to the PVC plumbing with the holes in it to run the water through and back up through the pebbles has a hole in it. The only water movement is around the hose, nowhere else. It's just stagnate water in the bog. Well, except around the hose. The pond water is just going to the hose, skimming the top of the bog than back in the pond. UGH!! We'll work on it this fall before I shut it down. No wonder all that brown and algae in there.