Rocks in ponds

[Fishfinder]

Ya'll with rocks on the bottom of your ponds - how to you keep the rocks clean? Do you take them out and scrub them once in a while? The first "professional" who re-built the pond put rocks in the bottom, which got all green and gross.

The guy we found who knew what he was doing took out the rocks and put them around the pond on the outside. A few stray rocks have fallen in, but the majority are around the pond. Only a fish tunnel remains in the pond.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Here is the most recent picture of my own pond. The second photo is a close-up of the red outlined area in the first photo. This pond has not been cleaned in 10 years.

No sediment accumulation. Accomplished with proper flow rate and adequate filtration, mechanical and bio. The Koi also do their part. Being natural bottom feeders, detritus is constantly kept in suspension to be filtered out. Also, no 'helper' bacteria or any other water treatment has ever been added to this pond. What you see (or don't see) is the result of the pond's own functioning.

 

[dieselplower]

Rocks do work in some cases. Meyer has an epic pond. Before I had any clue what I was doing I put a bunch of river rock in the bottom of a 250 gallon preformed pond and then threw in 20 feeder goldfish and a sad excuse for a pump and filter. 11 of the fish died pretty quickly. The bottom was a swamp. When i got rid of it it was disgusting. So if you want to do rocks on the bottom, make sure you do it right!

 

[Fishfinder]

Beautiful pond, Meyer. My pond had big rock - like fist sized round rocks. Maybe there was inadequate water flow.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Using a mix of varying size rock/gravel (even cobbles) on the bottom of a pond creates many different size micro-habitats in the voids between the rock/gravel. This encourages a greater diversity of micro-organisms, each of which will contribute something to the biological stability and health of the pond.
The 'Green' stuff growing on the rock/gravel is periphyton and is a critical part of the foundation of the natural food chain and should be encouraged.

 

[Lisak1]

Our pond bottom looks like Meyer's. We can make out individual rocks and pieces of gravel at a 3 1/2 foot depth. Going into our fifth winter, we also have never "cleaned" our pond. Water flows from the water fall to the negative edge where it falls into a "reverse bog" or down flow bog. When I get into the pond to groom plants, there is a definite current in the pond, which we believe helps sweep the bottom and keep any debris that might accumulate moving in the flow.

There are people with rocked ponds who do not like the look of algae on the rocks so they do get their ponds cleaned every spring and "scrub" their rocks with a power washer. Personally we like the natural look. It's a pond, not a pool after all. And it's really interesting to see the algae change as the seasons change. Last spring (after one of the coldest winters in recorded history here in Chicago) we had the most brilliant green colored algae growing on our rock walls before the ice was even off the pond. We had never had that type of algae before. The fish feasted on that until it was warm enough to resume feeding them. Once it got warmer, the darker green to brown common "carpet" type algae reappeared. It's all so interesting to observe when your pond is taking care of itself!

 

[morewater]

My pond bottom is done with varying sizes of river stone. I like the look.

As to leaves, etc., getting stuck.....each Spring I use D-Solv to float them to the surface, then vacuum them up with the PondVac4. Takes an hour and a bit.

 

[snoozer]

My stream has a stone bottom but the pond bottom is just the liner. The walls of the pond are rocked and provide a great hiding spot for the little guys and are coverd in algae which I saw fish nibbling on today. The shelf where the rock sit varies from 18" to 30" wide and 12" deep the rest of pond is 3 foot deep. I love the look of the rock bottom but with all the trees near the pond, i figured it would be easier to keep clean without.