Pond looks terrible, need advice

[springfield1952]

I have a 1,300 gallon pond that is about 6 years old. It has a two tier waterfall feeding a main pond. The pond equipment is from Aquascape with a skimmer on one side and their filter box at the top of the waterfall. The filter box has three layers of a fiberous mat - each about 2" thick with three bags of lava rock on top of the mats - which I despise with a passion when I have to hoist them out for cleaning. I remove and was out the filters and rocks every Spring. I use bacteria and not much else in chemicals/additives. The pond is rubber lined with rocks around the side and pebbles on the bottom. There is no bottom drain on the pond.

There are about a dozen main fish - koi, goldfish & subunkins - as well as a couple dozen "mosquito fish" that the county put in. The fish have always done well without any special treatment or care from me. There are a number of lilies in pots with some plants on the side. I have had some floating plants in past years but they never did very well.

The water chemistry is good - I just bought a new master test kit and checked this morning. Ph is high but it has always been high though I periodically add acid to lower the number. Ammonia, nitirites and nitrates were all zero.

Since I've had the pond the water has always been clear, the "first heat wave of the year algae bloom" not withstanding.

This year however, has been different. The water is cloudy, dingy and unattractive. There's is a fuzziness on the rocks and on the bottom. If I pour a pail of water into the pond it releases a cloud of blackness that then resettles on the bottom and the sides. All the plants also look fuzzy. One edge of the main pond is bordered by a raised eating area and the pond always looks great for our guests. this is, until this year. I hate it.

I have spent quite a few hours reading articles since I joined this forum searching for answers but frankly, I think I'm more confused than closer to an answer.

I'm looking for suggestions for the short term as well as long term revisions that might keep this problem from returning.

Sorry for the extra long post and thanks in advance for your help.

Curt.

 

[addy1]

Do you vacuum the bottom or clean it in anyway? It almost sounds as if you have a collection of pond muck on the bottom. The gravel / rocks are great for gathering junk you can't easily clean out. that muck will mess up your water

 

[springfield1952]

No vacuuming of the bottom - never had too. I did look at a pond vacuum on the internet earlier this year but haven't bought one. I did try some tablets of bacteria this year that are targeted for muck on the bottom but they haven't seemed to make much of a dent.

 

[addy1]

It sounds like your pond muck has built up, the only way to fix your issue is to clean it well, ie vacuum, net it. with the pebbles it will be a little harder to get it clean. That stuff can eventually kill your fish if it gets deep enough, it becomes anaerobic bacteria

How deep is it? you might be able to get away with a shop vac.

 

[koiguy1969]

like most everyone here i would suggest the removal of all rocks / pebbles from the bottom of the pond the fish waste and plant matter buid up and become a food source for anaerobic bacteria...whicn in turn produces hydrogen sulfide wich is poisonous to the fish., not to mention smells bad. (like rotten eggs)

 

[springfield1952]

The muck on the bottom is not too deep. But this fuzziness is on the side rocks and the plants also. I don't understand why this year this problem has happened. As for taking out the pebbles on the bottom, I thought their purpose was to protect the liner from UV rays. Am I wrong?

 

[addy1]

The muck on the bottom is not too deep. But this fuzziness is on the side rocks and the plants also. I don't understand why this year this problem has happened. As for taking out the pebbles on the bottom, I thought their purpose was to protect the liner from UV rays. Am I wrong?

The water/dirt that will collect/algae etc will protect your liner, you don't need pebbles on the bottom, some do keep rocks in theirs, but clean them well every year. I had rocks in one pond, pulled them due to the muck that collected. Pebbles would not collect as much around them as the rocks I had. You don't need to worry about the liner and uv. On the surface ie any that is out of water yes you should cover it. Can you picture the fuzziness? not sure what you are seeing.

When you say you pour a bucket of water and a cloud of blackness is released is an indicator to me that it is muck being stirred up, i.e. need a good cleaning. When I rescued some fish, when we got to the final few could not even see them, so much blackness i.e. muck was stirred up. We had to stand and wait for it to settle and the last fish come to the surface to even find it.

The muck is plant matter, fish poop, dirt, and whatever else has fallen into your pond and settled over the last 6 years.

How deep is your pond? if not too deep a good shop vac will clean it. Mine is around 5 feet, the shop vac does not have enough draw. I am going to make this......... http://www.waterbugdesign.com/pond/diy_muckmop.html
that user waterbug posted, for our pond. But ours is a big pond so it will work well for me.

 

[Waterbug]

Yes, 5 to 6 years is the magic number. My first pond it was 5 years. The stuff at the bottom formed a mat, gas bubbles in it started breaking off big chunks, floated around for a few days and sank back. Looked pretty bad. But this thing about it being toxic to fish...well yes, methane, hydrogen sulfide, etc., all bad stuff. It'll kill humans too. But who drops dead around a dirty pond? It's a question of level, not just that these gases are present in some level. Ponders might keep in mind that for many thousands of years goldfish and Koi type fish have lived in what we would consider filthy bodies of water. And prize winning Koi are kept in ponds that might bring up your lunch.

Carp type fish have evolved in this type of water because it produces food. You'll find tons of dragon fly larva and other smaller bugs in that muck.

But who wants a crappy looking pond? Not me. Don't make the mistake I made and empty the pond to clean it. What a nightmare for me and the fish. Completely unnecessary too. Much easier to remove the muck.

Now many people will warn of impeding doom should you stir that mess up...your fish will die. I've never seen it. However, emptying a pond and storing the fish...pretty common for many to die.

Vacuuming is my first choice. But you have to keep in mind there is two basic components to muck. Big stuff and really fine stuff. Hard to vacuum both with the same device. My plan is always to remove as much of the big stuff first and then vacuum the silt.

The big stuff can be removed with a venturi type vacuum. But even a leaf rake can do a great job. The trick here is to get as much as you can and then repeat again later. Keep repeating until you're not getting much. And check the bag for goldfish when dumping. They seem to like to get right in there, I assume eating bugs that get stirred up. I've never had a goldfish die from taking a ride in the bag.

There's only one way to remove silt and that's by vacuuming water out of the pond. It is too fine for filters and there's just too much of it. Again, several sessions are needed depending on how clean you want it.

After that you can use a fabric filter to get out suspended stuff. Materials:

1. Black polyethylene perforated corrugated drainage pipe. 3" or 4". Cheap and easy to find at Home Depot, etc.

2. In the same isle you'll find Drain-Sleeve 4 in. x 100 ft. filter fabric sock. Normally this stuff is applied over the pipe to keep dirt out of the pipe. But for a pond filter it goes inside the pipe.

Build:
A. Cut a length of drain pipe, 5' to 10'.

B. Block one end. Nothing fancy. I just cut a round piece of plastic and jammed it inside.

C. Weight the closed end with some rocks inside. You can bundle several pipes together with string.

E. Cut a length of sleeve a couple feet longer than the pipe and tie a knot in one end.

F. Put a length of 1/2" or 3/4" PVC pipe into the sock to push it into the pipe while the pipe is in the water. Remove the PVC ramrod.

E. Cuff the sleeve over the outside of the pipe and put a rubber band around it to keep it in place.

Pump pond water into pipe.

Cleaning:

If it clogs water will overflow out the top. It may not clog. You can clean after a week or so. As fine stuff gets trapped it acts as a filter trapping ever smaller stuff. Kind of like a diatomaceous earth pool filter.

Don't pull the entire pipe out. Instead remove the rubberband and pull the sock out of the pipe. Steady but firmly. You'll lose a lot of stuff but less than it seems. I put the sock into a 5 gal bucket and clean it. Easy to clean, just takes a minute. Put the sock back into the pipe and repeat.

I bundle several pipes together. 5 or 6 type deal. The open end has to be above the water line at least a few inches. You don't want a lot of water flowing through this think.

This type of fabric filter can be amazing. You can hook it up one day and see the bottom of the pond the next morning. However, it doesn't always work. For example, in a new pond with bright green algae bloom it may do nothing. Single cell algae are just too small. In a pond that's been green for a year if the algae has formed colonies it will be big enough to get caught.

The filter is most effective when there is small bits of stuff suspended in the water. Looks like dust. This is more common in 2+ year old ponds.

This filter only has to be used for a couple of weeks maybe once a year. I did once use these pipes inside a 55 gal drum as a permanent filter. It was fine, but just floating a few pipes in the pond worked fine too as a temporary set up.

Adding Bacteria
Don't waste your time and money. What bacteria do really well is reproduce and they are everywhere. They will grow in a few days to max out an environment. Adding more from a bottle is not needed and they will find no space as all available space will have already been used. So the bacteria will die. More crap to remove.

Bacteria don't clean ponds, they turn carp into other crap. It's still crap. A small amount is turned into gas and escapes, but hardly worth while. Bacteria are great, but they're not getting rid of 4" of muck at the bottom of a pond.

Lowering pH
Adding chemicals to lower pH is about the best way to kill your fish. Pond water is normally buffered by hardness in tab water or by adding baking soda. That keeps pH in the 8-10 range. Rain is an acid will use up some of that buffering. Even in N Ca is in the 5 pH range and lower towards the east. When the buffer is gone the pH can go down fast which can be hard on fish. A pH of 8-10 is not "high" in a pond. Whoever tells you it is and that pH must be 7 is "high".

 

[springfield1952]

Addy, koiguy & waterbug - THANKS! Lat night I tried my shop vac which worked pretty well for the area I worked on. I also used my pond net to grab some more stuff from the bottom. Looks like a several day/week long project to get it back to good shape. Looks like I go some building to do and a visit to our local hardware store. I'll check back in with the results.

 

[springfield1952]

Worked yesterday and this morning on a significant cleaning project. I drained, washed out, drained, washed and drained again the lower catch basin on the waterfall. I just used a garden hose with a jet nozzle to stir things up and a drop-in pump to pump the junk out. Not too difficult and the stuff that came out was nasty. I took all the mechanical filters our and washed them out - dirty!. The filters in the waterfall were cocked over and probably not doing the best job. I cut a new filter pad for the skimmer box and cleaned out the bottom along with the bottom of the pump.

Once I got the lower catch basin refilled with water and put in dechlorinator, I started things back up and it's been about 90 minutes since the pump was restarted and things look pretty good. My mat filters in the waterfall box are looking pretty poor, any suggestions on a brand of filter mat to replace them with? I've seen a few different brands/styles advertised.

Curt.

 

[addy1]

The ac filter pads at lowes work great, not the biodegradable ones.......lol
the pads for floor scrubbing machines

Glad you are getting it back in shape, one thing to think of when you clean your filter you should use pond water, the chlorinated water will kill off the bacteria. You may go through a period of new pond cycling.