Cleaning/Vacuuming pond floor

[anthony21078]

Our pond is coming up to its 1 year anniversary and all is well. There is decent covering of pond "stuff" (LOL) growing on the liner and the water is perfectly clear. I have only been able to clean out the skimmer filter over the winter and the 2 box filters on the bottom likely need a cleaning as well. When the water warms up Ill get in there and clean them out.


As you can see in the photos, the very bottom has accumulated debris that has settled. We are looking at roughly 11 months of debris. There doesn't appear to be many leaves just a lot of brown crud. I have no plans of cleaning the liner but I would like to vacuum out as much of the debris that has settled on the bottom. If I ignore it then I know it will accumulate over time likely making cleaning it even harder in the following years. Plus, when I clean the filter boxes I will wind up stirring up all that stuff when I step on it so I think I should vacuum out as much as possible.

I have a pool vacuum that I built out of a older pool pump. Its basically used to clean the bottom of our pool when we open it every season. It doesn't actually filter the water and return the water, but rather just pumps it out to an external hose to drain. I was thinking I could use this vacuum and do a 50% water change at the same time. This vacuum moves ALOT of water so I would have to work quickly but I believe it should work well. Any thoughts on this plan?

 

[j.w]

Good you are leaving the carpet algae that grows on the sides and bottom as that stuff is beneficial to your pond water. I would not remove any water, just use a long handled net and scoop out the gunk and let your filter clean up the rest. You want to keep your nice cycled pond water otherwise w/such a big removal of old water and then having to add new water back you could shock your fish and create problems. If you ever do any water removal, only do slow water pumping out and slow water going in at the same time and if you have decent nice clear pond water and good filtration then no need to change any water. If it's not broke don't fix it!

 

[cas]

What I have found to help when sediment settles on the bottom of the pond is to add an air stone on the bottom to circulate the water and sediment so that it gets to the filter in the skimmer.