Should I clean my pond and should I get a pond vacuum?

[brokensword]

Same here. My pond is self sufficient. No water changes ever. Just a bog for filtration and a net for debris. We co-exist peacefully - ha!

@brokensword - that's not fire you're playing with... That's water!

firewater? Is it happy hour already? heh, I think those with bogs can say OH YEAH...

 

[MitchM]

This ponding hobby has been very little work.
The pond is about 3 1/2 years old now.
I've done almost nothing to my pond this year except clean the skimmer 3 times.
It really looks after itself.
I even put some string algae in it this spring and the algae either got consumed by the fish or died.
It's like I have a glorified puddle.

 

[bettasngoldfish]

I would just use a pool skimmer net.

And you really should be doing actual water changes rather than filling with evaporation. There will be minerals and stuff [nitrates] that will build up in the water -- these won't go away through evaporation. You have to physically drain out some old water and replace with fresh [treated for chlorine and/or chloramines] on a regular basis. Especially now that you've added fish.

Agreed