Muck in stream and pond

[Huckleberry12]

I'm having a problem with muck (for want of a better word) in my stream/pond/bog and would be grateful for suggestions.

The pond is about 700 gallons and was put in about 6 years ago. A pump sits about 6-8" above the bottom of the pond. Water is pumped into the gravel bog and overflows into the stream and then the pond. There are currently 5 shubunkins (av. 4-5"). Last year, the plants in the bog were root pruned as the roots were massive. I do use Microbe-Lift. Over the winter, only two fish survived (this is in coastal British Columbia - mild winters). The water was very murky come spring, which wasn't helped by Microbe-Lift.

A few weeks ago, we rented a pond vac to try to clear out the muck. That was stressful! We emptied the pond to about 8" but couldn't catch the fish with everything all stirred up by the net and the fish trying to escape it. I was really not wanting to distress them. We tried vacuuming with them in the pond, but they didn't stay away from the vacuum, and I really didn't want to distress them more by taking more water out (to keep trying to catch them). I scooped up some of the muck in the bottom (seemed worse under the waterfall) with the large net. We used the vacuum on the stream and then refilled the pond with fresh water. (When I checked the water in the bog, it's pretty murky; didn't do anything with the vac and the bog.) The water is now clearer, but the muck is settling again in the stream.

I flushed the muck out of the stream yesterday and you can see more settling there today:

Is all this muck just normal accumulation that needs to be cleaned out periodically? I keep the surface of the water pretty free of leaves and needles. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thank you!

 

[Lisak1]

If this "muck" is something you can stir up and watch it slowly settle, it more likely sediment, which is just organic material breaking down. Muck would be more like wet mud - it wouldn't be easily stirred up. I know there are products that they sell that supposedly help break this down, but to my mind you can't break it down into nothing. You may get tinier particles, but they will still be there.

The best way to remove it is mechanical filtration. Some people use something as simple as a bucket with quilt batting and let the water slowly flow through it. If you have a lot of sediment, you may need to let it go for a number of days , but it will work.

We only use a bog filter on our pond and while we love it, we do find that it isn't effective for fine sediment filtration. I ran a homemade quilt batting filter last week for a few days and it worked great. It worked so well that we are also looking into purchasing an external filter to help with this issue. The downside to my homemade set up was that I had to babysit it the whole time. I had a portable sump pump pulling water from the pond with a hose pumping into a small trash can full of quilt batting. I had to watch the hose to make sure it didn't decide to pop out of the can and start pumping my pond out into the yard. If you can rig this up so your waterfall flows into a container holding the batting, you'd be able to just let it flow.

This is our 8th summer with our pond and this is the first year that I've felt like we needed a bit of additional mechanical filtering. We don't have a skimmer either but we do keep the pond free of leaves and debris as much as possible. I think over time it just accumulates.

 

[Tula]

@Lisak1 what type of external filter are you thinking about ?

@Huckleberry12 , this is my first season with our bog . It has algae and sediment in it too. My plants are taking off and I'm hoping this helps. I sit by the bog and pull out handfuls of algae every few days. Our bog does have clean out pipes and we may ope them to make sure they're not clogged.

 

[BKHpondcritters]

I get that kind of sediment in the upper pool of the pond where there are no fish to stir it up & send it on into the filters. If it gets to a point that I find it annoying, then I just walk around & stir it up a bit myself, which sends it down the main waterfall & into the large body of the pond. It clouds up the water for a day, but then everything clears up. It does eventually reform, though.

 

[Lydia]

I had this trouble in my old pond, so when we moved, I put a bottom drain at the end of the last pool of the waterfall.

I can shut off the pump and wash the entire stream/falls out with a hose, letting it all go out the drain.

But, filtering it out would be the better route.

 

[Huckleberry12]

I do appreciate you all sharing your thoughts. What you describe, Lisak, does sound just like my situation. It definitely "stirs up", e.g. as it did when I was trying to catch the fish. As a quilter, I do have batting on hand and will play with that. I'll have to experiment. I wish I could have gotten the fish out so I could clean the bottom of the pond out better.

Tula, I pull out long strands and clumps of algae too. And I'd also be interested to know the what kind of mechanical filtration you might be considering, Lisak. The man at the pond store here suggested I might want to consider installing an in-line ultraviolet sterilizer to keep the water clear. They are pricey though and it seems to me more like some sort of filter is what is needed. Off to the sewing room for some batting ....