Hi new one here.. quick question..my pond is in desperate need of a good clean..(pic 3) however i have a lage number of newts that have taken up residence in there... when and how should i proceed? ...last year my wildlife pond had newts..this pond is (was) my fish ornimental pond...never had a newt in it lol this year i have counted at leats 20 of them...
newts
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Nice looking pond.
Welcome to our group!
In cleaning what are you referring to a drain and remove all goop or remove debris or algae or water change etc.
If it was mine, I would test the water, see where it is at, since I love all pond critters I might hand scoop out some of the algae but not do a total clean out. One of my fishless ponds gets that type of algae it goes away as the plants grow. The tads and pond critters love it.
Welcome to our group!
In cleaning what are you referring to a drain and remove all goop or remove debris or algae or water change etc.
If it was mine, I would test the water, see where it is at, since I love all pond critters I might hand scoop out some of the algae but not do a total clean out. One of my fishless ponds gets that type of algae it goes away as the plants grow. The tads and pond critters love it.
It was going to get a complete drain and scrub lol as it hasnt been done in years..pump and filter have not been touched for about 3 years..the blanket weed has all but taken over one side of the pond ....to be honest i dont bother with testing stuff or adding chemicals etc i sort give a clean every few years then leave it be.. have plenty of tadpoles, pond skaters and other wee beasty in the pond all the time, just never see Newts in this one before ...This ponds been there prob about 20 years or so...certainly never seen so many newts not even in the "wildlife pond" its not a massive pond prob 10 foot by 3 wide 3 ft deep..think there 10 fish in total in there...might be that the fish will need to evolve legs soon as theres not much open water to swim in due to the blanket weed...
I love newt!
I think you do not need to scrub, that will take all the balance out of whack and the pond will have to be cycle again.
I'd just reduce the water until it's almost empty, scoop out the muck algae as much as possible (while looking for any critters and move them to a safe place), use sodium percarbonate on the algae (leave on for 20+ minutes) then put water back in the pond again, then wait a few hours and then drain the pond again. Or even use the sodium percarbonate on the muck, it'll make the muck float and you can skim them out of the pond. I do that in my pond and the algae will slowly die and disappear in a few days. Then I do a bit of water change again to reduce the ammonia the dead algae caused.
I think you do not need to scrub, that will take all the balance out of whack and the pond will have to be cycle again.
I'd just reduce the water until it's almost empty, scoop out the muck algae as much as possible (while looking for any critters and move them to a safe place), use sodium percarbonate on the algae (leave on for 20+ minutes) then put water back in the pond again, then wait a few hours and then drain the pond again. Or even use the sodium percarbonate on the muck, it'll make the muck float and you can skim them out of the pond. I do that in my pond and the algae will slowly die and disappear in a few days. Then I do a bit of water change again to reduce the ammonia the dead algae caused.
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Mine do. I have a ton of them. About every 15 minutes, they come up for air.