Mature Garden Pond Need Water Change

[Villy Valley]

A friend of mine has moved into a house that has an established pond in it that is crawling with life - fish, frogs, weeds etc. The bottom of the pond now has a very thick layer of silt, the weeds have got a bit out of hand, a couple of frogs have died and have what appears like red leg. When is the best time to clean out a pond and how do you do it. A large fibreglass pool is available to pump the water into from the pond but how do you catch the fish- when you can't see them. If there is a disease in the water should the fish have a complete change or would this cause other problems. Mmmmm your comments please. Pond is roughly round with about an 8ft diameter. No idea how deep it is but probably about 3ft in the middle.

Villy

 

[Villy Valley]

Is this a difficult question - or too boring. Just some pointers would be good.

Thanks

Villy

 

[demonmagus]

How many fish are in there?

A good thing to do i get the weeds out first I suppose, then get the fish, and sort out the silt

 

[Villy Valley]

I believe there are about 8 large goldfish and then around 30+ small black fish that have come from somewhere - looks like someone has been net fishing in a stream and put a couple in that have bred. The big ones will be large enough to see and fish out but the other ones are much smaller and there are so many of them. Haven't seen the pond empty and it wasn't stocked by my friend and so we don't really know what will be found - other than a few dead frogs with red legs

Villy

 

[emma12321]

Hi,

The small black fish will probably be baby goldfish as they start out that colour.

Emma

 

[demonmagus]

Any updates on this?

Weeds out first so you can see would be the best thing to do

 

[sheba]

Any updates on this?

Weeds out first so you can see would be the best thing to do

Hi,
I have a 2000 gall koi pond and as I have no bottom drain I have to do regular partial water changes - I have a pond vac which is used to clean away all the crud/any stringy algae, blanket weed. As this takes alot of water with it, I just top up again (adding dechlorinater) So, basically a 10% water change each time I vacuum! I do this every six weeks or so from about April right through the season. I leave pond alone from November while koi are dormant. It makes a massive difference to my water parameters - Before I did this I used to get problems with ulcers, now I dont. Hope this helps