When is the best time to get in and have a bit of a pond clean out? I don't want to empty it completely, but I do want to get in and de-sludge and sort the plants out. We do have some baby fishes that we spotted, but if we don't do it soon, then there will be frogspawn and we can't do it then....so when oh when?
I'm on my way out but sure how to answer this because I have already did mine. I had baby fish and they died on me. so please be careful.
i found a website from the royal horticultural society and it says late spring to clean it, and seems to have a lot of info on it for you http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles03 ... _clean.asp
Wow, that site is a treasure trove! I really need to clean mine and just run into deadends in searching for how to do it. Many thanks!
Thanks for the link playtime. Ours is only a small pond, and I don't want to completely empty it, just take the level down by a half, sort out the plants, clean the filters, dredge some of the gunk off the bottom, then refill, so I might do so tomorrow as the sun is forecast to shine. I will let you know how it goes.
Be careful with how much of the water you take out, try to keep a good portion of the old water, 50% like you said is good
I know this is an old thread, but we finally did the pond at the weekend. We took the level down by about 50%, took the fishes out to check them over, and dredged the bottom. Found 6 lovely fat frogs, a couple of snails and a toad. Sorted the plants out - they could do with repotting to be honest by my budget won't stretch to new planting baskets and pond compost at the moment so they will have to make do. It looked quite clear this morning which was a relief. So fingers crossed for frogspawn any time soon.
I'm hoping to do ours at the week-end but it's a big pond and I'm not sure how long it will take. I really need to do it now though as I found a female frog with mate attached in the garden a few days ago. Fingers crossed the weather stays dry to let us get on with the cleaning.
