Best time of year to drain /refill pond?

[mjz3348]

What time of year (middle of winter? early Spring? Summer?) is it the best time to drain a 10,000 gallon pond and re-fill and minimize stress on the fish? (Koi)

I need to clean out years of accumulated 'stuff' and restore the pond so I can see the bottom again. Right now the pond is healthy as can be and the fish are thriving. I want to minimize the stress on them during this pretty big water change.

Thanks

 

[sissy]

That is big undertaking and a lot of work ,would it be better to get a pond vac and clean it .Stressing fish out less that way and not emptying a whole pond and refilling it .Not sure what your water rates are and how you would refill it seems like a big job .If the pond is healthy and the fish are healthy you may end up with a big headache starting over again.Pond water that is established is worth keeping .

 

[Nepen]

I'd say it's best to get a pond vac or net the muck out. If you want you can do 50% water change with that. Dont scrub the pond liner or you will lose the beneficial bacteria.

In all that muck there're tons of little critters, namely DRAGONFLY nymph!!! and other little worms that the fish eat. When I net out leaves I would try to search for those critters and put back in the pond. I want to have tons of dragonfly to eat all the mosquitoes

 

[mjz3348]

I appreciate the thoughts - but the muck is thick enough that it is no longer practical to net it / pump it out. It needs to be "shoveled" out when the water gets low enough. I'm not worried about the beneficial bacteria - I have a stream that feeds the pond in a re-circulating manner. The stream is where my water is bio-filtered. It is a sort of bog set up. Water flows through it and over it with lots of bog plants. That system will remain unchanged. It's just the pond itself which needs to be cleaned.

So my original question remains - if you had to clean your pond - even if you didn't want to - or advise doing it - which time of year is best?

 

[sissy]

spring is spawn time so not good .Summer not sure where you live and hot it gets and how and what you plan on putting your fish in and how you will filter it .When I redid my pond because of moles chewing liner I saved as much of the pond water as I could to help the pond get back to normal faster and be able to get my fish back in faster .Even then it was over 2 months they had to be kept safe .What kind of fish and how big they are will help us also .Where are you getting new water from to refill pond would help .Also pond water temps . are important also when taking fish out and then putting them back in .Aeration also is important .It will help say when and how you should do this

 

[mjz3348]

We live in Houston - water temperature right now is about 55 - 60 degrees and may get to the low 50's if we get significant cold front that lasts a while.
I have large Koi (about a foot long) and assorted goldfish (large fan tails). My aim was to put them in large 55 gallon containers (with plenty of aeration). Drain, clean and fill the pond in one day. The water is tap water that will be de-chlorinated.

Spawning time for these fish is mid-March to April. Water warms back into the 70's and the fish are feeding heavily again.

I am getting the impression I should wait until after spawning into early summer when the fish are most active and their immune systems stronger (higher body temperature fights disease better).

It would be great if I could save half of the water, but the pond is large - which is what makes it beautiful. But I no longer can see the rocks and other neat features. It really needs to be cleaned so the organic load is reduced. Because of the stream and rainwater inflow - outflow, the water is replaced over time naturally. Heavy Houston rains can flush more than 1/2 the water at a time - like an aquarium water change. The fish love this (given their behaviour during rain events).

 

[etphoto]

I normally clean mine out early spring (before the plants start growing). I think its dumb to clean it out in the fall will all the leaves falling and winter around the corner.

 

[sissy]

using tap water how long do you think it will take to refill the pond .Would it be cheaper to get a water tanker truck like they do with swimming pools.My neighbor had the fire company bring him water with a donation to the fire house and here most pool owners order water .I don't have rocks in my pond for that reason .It is to hard to clean .My koi are large and I used 200 gallon and 150 gallon stock tanks and used pond water in them that I pump from the pond and when I put my fish back in I pumped that water back into the pond .

 

[Meyer Jordan]

A lot depends on geographical location.
Although a complete pond clean-out can be done at any time of the year (except during ice-over), Spring is the best time for any location,
Optimal or peak spawning temperatures are between 18 C (64.4 F) and 23 C (73.4 F). With this in mind, cleaning can be done either before the temperature range is reached in Northern latitudes and after this range is past in Southern latitudes.
It is advisable, where possible, to retain as much of the original pond water as possible and, as has been pointed out, do not remove any of the periphyton that is growing on the submerged surfaces.
Although it may be a considerably more tedious process, vacuuming the pond bottom is the least invasive and stress inducing way to remove any accumulated sediment.

 

[sissy]

Also the bigger the koi are it seems the more stressed out they will get .I have been through this 3 times because liner problems .One by a dog one by moles and one was a failure of a 45 mil liner .I hope to never do it again NEVER

 

[Smaug]

Just get a really good net and do some work on it once a week. Draining and refilling is a bug pain and unnecessary. I'm a water change advocate myself but total water changes are not my recommendation.

 

[peter hillman]

See if your local tool rental offers a trash pump. When our parking lot floods they rent a couple, makes short work of dirty water.
'capable of handling solids up to 1 1/4in., so you can safely use it to pump almost any water, even water with sludge, sand, leaves and twigs.'

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_120475_120475

 

[DrCase]

i would go for spring also before they start feeding heavy