New pond owner bog controversy and questions.. please help

[Hertel11]

Got started today. Vacuumed about 45 gallons of pure muck. Power sprayed the rest down and pumped snorkels until water ran clear. Added 15 bags of gravel and need at least that many more probably. Also planted 3 blue iris plants and have 8 Pickerel rush plants on the way. Thanks for the help and tips everyone. Excited to give these old bogs/settling basins new life! To celebrate we got 2 new butterfly koi, a tri color doitsu and a metallic yellow one.

 

[GBBUDD]

Make your changes slowly and i believe you had two bogs.. do work to only one at a time give it months between working on them both. I would go as far as keeping a diary of who what where and when you make changes.

 

[Jhn]

Gbbudd, looking at the pics think they cleaned both bogs already. Either way, they will probably be ok with what they did as long as the streams and pond werent washed down. The main pond looked big and should still have plenty of surface area to not disrupt the bacteria pop./biofilter much.

@Hertel11 bogs are looking more like bogs now and not just settlement tanks. Going forward you Should just have to pump out through the snorkel once a year to keep the muck from building up like that again.

 

[Hertel11]

Gbbudd, looking at the pics think they cleaned both bogs already. Either way, they will probably be ok with what they did as long as the streams and pond werent washed down. The main pond looked big and should still have plenty of surface area to not disrupt the bacteria pop./biofilter much.

The big one we sprayed out. The little one just got in and stirred it up pretty good like someone else suggested as it wasn't near as bad. We did not spray either waterfall and did nothing to main pond. I'm thinking and hoping the biofilm wasn't too terribly disturbed. Added a remaining packet of PondClear beneficial bacteria we had as well. Hopefully we'll have plenty of plants with blooms soon enough and I'll be able to share that as well. You all made a stressful situation much more manageable.

 

[Tula]

I live in Ohio too, in the Cincinnati area. Have you heard of William Trickers? It's located in Independence, OH, near Cleveland. When this whole pandemic thing dies down, I want to go just to visit their historic green houses and see all their plants and fish hatchery.

I just received my first shipment of plants from them. I am very impressed with the plant quality and how nicely they were packaged. With you living in the Columbus area, you're much closer to them than me....might be worth a little road trip....when they're open

 

[brc]

I live in Ohio too, in the Cincinnati area. Have you heard of William Trickers? It's located in Independence, OH, near Cleveland. When this whole pandemic thing dies down, I want to go just to visit their historic green houses and see all their plants and fish hatchery.

I just received my first shipment of plants from them. I am very impressed with the plant quality and how nicely they were packaged. With you living in the Columbus area, you're much closer to them than me....might be worth a little road trip....when they're open

I live probably 25 minutes from there, and usually stop by a couple times a year. It's definitely worth a visit if you're not far away. They have greenhouses with pretty much every type of water lily imaginable, in these sort of concrete table-ponds.. it's always fun to walk through. The plants they give you tend to be quite big too.

The only catch is, they can get pretty busy. Also, if you buy any plants before June 1st, they'll tell you there's no warranty (fine by me.. I'm not about to try and return a dead plant lol).

Also, I'd make sure they aren't closed to the public or some such, with the whole covid thing going on.

 

[mrsclem]

Now that these settlement chambers arebecoming bogs, I think you will find that the plants use up the muck and they will not need to be cleaned out anymore.

 

[Tula]

I live probably 25 minutes from there, and usually stop by a couple times a year. It's definitely worth a visit if you're not far away. They have greenhouses with pretty much every type of water lily imaginable, in these sort of concrete table-ponds.. it's always fun to walk through. The plants they give you tend to be quite big too.

The only catch is, they can get pretty busy. Also, if you buy any plants before June 1st, they'll tell you there's no warranty (fine by me.. I'm not about to try and return a dead plant lol).

Also, I'd make sure they aren't closed to the public or some such, with the whole covid thing going on.

Yeah, I had to wait a bit for the plants to be shipped. They currently are closed to the public, but I'd love to visit once they reopen. You are so lucky to live near by. Have you seen any of their fish ?

 

[brc]

Yeah, I had to wait a bit for the plants to be shipped. They currently are closed to the public, but I'd love to visit once they reopen. You are so lucky to live near by. Have you seen any of their fish ?

My fish originally came from there - cobalt blue shebunkins, which I didn't even know existed before then.

They have these sort of above ground concrete mini ponds right outside.. probably about 6 of them. There's also a room of aquariums with tropicals, and a wandering cat that's usually found in that general area

They don't have the same kind of selection with fish as they do with plants, but it's still a lot more than you find at aquarium stores (who usually only have one type of koi / shebunkin).