Yes it's that time of year again here in the Carolinas,we're starting to see the lilies put up leaves and the fish are moving faster, the plants around the pond are beginning to awake, the long sleep of winter is just about over. That means its time to get your pond ready for summer. But wait, why are you cringing at the thought of that? A spring cleanup of a pond is actually less work than, let's say, raking all the leaves in your lawn left over from winter...right? So lets get to it..... Of course if you covered your pond for the winter you need to remove that cover and all the leaves on it :-). If it did its job it should have kept the majority of the leaves from the fall out of your pond. If you didn't use a cover such as a net you will no doubt have a pretty substantial cover of leaf litter on the bottom of your pond. Those leaves will need to be removed. Leaf litter is the #1 cause of anaerobic bacteria and that type of bacteria can cause all kinds of problems with your ecosystem. I like to lower the water level a bit...say 25% of the volume of the pond. This makes it easier to get the leaves and other debris out of the pond and still allows enough water to leave the fish in the pond as you clean. As a professional I always remove the fish and put them into stanby tanks filled with water from the pond and take this opportunity to inspect the fish for parasites and disease. Even if the fish are healthy and parasite free they get a treatment in their temporary home just to be sure. If you don't remove the fish from the pond it's still a good idea to test the water for percentage of salt and add salt as needed and medicate with Melafix or some equivalent natural treatment. This should be the last thing you do at the end of the cleanup. Time to get that leaf debris off the bottom. I like to use a picking fork that most horse owners are very familiar with. It's used to clean out stalls and is available in plastic as well as metal, for obvious reasons I recommend the plastic version. Use the fork to get out the majority of the bulk of the leaf litter and other debris and follow up with a net. The net will pull out finer particles. If you don't take the fish out of the pond this is about as far as you can go without doing harm to them. However there are several types of "vacuumes" available that will take you a little further to get out some of the sludge at the bottom, but these can be quite costly and are not really necessary, they can however be quite useful for the very finicky ponder. At this point you will no doubt have a lot of debris floating in the water that just makes it look horrible... not to fear much of it will settle back to the bottom and much of it will be taken out by your filter system. If you drained your pond and put your fish in a surrogate pond you can go a step further and hose out or power wash the interior of your pond, but remember if you do this it takes out a huge part of the ecosystem in the process, killing all of the beneficial bacteria and microbial activity in the pond. I really don't recommend this except under extreme circumstances such as the pond hasn't been cleaned in years!! For ponds that have been regularly maintained a simple cleaning out of the debris is all that is needed. Now it's time to concentrate on your filter system... if you have one. If you don't, shame on you. The filter system is the heart and lungs of your ecosystem and is critical for the living biology of the pond. for those of you that do have a skimmer and biofall it's time to get a little wet and clean those out. remove the filter medial and rinse it with pond water, get all the muck you possibly can out of each component and replace old or overworn filter pads. Check the pump for blockage. It's best if you can get the pump out of the skimmer to rinse it and check for blockage but if you cant just make sure that no leaves or twigs ar stuck in the intake of the pump. Put your skimmer and biofall back together and refill the pond. if you drained it completely this is a good time to take a break...coffee anyone? if you only partially drained it... it's still a good time to take a break, just a shorter one. Once the pond is filled turn on your filter system and let it run for a while, at least an hour. This will help volitize the chlorine in the water if you have city water and allow any trapped gasses in the water to escape. Test the water, Check for Ph. and salt content, there are other tests that you can perform but these are the most important. Adjust your Ph and salt as needed. It's also a good idea to put in a dechlorinator if you have city water. It is also a good idea to add a boost of beneficial bacteria to the pond and biofilter. Beneficial bacteria can get depleted in the winter and should be supplimented in the spring and through the summer. If your fish container is small enough now is a good time to float it in the pond to equalize the water temps between the pond and container. If you put the fish in something that is bigger than you can lift take great care in transferring the fish. Temperature shock is one of the biggest fish killers. You need to get the temperature of the water in the vessel to within +/- 5º of the temperature of the water in the pond. This is best achieved by water exchange in a large container that can't be lifted. Use a five gallon bucket and slowly introduce water from the pond to the container. It's a good idea to have a thermometer handy to check the temperature. Once the temperature is within limits you can transfer the fish into the pond. Check the filters frequently for the first week or two and clean them as needed, they will be working overtime from the debris you have stirred up.

See, that wasn't so bad, you have cleaned your pond and filters, medicated your fish and in two to three days you will have a beautiful clear pond for you and your fish to enjoy through the summer. Most pond and water garden enthusiasts enjoy this process and derive a great deal of satisfaction from this labor of love, but of course not everyone has time for it. If your one of these busy folks give me a call and I'll be happy to give you a quote. The base cost is $125, for everything I have explained above and the cleanup cost is based on the size of your pond. Feel free to contact me through our web site: www.dreamscapewatergarden.com or phone me at 704-292-4082

I hope this helps some of you and Happy Ponding to you this year.

Doug