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Lessons learned when cleaning ponds
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Posted by JohnTW16 SW London (My Page) on Sun, May 8, 05 at 12:48
Last week, I cleaned the filters of my 1500 gallon pond. I emptied the water out of the filter, rinsed the brushes and squeezed the matting in pond water. Then I threw a couple of buckets of pond water over the plastic pipes to complete the job. Great, I thought. A clean pond for summer. I checked the water quality yesterday and discovered the largest spike in nitrite levels I have ever seen - I reckon it is almost at toxic levels. Subsequently, I am now carrying out water changes, introducing additional bacteria and pouring Pond Guardian into the pond to try to protect the fish. The fish, (a mixture of Koi and goldfish)will probably have upwards of 2-3 weeks of unnecessary stress until bacteria levels climb again.
I wonder what I did wrong - probably throwing water over the plastic pipes, but it was all done with pond water so as to protect the bacteria that was already there. The whole operation did not take more than an hour so the bacteria could not have died.
In future I will not empty the filters completely, nor will I clean the plastic pipes, just the brushes and matting.
I report this incident so that other ponders out there who might have the same idea of cleaning their filters be aware of my experience and do not go through a similar shock of seeing sky high nitrite levels. I believe now that it is not necessary to have a perfectly clean filter.
John TW16 |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Lessons learned when cleaning ponds
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- Posted by AJC_1 8 the fens (My Page) on
Sun, May 8, 05 at 14:48
| John you did nothing wrong, you just did it at the wrong time, you should do that mid to late March or at very last first week in April (weather permiting) before the system begins to wake up properly, by now it is almost in full swing, so you effectively killed off enough bacteria allowing the nitrite to spike unchecked, an hour at this time of year is a long time for a filter to be cleaned out, it might take a couple of weeks for it to recover so monitor your water every 2-3 days, especialy for ammonia and nitrite. |
RE: Lessons learned when cleaning ponds
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| i think a clean filter is important - aneorobic muck breeds problems but timing is everything. as alan has stated may have done it a few weeks too late? water changes and reg testing until the filter fires up again should do the trick- good luck jo o/ |
RE: Lessons learned when cleaning ponds
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| Thanks for the comments. I had always believed that you should carry out the cleaning process at about this time of year because as the water temp increases, rate of bacterial growth increases so the pond recovers quicker. I am most impressed with the Pond Guardian, the fish do seem more active since I introduced the salts. What about Autumn cleaning? Is there a specific time that is recommended for the Autumn clean - if such a thing is necessary regards
John |
RE: Lessons learned when cleaning ponds
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| What about timing for a patial water change? I thought that had to wait until after this spring period when water temperatures were fluctuating and until the fish have had plenty of time to build up strength after the winter? Am I right or does it follow the same lines as cleaning the filter? AnnieO |
RE: Lessons learned when cleaning ponds
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- Posted by AJC_1 8 the fens (My Page) on
Mon, May 9, 05 at 13:15
| water changes can be done at the same time as the filter, the waters cold anyway so unlikely to cause much of a rise or drop, least unlike spring sunshine can, the problem with doing a water change at this time is it will make a pond with algea alredy in it worse, the new water has to go through a cycle and its aided by the warm sun to send it green and feed the algea already there, by doing it early enough you can cheat the algea cycle just a bit because theres no sun to speak of and no temps to make the algea appear, so by the time the sun heats the water the cycle of the new added water has been and gone. the chlorine if you dont treat it has evaporated so dont effect your filter bacteria and the nitrate your tap ware contains has been sucked up by the early starting pond plants. Thats the theroy of it, and 9 times out of 10 it works, but we do occationaly have a warm early spring that can bugger things up a lot. |
RE: Lessons learned when cleaning ponds
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| water changes? i change water in early spring and late summer - aurumn the rest is done by backwashing filters. we dont have a fancy filter set up but it works. at the mo i change about 10 percent a week, when everythings at full speed the normal backwash on my filters does that for me. when we scale down again in to autumn i take some filters offline swap for a smaller pump and we waterchange again, does any of that make sense? seems to work? water params stay in? although we seem to have a para prob at the mo? spring syndrome in unheated ponds? hate fish to flick! just happened - need to scope. ps any water change will incrrase the amount of free food available to algea so its catch 22? although algea wont kill a fish - unless its a sturgeon o/ |
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